"Please Send Me Purple Pansies"

"If I should crack up, please send me purple pansies, as I like them best."

Those were the words of now mostly forgotten pioneer female aviator Ruth Alexander as she was at the Lindbergh Field in San Diego and spoke with reporters during a plane check. She was making a cross-country flight headed for Newark, N. J.

In my great interest in premonitions of impending death, her story is now added to my collection.

Greater interest in another female aviator, Amelia Earhart, whose even greater aerial accomplishments as well as her disappearance in 1937, eclipsed the tragedy of Alexander's last flight.

Now if the above seemingly offhand remark to reporters were all the evidence of premonition there was it could easily be dismissed a poor joke. But there is more.

Newspapers at the time reported she had left notes for her parents as well as her new husband. These clearly indicated a sense of doom.

To her parents she requested a simple funeral should she die. But to her husband she wrote:

Life is strange, honey. If I have preceded you do not grieve for me, but be content as I am content. Finish your work down here and make me proud of you, as I ever will be at your side. And when you come I will welcome you. Always I will love and wait for you. And, sweetheart, keep my pretty wedding ring always with you, Ruth.

The crash which took Alexander's life was horrific, with wreckage scattered hundreds of feet from her mangled body, one of the plane's wings and its motor. The papers reported that several struts and braces were wrapped around the body. The plane's gas tank had apparently exploded causing the crash.

Hope for the best prepare for the worst, I suppose. Sometimes you have feelings you just can't shake. That was the case with Alexander, I believe.

The Devil In Material Form

I hate drugs. My life has not been unaffected by them. I've been a supervisor of workers in my career for thirty years now. I could write a book about the things I've seen and how many people have worked for me over the years and have failed, have had their lives come completely unraveled because of drugs: the Devil in material form.

My closest friend in the whole world has been devastated because all three of her sons have been enslaved by drugs. Rehab hasn't broken the hold; prison didn't deter them for long. Reasoning doesn't help the hard-core addict. Shaming doesn't help. Tough love doesn't seem to work. Even begging and crying leaves the addict unaffected ... at least for long.

The devil of drug addiction makes zombies. Addiction kills ambition, destroys character, steals pride and leaves the addict wasted but looking and caring only for the next fix.

There is a story that goes with the above picture. Another one of my friends showed it to me and it made such a visceral impression on me that I asked her if she would email me a copy for my blog. She agreed.

You see, my friend's son had a baby, a beautiful baby boy, with an addict. He now has custody of his baby boy because the mom is out of control. Well, right now she's sitting in jail. Not for drugs. Because of drugs. She got involved in burglary and was caught with stolen property. Druggies do that to help supply their habit.

My friend's son went to the mother's apartment (from which she is about to be evicted) in order to get the baby bed. He was so disgusted by what he saw he took a picture. The above picture. That is the bedside table between the mother's bed and the baby's, where she indulged in her addiction right beside her sleeping baby.

Why would anyone live that way? Why would anyone throw away their family, friends, even their own lives? Is this not demonic possession? Are illicit drugs not the great Satan of today's youth?

I hate drugs because I have seen up close what they do to people. I've seen drug deaths ... up close. I've lost friends, people I went to school with, neighbors, coworkers. I've watched close friends suffer through their children's addictions. Is anything more hellish?

A Native American Version Of The 23rd Psalm

As with many folks who live in the southeastern United States, Cherokee blood runs through my family's veins.

My older brother always took especial pride in this heritage, so much so that he regularly purchased magazines devoted to the American Indian. These I would read on the weekends I would spend in his bedroom (which I was allowed to do) when he spent nights away from home.

Always of interest to me was the spiritual outlook of Native Americans, I should have written outlooks, because there are many variations. Common is the view that there is a Great Spirit and that earth is our Mother. I like that. And my forebears, the Cherokees, held a monotheistic animism. I find that interesting as well.

I saved an old newspaper clipping which gives an "Indian" paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm, attributed to Warren Small Bear. I rather like this as well. It seems to me the closer we are to nature, the easier it is to believe in the Great Spirit.

The Great Spirit watches over me in the day and in the night. He understands my needs. In my lodge there is no crying for good. It is good to feel the green grass beneath my feet. The waters of many streams are cool when I am thirsty. He takes away my fears while I sleep. My moccasins walk the path of soft drums when council fires have burned low.

When I come near the shadow of the valley of the long sleep, my spirit will be strong and my heart will soar as the eagle. The Great Spirit has walked with me many days. When my sorrows cause me to sleep, I wake and find them gone. When my enemies would come against me, he makes them my friends. He pours the oils of his love over me until I am completely covered.

I desire only to live in peace with all men. Surely someday I will find that land where our lodges will never have to be moved, and that will be my dwelling place forever. Amen. 

Unexplainable?

Careful there!

In the May 2015 issue of Guideposts there is an article by Robert Lesslie, M.D. titled Miracles in the ER, based on his book by the same name. However, in the front of the magazine where the contents are listed the subtitle of Lesslie's article is "A doctor's experience with the unexplainable." I certainly feel that is a mistake.

When I post a story as I did last time about answered prayer, I don't mean to offer that as proof. And I don't think articles like Lesslie's equal proof. I'm quite certain I would differ with the theology of Dr. Lesslie, as well as the Mayhews. But I do believe in the Divine, in miracles, in the value of prayer. These stories do serve as powerful reminders for me that there is more to life than the mundane - at least, as I understand things.

Having said that, I'm not troubled by the fact that nonbelievers will dismiss these events as natural - even if peculiar - happenings. Nothing in this life in truly unexplainable; unexplained at the time maybe, but not  unexplainable. No one knows all there is to know and no one ever will.

We all have our worldviews, and we interpret the various data accordingly. My reasons for adopting a spiritual worldview are several, but most of all are personal. I can't and don't expect everyone to follow me. I write to express my own views, and if others disagree that is absolutely fine.

Of course I recognize I may be wrong in my spiritual worldview. Maybe there is no God and no miraculous interventions. If I'm wrong, so be it. I may be wrong about lots of things in life. That is the nature of having a finite mind. But when people speak with absolute certainty, that is the sign of a closed mind.

Personally, I don't believe in the unexplainable. I believe in a Supreme Mind or Logos that orders existence.