Category: General Essay

Christian or Christ Man, which is it?  Let me offer my description.  A Christian is one who professes to be a follower of the teachings of the A New Testament Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Typically, this Christian is affiliated with one or more of the many Christian based religious groups.

A “Christ Man” is one who seeks and commits his being to become a physical manifestation of the eternal essence of the Universe.  This individual may or may not declare himself to be a Christian.  The New Testament Gospel quotes Jesus in John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life.  No man cometh into the Father but by me.”  He also states in John 14:10, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me and does his work through me.”

Jesus was a historical man.  Jesus Christ was the perfect embodiment of God, the eternal presence of the Universe.  Hence, “Christ” is the definition of the wholeness of God in mankind.  The “Christ Man” is the imperfect embodiment of the eternal essence of the Universe.  How can I state this? Genesis 1:26 provides, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the seas and the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the animals on the Earth, and the small animals that scurry along on the ground.”

I take these scriptures to mean that we were conceived and destined to carry the nature of God, himself, to this Earth in a limited physical presence.  Of course, our limited vision and our self conceived individual separateness has often caused us to circumvent the intentions God would have for us in this life; the truly intended “Christ”.   Finally, Jesus declares in John 14.12, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the worlds I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”  The true “Christ Man” is emboldened with the eternal presence of the Universe.

The definition of the “Christain” and the “Christ Man” are not mutually exclusive.  The Christian can be a Christ Man; and the Christ Man can be a Christain.  The teachings of Christianity generally proclaim the concept of the Christ Man.  However, Christian religious organization and hierarchy deal with myriads of issues regarding ritual, rites, benevolence, protocol, acceptance of recorded miracles, tradition, and the conduct of the body of the Church.  The basic tenant of living the “Christ” life is part of the mix.

The Christ Man may or may not be a professed Christian.  This person may not claim to even know what is meant by the “Christ” lived life. Yet, he seeks and commits his living to become a physical manifestation of the eternal essence of the Universe.  This is a clear definition of the “Christ”.

It might be interesting to note that most of the world’s religious teachings profess to similar spiritual endeavors as those stated here.  A quick study of the essence of those Faith’s will confirm this statement.

Essentially, regardless of the Christ Man’s background and regardless of how he terms this spiritual faith, he has found “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”.

As far as I’m concerned, this perspective places all viable faiths on similar playing fields.

Could it be that world faith religious teachings share significant commonality?  The divergence and differences noted in past history may possibly be rooted in the perspective of the interpretations of writings and teaching, and not necessarily in substance!

Every faith journey has lessons that can be valued by other faith endeavors.

Perhaps it’s time to embrace the diversity of spiritual growth?  A new synergy may actually abide in there somewhere.

“That’s just the way things are” is how we explain commonly accepted practices of the day.  Back early in the nineteenth century, the practice of slavery was “just the way things are”.  The same went for racially separated water fountains and bathrooms of the mid-twentieth century.  What of the unjustified treatment of the Native American populations as pioneers imposed themselves with little regard for the historic inhabitants?  I’m certain the same justification for the actions in Central Europe of the 1930’s and 1940’s were used.

Today, we are appalled of these past “acceptable practices”, as we should be.  However, this brings to my mind of the so called “acceptable practices” we take for granted today that may be equally offensive to the children of our future.  Do we have any issues that we deal with on a daily basis today accepted as normal operations that will appall future generations, just as many practices of our forefathers of yesterday cause us to reflect?  Do we justify our efforts by stating, “that’s just the way things are”?

It doesn’t take much effort, in my opinion, to quickly realize that some of the things we do these days are simply because “it’s just the way things are”.

First of all, the prosperity of our current civilization has yielded a general attitude that we can and should have everything that we want.  As a population, we have become excessively demanding.  Go to any eatery and the evidence is clear.  “Waiter, my steak is not perfect as I expect it to be, take it back and fix it, and don’t make me wait more than one minute!”  The court rooms are full of lawsuits filed by people who are slighted in the most fickle of issues.  Of course, it is proper to expect to receive equitably for provided remuneration, but it often gets out of hand on the part of the consumer.  Mutiple current issues appear to be the fall-out of this “give it to me now” attitude.

This expectation demand has entered the political realm.  I have served in the public sector for a short period of time. I discovered quickly that the public official does not deny constituent’s demands without severe repercussions. We send our representatives to our capitals and we expect them to provide for our benefit exclusively, and be damned the greater need.  It’s just the way it is today.  As a result, our system of governance is gridlocked in conflicting demands.  In attempts to satisfy all the unrelenting reachings of the citizenry, an unsustainable debt has accrued that may burden future generations in ways we can not conceive.

The unsustainable debt means that our current demands are to be paid for by those who follow us in the future.  Our father’s generation conceived of a plan to assure that a social safety net was installed to assure that no citizen went wanting for the sustenance of life.  A viable system of social security to protect the aged and a system of welfare to protect the destitute was initiated.  These actions saved our nation from pockets of  unacceptable suffering.  It forced a nation to offer a reasonable degree of benevolence to it’s own citizenry of lessor means.  Unfortunately, this effort has evolved into a significant portion of the citizenry who have come to expect this benevolence as a right to be demanded.  As a result, those who would willingly contribute to the less fortunate have been jaded and have become increasingly discerning in their giving, while those who are not discerning become enablers.

A more sensitive issue no one seems to want to get real about is viable health care.  This is a tough issue and there are no easy answers.  However, the realities of how we experience health care must be considered.  The provision of public health for the general population has been a godsend.  Immunization for contractable disease has served the nation extremely well.  However, current national budgets anticipate roughly 60% of the total to be dedicated to combinations of Medicare and Medicaid.  That would be acceptable if it could be paid for by on-going income.  However, the national budget operates in a deficit.  It is not sustainable.

I read somewhere that the typical end of life medical expense ranges somewhere between 300 to 400K!  No one contributes that much to their lifetime Medicare contribution!  Something will have to give.  I hate to even bring this up.  No one wants to see an elder of the family to suffer or pass away when heroic medical procedure can extend their life.  The fact is that innovation in medicine is miraculous.  However, it can be terribly expensive.  Somewhere, there must be a middle ground.  One of the structural issues we must deal with here is that we have become a culture that abhors death just as nature abhors a vacuum.  We need to come to realize that death is a part of life.  When we have completed a full life, we should face death with faith and trust, not with anxiety. I can’t say I know how I will respond when I am faced with final decisions, but I hope I will take this path of peace. We can be anxious about death today without this sense of hope, then we won’t accept it until the last ditch effort has been cast regardless of the cost.  We can do this because we typically do not personally pay for these unbelievably expensive procedures in the short term.  The practice of hospice has helped considerably along these lines.  However, we only can serve ourselves and our loved ones by a degree of acceptance.

Medicaid is also a difficult issue.  No one should be denied basic health care because of lack of resources.  Our society should be willing to foot the bill to provide these basic necessities.  Even some of the more expensive procedures should be covered in given circumstances.  However, some of this gets back to the earlier comments about demanding benevolence without one’s personal contribution.  Some people avoid paying for insurance they can realistically afford when they know they cannot be denied once a medical situation arises.

Actually, when it come to medical issues, we now think of “that’s just the way things are” when we consider personal health.  We often do not consider the personal responsibility for the on-going maintenance of our health.  We chose to do only those things that make us comfortable.  We no longer choose to do the things that can be hard in a physical sense.  We don’t excercise our bodies, we eat too much, and we wait until our bodies respond in a negative manner at which time we try to make up for our discomfort using artificial drugs and procedures. As a result, we burden the medical expenditure that could have been avoided had we taken care of ourselves in a natural manner.

Our society has become so self-oriented that we have chosen to ignore issues on a world wide scale.  Without a doubt, regardless of our faults and our issues, our Western society has been the most successful of all history.  Much of the remaining world has not found that kind of success.  In actuality, much potential of mutual benefit does exist when it comes to dealing with the world’s societies.  In our culture, we have found prosperity by meeting the needs of others.  Of course, many of the  world’s leadership provides roadblocks to such efforts on a world scale.  However, should we decide on a mindset to serve the world at large rather than total self consumption, then positive benefits may happen.  This is a case where we should develop a new attitude regarding “that’s the way things are”.

The same goes for our fundamental religious attitudes that permeate societies today.  It seems that all of the fundamental religions will not accept the ligitimacy of the other religions.  This has been an issue that has impacted history for centuries.  We don’t seem to have learned from it.  When one delves into the intricacies of the various world religions, it is revealing how similar each of them are in general principle.  Yet, we are entrenched in “the way things are” in this regard.  In the same note, this demand of “my way or the highway” permeates the general attitude of most groups of society and our governance.  It’s making for an ugliness among all of us.  Our civility is suffering.

Finally, I want to speak of our lack of concern for the future or our efforts to invest in the well being of the future generations.  Earlier generations invested in transcontinental railroads and interstate highways.  These infrastructures changed the face of our nation.  All we seem to be interested in today is meeting our current demands.  On the other hand, we should be in pursuit of the future technologies that will build our children’s future.  I’m speaking of the future space bound economy.  Oh yes, some efforts are taking place, but they are anemic compared to where we should be along these lines.  Let’s just consider the benefits of such investments of the past and how beneficial they were.  Future investment for future generations should be a primary mindset.  These future generations may have to look upon our contemporaries and shake their heads, saying “that’s how things were back then, and we’re paying the price today”.

I often enjoy reading “cowboy poetry”.  It’s down homey stuff that is usually written by common old cowboys who have a sense of humor and a poetic mind set.  I always look forward to the short articles in the newspaper submitted by Baxter Black.

But cowboy poetry is no longer just a few literary type punchers here and there, it’s become a whole society of practitioners!  They even have conventions!

Waal, I ain’t no cowboy in the traditional sense.  I can ride a horse, and if’n my lower anatomy was conditioned properly, I like nothin’ better than a good hard cross country ride.  But I don’t claim to be any more than a drugstore cowboy. The boots pinch my toes, and the hat never fits right; it feels more like an umbrella on my head than a hat.

Except for one thing.  I have come to the conclusion that the swashbuckling cowboy of the twentieth and the twenty-first century is the aviator.  Look at Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Dolittle, Roscoe Turner, Howard Hughes, Baron Von Richhoffen, Eddie Rickenbacker, Chuch Yeager, Burt Rutan, John Glenn, Orville and Wilbur Wright.  Hey, if these guys aren’t real cowboys at heart, then there ain’t nobody that is!

So I think it’s time that these aviator cowboys have their own cowboy aviator poetry society.  I’ll arbitrarily dub it as “Puddle Jump Poetry”.  Doesn’t sound very romantic, does it?  Well, the only aviation poetry I’ve seen so far is just “romantic poetry”.  Quotes such as “I seek the lofty skies with able silver wings and soar…..”  Arrgg!  That stuff is too high brow and too stuffy for me.  I want down home stuff just like the actual cowboy poet stuff.  So that’s why I pick the humble “Puddle Jump Poetry”.  It should come from aviators who simply love to get out there and fly for the pure sake of flying, even if it’s just jumping across a small fishing pond or something.  Aviators do have their own form of a society, by the way.  You can find them hanging around the coffee pot at just about any country airport.  They probably each have a unique story or experience that could be put in verse.  I sure do, and I’m going to share a couple of them in this blog.  I have several more that I’ll share at times in future blogs.  Here’s some examples, and I’ll try to explain the basis and background for each:

Without a doubt, the most memorable and exciting event in an aviator’s life is the first landing and his first solo flight.  It is an experience that can never be repeated, because there is only one first time.  Many aviators, such as myself, had dreamed for as long as I could remember to learn how to fly.  This verse illustrates these emotions:

“My First Landing”         By Bernard Ray Tillery

As far back as to remember

I’d carried a dream so deep down,

to take to air and soar over the ground.

I read all the books and magazines so fine

that showed planes and pilots through out all time.

A throb I would hear on up high

found my sight reaching for the sky.

My young mind wandered and thoughts would dwell

of taking her off and setting her down swell.

But one day came as I did always yearn

to give it a shot and come down to learn.

My hand on yoke and throttle to squeeze

to touch her down after treading the breeze.

She bounced a little but not too bad

I let out a holler! Boy, was I glad!

I’m now a pilot, I just can’t believe!

What a wonder it is to love and conceive!

‘

Much of the puddle jump poetry I have written has to do with various experiences I have had in my flying career.  I have written on events of poor judgement.  I have recalled heart felt  memories such as the “My First Landing” shown above.  I also get into situations that can make flying interesting, and demonstrate the importance of good emergency training as shown below:

 

“Emergency Landing Procedure”    By Bernard Ray Tillery

Oh, such peace at hand as I fly along

above the world below feels so strong.

Such a pleasure early man could only hope

to join the birds and even more we cope.

It’s all so grand, can one believe our luck?

To challenge cloud on high and not be stuck.

But wait! A stutter, a chatter, and then she quits!

I’m up here alone and she won’t spit!

What was once all peace has now become

a time to panic and a time to run!

Emergency landing procedure to keep my sense,

use your training to lower suspense.

Best rate of glide, then pick a spot

to land this thing, not crash too hot.

Call out Mayday! Check gas and heat,

keep my cool, pretend all’s neat.

To the ground and hope she don’t flop,

she bounces and trembles and finally stops.

Solid ground’s the best it can be,

the plane’s not hurt that I can see.

I touch her and thank her I’m on the ground,

but scold her severely for taking me down.

Was there something I did that I forgot,

something ignored or thought of not?

To cause her to quit and stall and die

just at a time when I expect her to fly?

Emergency landing procedure we check off our list

to pass our check ride the examiner insists.

But sometimes the rules have rhyme and reason,

to make sure we can fly from season to season.

 

Believe me; things can and do happen at moments least expected.  The aviator who comes through such events did so by good training and keeping his cool.

I plan to keep on writing “puddle jump poety”.  I’ve send out other stuff I’ve done as time goes by.  My hope is that other’s who love aviation, whether they themselves fly or not, will join the fun.  I think it would be great to have an aviator’s poet society!

 

 

I’m certain I am not alone among baby boomers in regard to  perspectives involving our experiences during the Viet Nam War era.  To say the least, those events impacted heavily on each of us in many varied ways.

Most of us grew up among elders who answered the call to duty in the recent world-wide conflict.  It would be difficult to ignore the same calling in their presence, even as skepticism regarding the current venture began to surface. This would be the outlook of many of us who felt compelled to respond.  Of course, many of us were “encouraged” to answer the call regardless of our personal wishes.

In today’s international events, questions often arise regarding the decisions of leadership.  However, general high regard for those who participate in their endeavors (the military) is prevalent.  Those of us who hesitated to don our uniforms in public during the Viet Nam conflict are heartened by the demonstrations of appreciation provided in airports and other public places for members of the military.  For myself, an obscure sense of loss lies just below the surface as I think back of those times.

Those times for us are in the past.  What was done is done.  Scars remain on healed hearts.  We honor those who did not return, but wistfully hope their sacrifice had allowed for them a degree of recompense.  Perhaps we are seeking to assuage our own personal guilt that it was them and not us.

In any case, the experience of those times shall color our life outlook until our last day.  All shall fall under the category of who and what it is to be a “Common Boy”.

Please consider the following verse that attempts, in a few short statements, to incapsulate the heart of a generation:

“Common Boys”
By Bernard Ray Tillery

Two boys were born three months apart,

They lived across the street.

Bikes or bats or salting bird’s tails,

Common boy’s dreams complete.

Safe from battle and war they be,

Their dad’s beat back the sting

And smacked those rats of East and West

Who would kill freedom’s ring.

One boy learns to fly, one to march,

As many question why.

A place far west and south of Home,

Common boys fight and die.

But it’s over now and in the books,

A black stone to remind

One boy recalls before that stone

Common boy left behind.

 

 

 

 

“The Time Bridge Project”; the first of my “Time Bridge Series”

I plan to soon begin the publish process through Amazon my first work of science fiction of the “Time Bridge Series”.  The title of this piece is “The Time Bridge Project”.

Most science fiction work regarding some type of space travel involves the use of some type of magical method of circumventing the overwhelming distances of space between planets and other scenes of adventure.  Concepts of warp drive, space transfer gates, and so on prevail in imaginary space travel.

I take issue with such concepts.  In my opinion, the reality of space travel to other stars can only be accomplished by the use of time.  I call it a “time bridge”.  In order to travel to distant star systems in our galaxy, the traveler must commit to seemingly overwhelming intervals of time.  In other words, if one wishes to visit another planet located 500 light years away, then he must travel at sub-light speed for hundreds of years to get there.  Of course that obviates the need for suspension of human life forms for great periods of time.  Hence, the time bridge.  In order to travel to distant locations light years away, the bridge available will be the use of time.

Thus, the premise of my first piece of this science fiction series is the use of the time bridge for space travel.

The planet Zumaria is an earth-like planet located many thousands of light years distance from our home here on Earth.  Zumaria’s humanoid like society has developed a robust solar system wide economy similar to that we here on Earth would visualize for our future.  This society has determined to become occupants of the entire Galaxy.  Zumaria shall send fleets of interstellar vessels destined for planets throughout the Galaxy in attempts to colonize those planets.  Using the concept of the time bridge, it is anticipated these colonies shall be conceived many thousands of years in the future.

All this activity occurs many thousands of years in our past as early humanity establishes itself here on Earth.  One or more of the Zumarian colony vessels is destined for Earth.  They establish themselves on Earth at a time that is early in the establishment of mankind here on our home.

So it begins.