Martin Holman Jr.'s Blog, page 5

Hijacking the party

In 1979, the Moral Majority and several other like minded groups were founded  in response to what they believed was the degradation of the moral fibers of America as a Christian nation.  They hated that prayer had been taken out of public schools, abortion was now allowed, and the components of the traditional family were being overthrown.  They fought hard for “morality” as they had known it, and of course helped Ronald Reagan cruise through two presidential victories and eight (12 if you count Bush Sr.’s term) years of Republican values, which they assumed were synonymous with moral values.

I was young in the 80’s – like really young and sheltered.  But from an outside perspective, I don’t remember the 80’s being more moral or outwardly “character-filled” than any other time period in the last 45 years of my life.  Especially in the areas of entertainment or art, morality was not something prioritized in these methods of communications.

By the early 90’s the love affair between the moral majority/evangelical Christians and Republicanism was at its very high peak.  In a very short few years, the GOP’s covenant with America would be created by Newt Gingrich and friends, and the crew was going after abortion too. I remember being told the unspeakable horrors that would happen if Clinton became president, and I even remember being scared when that happened.  The world was collapsing.  Everyone would hate Christians.  We would all be stoned…

Of course none of that happened.  We had eight years of Clinton, complete with improprieties and such, and eight years of Bush Jr, with terror, wars, and lies.  Throughout those eras there were different phrases of life, some moral and some not, but generally speaking, the technology advanced in such a way as to allow us to build up more comfort and a strong belief that we can do anything.

Around the end of the Bush Jr.era, I was in my 20’s, and began to notice that everything about the Republican Party wasn’t exactly moral.  Sure they were still against abortion and typically liked to throw out terms like God and church to feed their fan base, but there seemed to be ulterior motives as to why they did some of the things they did.  Most of those things predicated themselves around money and power.  I began to understand that abortion was an excellent way to handcuff the evangelical masses to the Conservative party.  Hundreds of thousands of people will now vote for you simply because of one issue no matter what happens with other policies of importance.

Before I move into a slightly different perspective, I have a question I’d like you to think about:  Why is a party conservative and why is a party progressive?  Don’t kid yourself into believing that one likes tradition and one likes progress.  The truth is a Conservative party likes to remain in power to keep its way of life, and a progressive party needs to change things to become in power.  This will usually be true in a two party system.  This is why Republicans can say they were the party that abolished slavery.  Because they were the progressive party at the time.  Then Lyndon B Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and by then, Republicans were more affiliated with conservatism or keeping things as they are.  Johnson said when he signed the act that he “delivered the south the Republican Party for a long time to come”.  He could say that because he was messing with how things were, and  by the 60’s, “how things were” was dominated by Republicans.

In 2008, I voted for a Democrat for the first time ever.  I was/am proud to say I voted for the first black President in American history.  I no longer considered myself a Republican, because I felt like Republicans and evangelicals went to bed together and out came this weird “greed loving, white adoring hippy baby” that cared nothing for the likes of Jesus Kingdom.  Sure they talked more about Jesus, but so do demons.

In recent days, I’ve called myself an independent, and voted for whoever most identifies with the values I want to be associated with, and that makes me happy and allows me to live out my faith through my voting. I no longer identify with Jerry Falwell or Newt Gingrich or anyone else who believes America should be some type of theocracy.  That’s not what America ever was, and if it was, it didn’t do it well.  Well, maybe for those in power.  The love of money and power rarely work in a theocracy.  To help any Christians reading this understand, David pulled off a theocracy well because he went after God (most of the time), Solomon went after money and power (after a brief time going after God).  In our day and age, however, I don’t trust any American to do that right, so I’m okay with moving away from attempting the whole ‘God is in charge of us’ thing as a government.

Since 2016, Donald J. Trump has been our president.  I did not vote for President Trump.  In terms of fighting for conservatives, and even for unborn babies, I think he’s done a decent job.  But he’s an a-hole.  No really, if you are conservative and take offense to that, you are probably some sort of brainwashed at this point.  I can’t even watch political debates he’s such an idiot.  He has no respect, and he treats others horribly.  This is easily documented and there’s enough video that openly shows his disdain for anyone who disagrees with him.  He commands loyalty before any other character trait, which is at best narcissism, and at worst, the mark of a future dictator. (Calm down, I said future.)

So I get why the political left doesn’t like him, but now and over the last several years, something has crept into the left that I’ve found very interesting.  The political equivalent strategy of the Moral Majority.  First of all mainline denominations and now exvangelicals have followed along to hijack the Democratic Party and take up the new Moral Majority.  The Progressive Pharisees.  The new fight for the “soul” of America.  The very same group who 30 years before argued that souls and morality are best left away from politics and government, now bark about how unchristian and evil this president is, and how we must move on.

Listen, I get it if it was just the left, using reason and facts to illustrate that President Trump needs to go.  And I don’t necessarily disagree with that assessment.  Every time I see one of his tweets I’m reminded of this fact.  What I don’t understand, however, is Christian democrats getting in bed with…well…Democrats.  They watched as it happened in the 80’s to Republicans.  It’s obvious that any political party will use Christians to their advantage, especially in a country so focused on God, and history will repeat itself again as my theory is Christians will once again be used by a political party to accomplish whatever it will take to produce some sort of utopia.

You see, Democrats aren’t attempting to create a theocracy.  They are not about all that.  What they really want is a utopia.  A Tower of Babel for our day and age.  Creating a world where everything is perfect and no one is left behind is noble, yet disingenuous at best in regards to the government.  The government will only take care of all of its people for as long as good people are in office.  The unfortunate thing about that is that the term “good” is subjective.  I don’t know that I would call Joe Biden or Donald Trump good, though one of them might be better than the other in regards to politeness.  Still others, however might believe that the other is better in character because of the policies he brings forth.  Either way, it’s not difficult to refute the idea that a utopia is in our future.

So what do we do, Marty, Just give up?

No and in fact, despite everything I’ve written so far, I don’t believe it’s wrong to vote one way or the other.  In fact, I think its amazing that we get to do that.  My problem is the manipulation of the Moral Majority in the 80’s and the Progressive Puritans of today and their incessant need to decry the beliefs of those who vote on the other side of them.  Exvangelicals are all of a sudden questioning the spirituality and morals of Evangelicals, and are doing it in the same “I’m closer to God than you” way that the Evangelicals did it in the 80’s, and it’s quite simply maddening.

I’ve been told at least 3 times in the last week that if I vote for a 3rd party, I’m voting for Donald Trump, just like Republicans said in the early 90’s that if anyone voted for Perot, they were basically voting for Clinton.  And honestly, it all wreaks of politics.

The problem is, the Kingdom of God transcends above politics in a way that allows us to vote and have an impact in our world without getting in bed with parties and people who (please trust me when I tell you this) will use you to accomplish their own political means.  You are not special in this way.  If you are not focused in on what the Spirit of God wants you to do and how he wants you to act, you will quickly move from being a prophet speaking truth to an idiot sitting on a talking ass who refuses to allow you to influence anyone at anytime (see Numbers 22).

So please, for the next month, if you’re a Christian, spend more time in prayer than on Twitter.  Your opinion may be important to you, but according to you, God’s opinion is more important to you.  So stop judging, and stop posting bad political memes, and speak out against injustice where you should.  But please, for the love of God, don’t affiliate that injustice with the other candidate.  You’re only offering up a new set of injustices.  And by that time, you won’t have the moral authority to prophecy anything to anyone.

The Babel Pandemic 3

 

To read chapter 1 of the Babel Pandemic, click here.

To read chapter 2 of the Babel Pandemic, click here.

 

 

In some ways, the world is still new and will be for some time. But 80 years ago, it was even newer. The  first people of Shinar gathered together a few thousand years ago, but momentum builds the further we move into the new days.  Many of us have heard the stories of our ancestors like Etana of Kish or Gilgamesh, who “stabilized all the lands” and helped shape the culture of our people.

The gods – introduced to me by our family – lavished blessings on us, and the more blessings we received, the more excellent our culture became.  It was like we could do no wrong.  Barbarians invaded, and were beaten back with such force, they rarely repeated their invasions.  Our tribes became small towns, and our families drew up ways of written communication never seen before.

Dynasty after dynasty of leadership passed, and each generation blossomed into something more beautiful and more, I don’t know, civilized.  The world of anyone who grows old understands that an evolution of change rolls through as the various scenes of life progress, but watching the growth from the early days of my youth to now is nothing short of fantastic.

I remember waking up to the smells of cooked meat every morning.  The men of our family and village woke up early to hunt.  They always brought back huge amounts of venison and other animals and skinned the animal, saving the meat for the days meals.  I woke up to that smell.  Still do.  The first thing I heard is my parents hustling about the tent and the crackling of the fire as it shot up its flames underneath whatever meat we would be eating shortly.  Footsteps hustle around outside my tent too.

Little boys racing through the streets.  My friends waiting for me to come out and play. I loved to sleep in, and then waltz out of the tent as my friends awaited my entrance into the public streets so they could play with me.  At an early age, I knew I was beautiful, and my popularity and the constant stares from the men of our tribe did little to discourage this knowledge.

Men walked to hunt or fish for lunch, and women moved slowly together toward the Ziggurat of Uruk, gossiping along the way.  There they would pray to the gods, asking them to continue to bless their families, their tribes, and their land.  Making the gods happy had always been a priority for the people of my tribe. They kept blessing, and we kept praying for their continued happiness.  Sometimes we wondered if we were doing the right things, but eventually good things would happen, so the proof was in how the way life was going.

But what happens when my second father dies?  How have I, or my mother I guess, upset the gods and turned their wrath toward us?  Who else will I lose along the way?  What else can happen?  I probably  thought deeper than I should have at such a young age, but loss does that to you.  It offers up questions for which there are no answers, and this produces lament.  So while everyone walked around happy and obviously “making the gods happy”, a cloud moved in front of me.  I couldn’t see or feel anything. I had friends, but now they seemed to pull me to come with them instead of me leading the way.

I watched as progress happened, but couldn’t comprehend any of the momentum.  I was too lost in the moments of my life that left me weak and insecure to notice the world changing all around me.  The wheel, irrigation and written communication were all improvements pushing themselves in our new world.  And all I could think about was that no one would ever stay with me.  I would never experience real community.

One day as my friends and I walked to school, a young man on a wheeled cart pulled up to next to us.  He asked me playfully if I wanted a ride to school.  I politely turned down his Request and told him I desired to walk with my friends. Then my best friend Hannah, decided to take him up on his offer and jumped in the cart.  She laughed, wrapped her arm around his waist, and told him to move, which he obliged.

Hannah did not show up at school that day.  We told her parents about the young man and the wheeled cart.  When asked about the girl, he looked irritated he had to answer.  He told them she jumped out of the cart fairly early in their ride, for fear it would tumble her off.  Hannah disappeared, and most people believed her male suitor had everything to do with that fact.

Men ran this world, and could do whatever they wanted to do to any female they chose to do it to.  The rape of women and children ran rampant in Uruk, and most of the time, there was no way to hold these men accountable for their actions.  Men were the strong, and women housed the weaker vessel.  Therefore, men protected the women, but on the chances that men decided not to do that or allowed their baser selves to unleash, women suddenly disappeared and though there was mourning, tears were rarely followed by accountability.

This protection that men offered created a conundrum for women that lasts until now.  We needed protection, and we needed men to protect us, but if we were to be protected by the wrong man who ended up dying or decided to protect us from anyone but themselves, we might as well jump in our own tombs.

I often ponder the fact that Hannah’s fate could have been my own.  I could have said yes to the man driving the wheeled cart.  I could have wrapped my arm around his strong abdomen in a desperate attempt to get his attention.  I could have smiled at my friends, Hannah included, as if to say how lucky I was that his interest feigned my way.  And I could have driven off down the path, where that sadistic man would have had his way with me.  If I had, however, I would not be speaking with you today.  I would be buried in one of the shadier parts of the great river.

Don’t look so humble.  This was, and is in many cases, the way of the world in that day. Even you, coming here and telling my husband that I’m going to have a baby…at the age of  90.  It’s laughable.  But don’t you think I should have been involved in that conversation when you shared it?  No, you don’t.  Of course not.  You just told him like his old bones were going to be the ones hurting from 9 months of pregnancy.

Following Hannah’s disappearance, the cloud hovered over me like never before.  What once had been a happy and vibrant life now wreaked of a sulfurous sadness mired in loss.  All I wanted was someone to tell me everything would be okay, and of course that someone should have been my mother, but she dealt with her own pains and emotions her own way.

On my 13th birthday, my family gathered around for a celebration of thankfulness to the gods for allowing me to live.  Early that morning, I woke and smelled the cooked meats.  My mother told me 5 deer, 2 calves, and 30 fish roasted over an open fire for our family feast.  Roasted grains, eggs, fresh vegetables, honey, and pomegranates rounded out the meal.  As the time approached for our family to gather, I remember seeing a sliver of sun peaking through the clouds and descending on small part of Uruk I stood upon.  Perhaps this is a sign from the gods of things to come, I thought to myself that midday.  Perhaps  things are changing for me.

As the party started, the village chieftain gathered family and friends together and thanked the gods for my life.  At the end of his prayer, a horn blew and the celebration ensued.  The beer and goatskins of wine were rolled out.  Children played and ran around everywhere.  Adults headed for the tables to drink, eat, and talk about other villages and tribes that may have decided to descend about our villages.

The music started boldly.  Drums, lyres, harps, and reed flutes played some of our best tunes, and as was traditional in that day, I began to dance.  I didn’t care who watched.  I decided to just move and dance and be.  The last several months took their toll on me as a young person, and I needed to forget everything and just dance.  My head and my arms moved up and down.  I spun and jumped and twirled and whirled.  As I did, I felt a tear fall down toward my mouth, then another and another.  I was starting to let go of the exhaustion that my young body held deep inside of me.

My mother intuitively understood what was happening, and beckoned some of my family members to join me in dancing.  She jumped in as well.  Soon, scores of family members and friends danced and laughed, told stories and even fought over some village politic.  “The gods must have been happy”, my mother told me afterwards.  I agreed with her, as happiness peeked out of my tired soul once again.

I crawled into my tent that night ecstatic about life and my future and being a part of a great family and a great village.  I fell asleep and dreamed of my future.  I had a dream that night that I had a son.  My son grew to be a mighty hunter and powerful man.  Like most good dreams I’ve had in my life, it turned out to be a misleading, but that morning I woke up wearing a smile on my face.  I smelled the meat roasting over the fire, remnants of last night’s gathering.  And I felt like I wasn’t alone in the tent.

Usually by the time I woke up, my mother was out cooking already.  I don’t ever remember a time anyone was still asleep when I woke up.  I had no other brothers or sisters, so why had I started to hear snoring.  Then something moved, or someone.  I had placed a sharp speared wood piece next to my bed. I slowly reached out and grabbed it.  Was it an animal?  Then the head and body of a man popped up, wiping his face with his arms.

I screamed.  I heard several steps running toward the tent. My mother was the first to enter, and she headed straight for me, holding me in her arms and asking me if I was all right.  I pointed at the man.  She responded, “Don’t you recognize your own uncle?  It’s Ningal, my brother.  He stayed with us last night after the party.  And we have decided to have him stay with us until I get married again.  It’s okay.  There’s nothing to worry about.  Everything will be okay,” my mother said holding me tightly in her arms.

I looked astonished at Ningal.  He stared back with a smirk that told me everything definitely would not be all right.

 

Buy my first novel, “Flat Earth”, available on Kindle or Paperback here.

The Babel Pandemic 2

To read chapter 1, click here.

I grew up happy in an amazing time to be alive.  Uruk was a farming community, but new things were being created all of the time in the center places where everyone gathered.  As children we’d play in the great river.  We had a happy family.  My father grew grain, and worked hard to take care of our family.  He died early on from a disease that began to eat his skin.  When he died, I remember it being the first time I wasn’t happy.  I ran to the river and cried for days wondering why he left me.  My mother tried to comfort me, but to no avail.  I was heartbroken, and as far as I was concerned, life was over.

My mother and I became closer than ever.  Her family gathered around us, and things became stable again.  Happiness is an unstable state of mind though, and I longed for deeper community.  The loss of my father created an understanding in me that nothing is permanent.  I trusted no one.  The men who walked around our home now stared at my mother, who enjoyed their attention, but most of them were already married.  Of course that hasn’t stopped most men from quenching those forbidden desires.

My father’s family never cared enough to visit us once my father died, and my mother’s family constantly tried to make sure she married again.  Certainly a woman’s life means nothing if she doesn’t have a man to lead her through it.

Though the pain of losing my father burdened me as a child, the light in my heart did not go away.  I believed my mother and I would find ourselves engrossed in a community of people who loved and cared for us, whether or not it was a man and his family or a close knit group of people.  I wanted real.  I wanted true.  I wanted to be loved deeply.

My mother married again.  He was a nice man and a decent father, but I always believed she settled for someone who could take care of us.  He built things with his hands.  In fact, he was such an excellent builder, when our tribe decided to build a tower to reach to the heavens, they asked him to lead the construction.  I rarely saw him before that.  After that, it was like we lived in separate tribes.

But I watched the construction of the tower with great pride.  Everyone did.  They built in an area we called Shinar.  Over time, it grew and grew and became the biggest structure any of us had ever seen.  We were proud of our tribes, and those who helped build this incredible symbol.  Crowds gathered everyday.  Children played while the adults looked on and talked about how big the structure could actually get.

“The gods will be proud of us!” One man said loudly.  “This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”

Everyone cheered at the thought.  We would be together forever, and I began to think that my community was developing.  For the first time since my father died, happiness crept in.  Nothing gave me greater joy than the sun beating down on my face, playing with the children, and hearing my new father bark out orders inside the monstrous tower. Everyday proved to be a festival.  People started making up reasons to celebrate, and frowns became a rarity in the tower region.

My mother’s smile returned, and she laughed and sang around the house once again.  I remember how beautiful her voice was when she sang.  I can still hear it ringing in my ears when I work or clean or pray even now, almost 80 years later.

One day when I was a twelve, I noticed several of my friends were not at the tower.  I looked for them, and in the case of my best friend Deborah, I ran to her house since it was nearby.  Her mother told me to stay away for a while. She was sick.  The next day, even fewer people gathered at the tower, which meant even fewer of my friends were there to play with me.  A weird hush wafted over the region.

The following day, celebration morphed into mourning, as very few people watched the building of the tower, and cries of terror bellowed out with the deaths of the sick.  I was afraid so I walked around the tower looking for my father.  I couldn’t find him.  One of the workers told me he left early to go home.

My father never left early.  He worked hard and when others slacked off, he drove them harder, and he was not a hypocrite.  He drove himself the hardest.  I walked away from the tower region, turning once again to see its grandeur.  I had never, nor would I ever see anything like it again.  I walked the road back to my house many times before with groups of children – my friends – but now everything sat silent, and my journey seeped loudly with only the thoughts in my head.  What was happening?

I arrived home and as soon as I entered the house, my mother motioned me to be quiet.  My father wasn’t feeling well and needed to rest.  I heard his deep, dry coughs roaring from the back of the house, and I ran out.  I ran to the great river, sitting down by it’s slow moving current, and I prayed to the gods.  I asked them with thick tears in my eyes not to take my father.  I couldn’t handle another loss.  I needed some hope.  I needed to know that I could have something in my life that I wouldn’t lose.  I heard my father’s cough in my head as the water trickled east down the great river.

I heard footsteps along the grass behind me as I cried.  They startled me, but it was only my mother’s brother behind me.  He was closer to my age than hers, and he always seemed standoffish to me at family events.  He rarely spoke to anyone, choosing instead to keep to himself.

“Why are you crying?” He said to me.  I was surprised he spoke.

“My father is sick.  It seems like everyone is sick.  And…And…And…anyone I get close to, I lose.  I don’t know what to do.”  I cried again.

An awkward silence filled the space in between my moans.  My uncle said nothing.

His name was Ningal.  He spoke very little, dressed in all black, and stayed away from people.  He said a handful of words to me for most of my life to that point.  He had a tiny mouth and beedy eyes that always looked shut.  I forgot what his voice sounded like until he spoke.

“It’s not up to you, anyways.  You’ll be fine.  Just do whatever your mom wants you to do.” He spoke gruffly.  I didn’t like his tone, but I really didn’t like the way he looked at me at that moment.  His hand extended to the small of my back, and a chill ran up my spine.  My soul transformed from sadness to fear.  He must have felt that, because quickly he removed his hand, stood up and walked away.

I filled up my water jug, and walked back to my house.  I didn’t want to go back.  I didn’t want to hear the cough and what it might represent.  I didn’t want to lose anyone else.  I had no choice, however, as my home was my home and my mom took care of my dad, and someone needed to take care of my mom.

I walked in the door, and heard the cough.  I heard my mom speaking out:  “It’s going to be all right.  It’s going to be okay.  We’re going to make you better again.”  I announced my entrance and walked in the room with the water.  My father’s eyes got big and I immediately brought the jug to him, and tipped the top to his lips.  He drank heavily, like a thirsty dog lapping a puddle after a storm.

He looked at me and spoke, but when he did, I couldn’t understand what he was saying.  I looked at my mother to see if she heard, but she lifted her shoulders as if to say her ears were getting old like the rest of her.

“Say it again, father.” I said to him.

He repeated the lines, but once again, I didn’t understand.  A look of frustration showed on his face.

“Oh, he must be growing delirious,” My mother said.

He clearly didn’t agree but it didn’t matter.  He fell asleep quickly.

Sleep did not stop the loud heaving coughs.  None of us fell asleep that night.  Occasionally spaces of a minute or two pushed my eyes forward, then suddenly, the sound of coughing rushed at my ears.  Eventually I walked to the front of our house.  My mother lit a fire and sat by it, crying.  I wrapped my arms around her and cried with her.  We wept until early in the morning when the coughing stopped, and my second father disappeared into the afterlife.

 

 

Buy my first novel, “Flat Earth”, available on Kindle or Paperback here.

 

The Babel Pandemic 1

I will be writing this book chapter by chapter.  Each chapter will be released by Tuesday morning.  There will also be an audio podcast of each chapter as well.

Chapter 1

The old lady cleaned up the meal they ate  minutes ago.  Her husband sat outside of their home relaxing and humming some song he made up a few years before.  She could not bear the heat any longer today, however, as the sun beat down anything in its path.  She loved her husband, but she no longer trusted him.  You’d think after 60 plus years of marriage, trust would be the foundation of their relationship.  The events they walked together were more than a lifetime of goods, bads, and craziness.  The soreness in her back flamed up, and she felt every bit of her 90 years.

“Honey, are we expecting any visitors?” Her husband said from the door.  

“I don’t believe so,” she said.  

She heard him slowly stand and walk away from their living space.  Slow footsteps moved away from earshot, until she heard his voice again in the distance.  She thought his footsteps were a bit faster than normal, almost as if he ran to them.  Years before this wouldn’t have surprised her, but now he was almost 100.  

“Please, my friends, stop here for a while and rest.  Sit under the shade of this tree, and my servants will wash your feet.”  The man snapped at a nearby servant who quickly walked to the well to get the water he promised the men.  He continued talking to his visitors.  “Since you have honored me with your visit, let me prepare some food to refresh you before you continue on your journey.”

One of the men answered the old man’s statement.  The three men all looked young, and like they could be brothers.  Dark hair, dark complexions, and rock solid features.  

“All right sir, please do as you have said.”

For the next several hours, the old man and woman worked tirelessly for the three guests outside their home.  The men laughed and talked and seemed content with one another during those hours.  When the food was ready, the old man quickly hobbled to them and served them the yogurt, milk, and roasted meat.

The men thanked him and they talked for a while under the shade of the large oak tree about 50 yards from his home.

“Where is your wife?” One of them suddenly said.

Surprised but unfazed, the old man replied, “She’s inside our home.”

“We’ll return here next year at this time and she will have a son.” The man said.

A silence fell as the old man chuckled slightly.  Had he misheard his guest’s words?

A slightly louder laugh gasped from back towards the home.  The guests and the old man turned around to see the old woman listening in on their conversation.  She brought water for them to drink and when she heard the guests last words, she laughed.  Not an eruption, but just enough to get their attention.  She whispered to herself, “How could an old woman like me enjoy the pleasure of having a baby.  My husband couldn’t even help me with that at this point.”

“Why does she laugh?  Is there anything too hard for the One true God?” The guest said to her husband.

The woman moved slowly to the group of men, filtering in her mind what she should say.  “I didn’t laugh!” She pleaded defensively.

The guest boldly responded, “You did laugh.”

More silence.  Suddenly the old woman understood what she should say.  After 90 plus years of hardship and pain, she would now speak her mind, as if she had nothing to hide, and every reason to vent.  She walked over to the group angrily, and sat down.  In her culture, this was inappropriate, but now she did not care.  Especially if this guest was who she thought it was.

She slowly sat down with the help of her shocked husband who grabbed her hand and guided her down to the ground.  The trip to the dirt felt miles longer than it had for the first 70 years of her life, and though she was “a young 90” according to her husband of many decades, she doubted whether she would be able to get back up if these men were not visiting.

“Ok, I laughed.” She said almost scolding the men.  “I am 90 years old.  I have longed, begged, yelled, pleaded, and cried hours and hours of tears to God because my desire to have a child was so strong.  But this one true God you speak of has chosen to turn his back on me.  He has not heard my voice.  He has gone silent when I needed him the most.  And to make it worse, my husband continues to hear from him on a supposedly regular basis.  He tells me he is going to be the father of a great nation.  He tells me his descendants will be like the sands of the seashore and the stars in the sky, and I stare at him, knowing that none of those things will happen from me, the one he has loved for all these years.  I have endured unspeakable things, young man, for my husband and for this one true God.  

“So yes, I laughed, and for this next year, until apparently, the next time I’ll see you again, I will continue to laugh at your ridiculous claims about my life.  You know nothing about me, so don’t ask me some sort of judgmental question about whether or not anything is too hard for this one true God you are speaking about.”

More silence as the woman began to weep.  Two of the guests and the woman’s husband bowed their heads uncomfortably, but the third guest, who had been doing all of the talking, stared straight at the weeping matriarch.

“I do know you,” he said softly, “but why don’t you tell me about those things.  Those things you have endured and gone through?  Why don’t you share with me those events you walked, which molded you to become the person you are today?”

 

 

If you’re interested in reading my novel, “Flat Earth” that is out now, please do so on Amazon or on Apple Books.  Print versions Also available on the Amazon link.

The Babylon Pandemic 1

I will be writing this book chapter by chapter.  Each chapter will be released by Tuesday morning.  There will also be an audio podcast of each chapter as well.

Chapter 1

The old lady cleaned up the meal they ate  minutes ago.  Her husband sat outside of their home relaxing and humming some song he made up a few years before.  She could not bear the heat any longer today, however, as the sun beat down anything in its path.  She loved her husband, but she no longer trusted him.  You’d think after 60 plus years of marriage, trust would be the foundation of their relationship.  The events they walked together were more than a lifetime of goods, bads, and craziness.  The soreness in her back flamed up, and she felt every bit of her 90 years.

“Honey, are we expecting any visitors?” Her husband said from the door.  

“I don’t believe so,” she said.  

She heard him slowly stand and walk away from their living space.  Slow footsteps moved away from earshot, until she heard his voice again in the distance.  She thought his footsteps were a bit faster than normal, almost as if he ran to them.  Years before this wouldn’t have surprised her, but now he was almost 100.  

“Please, my friends, stop here for a while and rest.  Sit under the shade of this tree, and my servants will wash your feet.”  The man snapped at a nearby servant who quickly walked to the well to get the water he promised the men.  He continued talking to his visitors.  “Since you have honored me with your visit, let me prepare some food to refresh you before you continue on your journey.”

One of the men answered the old man’s statement.  The three men all looked young, and like they could be brothers.  Dark hair, dark complexions, and rock solid features.  

“All right sir, please do as you have said.”

For the next several hours, the old man and woman worked tirelessly for the three guests outside their home.  The men laughed and talked and seemed content with one another during those hours.  When the food was ready, the old man quickly hobbled to them and served them the yogurt, milk, and roasted meat.

The men thanked him and they talked for a while under the shade of the large oak tree about 50 yards from his home.

“Where is your wife?” One of them suddenly said.

Surprised but unfazed, the old man replied, “She’s inside our home.”

“We’ll return here next year at this time and she will have a son.” The man said.

A silence fell as the old man chuckled slightly.  Had he misheard his guest’s words?

A slightly louder laugh gasped from back towards the home.  The guests and the old man turned around to see the old woman listening in on their conversation.  She brought water for them to drink and when she heard the guests last words, she laughed.  Not an eruption, but just enough to get their attention.  She whispered to herself, “How could an old woman like me enjoy the pleasure of having a baby.  My husband couldn’t even help me with that at this point.”

“Why does she laugh?  Is there anything too hard for the One true God?” The guest said to her husband.

The woman moved slowly to the group of men, filtering in her mind what she should say.  “I didn’t laugh!” She pleaded defensively.

The guest boldly responded, “You did laugh.”

More silence.  Suddenly the old woman understood what she should say.  After 90 plus years of hardship and pain, she would now speak her mind, as if she had nothing to hide, and every reason to vent.  She walked over to the group angrily, and sat down.  In her culture, this was inappropriate, but now she did not care.  Especially if this guest was who she thought it was.

She slowly sat down with the help of her shocked husband who grabbed her hand and guided her down to the ground.  The trip to the dirt felt miles longer than it had for the first 70 years of her life, and though she was “a young 90” according to her husband of many decades, she doubted whether she would be able to get back up if these men were not visiting.

“Ok, I laughed.” She said almost scolding the men.  “I am 90 years old.  I have longed, begged, yelled, pleaded, and cried hours and hours of tears to God because my desire to have a child was so strong.  But this one true God you speak of has chosen to turn his back on me.  He has not heard my voice.  He has gone silent when I needed him the most.  And to make it worse, my husband continues to hear from him on a supposedly regular basis.  He tells me he is going to be the father of a great nation.  He tells me his descendants will be like the sands of the seashore and the stars in the sky, and I stare at him, knowing that none of those things will happen from me, the one he has loved for all these years.  I have endured unspeakable things, young man, for my husband and for this one true God.  

“So yes, I laughed, and for this next year, until apparently, the next time I’ll see you again, I will continue to laugh at your ridiculous claims about my life.  You know nothing about me, so don’t ask me some sort of judgmental question about whether or not anything is too hard for this one true God you are speaking about.”

More silence as the woman began to weep.  Two of the guests and the woman’s husband bowed their heads uncomfortably, but the third guest, who had been doing all of the talking, stared straight at the weeping matriarch.

“I do know you,” he said softly, “but why don’t you tell me about those things.  Those things you have endured and gone through?  Why don’t you share with me those events you walked, which molded you to become the person you are today?”

 

 

If you’re interested in reading my novel, “Flat Earth” that is out now, please do so on Amazon or on Apple Books.  Print versions Also available on the Amazon link.

Stories from the Q: Joey B

The Q Began last March, and though I can’t be sure, I believe that was a year and two months ago.  I have no proof right now, but it’s been warm here in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts for over a week now, and that just doesn’t happen unless it’s May.  Its crazy how one day I can be teaching Math to a bunch 7th grade middle school students at Forest Grove, and the next I’m asked to go home and stay there by my bosses, the media, politicians, doctors, and a bunch of stay at home moms turned infectious disease experts on social media.  So I went home, and for the next three weeks, played X-box with my college friends from around the country.

My name is Joey B. I’m going to use that alias for now.  There was a day you could type anything you wanted on the internet, but that day is not today.  I only have a few minutes left before they find this computer working, so I’ll do what I often do, and share my story on the random working computers I accidentally find.  Maybe someone happens upon this message who will understand my plight and hope.  Hope that one day all will go back to normal, whatever that may be.

I’m short with blonde hair and I think average looking.  Before the Q I dated an average amount and spent an average amount of time by myself.  Not as much time as I do now, but things have changed.  It took a while.  At first, things were dark but manageable.  I remember this one actor even posted several videos of himself anchoring a fake news broadcast he called the SGN (some good news) network.  It was cute and all, however, the underlying mood Of the world was not one of hope, but rather mistrust.

First, toilet paper and cleaning wipes disappeared from the store aisles.  People began to fight in lines and crowd one another.  I remember watching some video of a shopper spitting towards someone else, and a huge burly bald guy who looked like Mr. Clean (an old cleaning product character) came across the lens of the camera and planted his forearm into the spitting man’s chin.  I laughed, until that kind of thing became commonplace.  Over time, every time I went out, a fight would break out in the stores.  Everyone else would gasp in horror, then pull out their phones to make sure their videos went viral.  People began shutting others out of their lives.  I mean everyone who did not live in their house.  That’s how I found myself alone.  I lived by myself and by the time I asked my family members if I could come live with them, they told me it wasn’t best for their household at the moment, and I was a big boy.  I could handle it on my own for a short while.  This isolation crept deeper and deeper, until 6 ft of social distancing became 20 ft, and 20 became “stay the hell away from me.”

Last summer burned hotter than most, and while people used to blame the human race and their factories for global warming, we all realized something else was happening.  The heat apparently affected people with children, because I started hearing screaming children and yelling parents all the time.  The sound of cracking belts or slapped skin became normal.  I called the police several times, but they usually answered with snarky comments about having better things to do than babysitting.  I’m not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but one day in the summer, I advertised on the internet about a soccer camp I was going to host at a local park.  I hoped kids would come and I could talk to them and make sure they were safe.  No one showed up.  Except the police.  Apparently they did have time to babysit and then sent me home, telling me not to cause confusion.  The Q was in motion.

The Counting Crows must have been prophets because August changed everything when the internet went down.  It occasionally pops back up when they need it for some large scale tactical raid in an area, and that’s when I find a computer and get to work.  But the loss of internet wars bad.  It’s amazing what happens when society loses a method of communication that has infiltrated itself.  People didn’t know how to act, so they acted out.  Fully grown adults and teenagers rioted, and all talk of “stay away from me” turned into “you wanna fight?”  Glass windows smashing became as normal as the church bells that go off every hour in nearby towns like Holden or Boylston.  The fighting moved from indoors to outdoors and no one seemed to care.  Gang wars reemerged not only in my neighborhood but in the surrounding  Worcester suburbs.  It became dangerous to go to the stores, but eating is not an option if you want to live.

In November, food became harder to get.  I tried to make a Thanksgiving dinner, but most of the traditional foods were not on sale.  I used to love the holidays, but sitting in my apartment alone listening to the sound of domestic abuse and eating fried chicken and macaroni and cheese was certainly not going to be a Hallmark Christmas movie,  As if that were a thing any longer.  Without the internet, cord cutters didn’t have anything to watch, and the government began taking control of major networks.  Every store started broadcasting the World News Network, and though food was scarce, we all had a steady diet of propaganda to chew on.

If summer was hot, the winter decided to take its turn in equally violent ways.  Thankfully I took the liberty in October of collecting blankets people didn’t want, and needed them as the oil company came when they wanted to, or when they could.  When I called them they didn’t answer, nor did my landlord.  It was like everyone was frozen, and no one knew how to live anymore.  Or they never did, having abandoned the world of choice for systems years before the Q happened. I learned my lesson.

Now only a year and (maybe) two months after the Q began, I am not allowed to go outside of my home.  No one is.  You have two hours a week you are allowed to go out and that is based on where you live.  I learned about this from the troops.  I don’t watch or listen to WNN so I never heard.  The troops told me I needed to stay inside except for my “two hours” and if I didn’t there would be consequences.  Those troops walk the streets looking for those who ignore the rules.  I have mostly learned to avoid them and find resources I need.  But I haven’t learned how to be alone so much.  I think I’m going crazy.  The conversations I’m having with myself have become longer and the things I think I know have become shorter.  I need conversation.  So today I’m out at an old coffee shop near the college of the Holy Cross that used to be called Acoustic Java.  Now it’s filled with broken glass and beat up copies of authors like Virginia Wolff and John Steinbeck.  If I focus hard enough, I can smell the remnants of the coffee beans that were ground here only a few short months ago.  I found a computer here, and my friend Xavier told me about a group of people who meet up and talk about how to cope and survive in this new normal.  Of course, they are not supposed to be meeting, just like I am not supposed to be out, but desperate times and desperate measures, ya know?

 

 

If you’re interested in reading my novel, “Flat Earth” that is out now, please do so on Amazon or on Apple Books.  Print versions coming out soon.

 

Stories from the Q: John Grayson

The following short story is a work of fiction by Martin Holman.  Any resemblance to real life (with the exception of the 2020 pandemic and the My Lai Massacre) is purely coincidental.

John Grayson coughs into his hand.  It isn’t the first time in the last 36 hours, and he knows what he is going to have to do.  He knows what he might be suffering from, but he doesn’t want to be treated like a modern day version of a leper, so he tells no one about his cough.  Only his wife knows, and she silently stays away from him.  She doesn’t say a word about it, and mills about the house cleaning and checking items off her to-do lists.  That’s how Nancy has been over the last 51 years of their marriage.  Sweet, supportive, and silent – or the triple threat – as John often jokes.

John and Nancy met in an army hospital in Vietnam 52 years ago.  John woke up in the hospital, and the first thing his eyes rested on was Nancy.  She smiled at him, and he knew he was in love, but that was the only thing he knew.  John had been brought in to the hospital out cold.  No one knew who brought him in or how long he had been passed out, but he slept in the hospital for four weeks before he woke up one morning.  He had been through trauma, his body beaten and bruised.  But he glanced at Nancy and jokingly asked her to marry him.  She smiled and told him she’d give him some water.  He said “thank you”.

Eventually he healed and was released to return home, never to fight in a war again.  However, while he had the clothes on his back given to him by the army, that was the only thing he took with him back to the states.  When he woke up, he couldn’t remember anything about his life.  He had been a POW for a while at least, and the hospital was near where the 11th infantry brigade traversed.  But when the squad leaders were asked if they knew Grayson (because he had no memory to answer their questions), Lieutenant Calley swore he had never seen him before.  At a loss for what to do with him, the army shipped him back home, where they hoped he could see some doctors who could wake his memory.

He arrived in the US, and the doctors and specialists tried everything they could, but nothing worked.  Grayson couldn’t remember his name, address, what he was doing in Vietnam, or who his family was.  The army contacted all the missing persons reports, but nothing came up.  No one looked for or cared about whoever this young man might be.  So they gave him some money, and sent him on his way into a world he knew nothing about.  The only thing that grounded Grayson was his consistent letters back to the one he first saw waking up, Nurse Nancy Maxwell.

John picked a name first.  He wanted something sophisticated, so he looked through name books and Liked Grayson.  One of his first routines was going to church.  He moved an hour east of Boston to Worcester, Massachusetts, and found a Catholic Church near His apartment on Grafton St..  His first Sunday at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, the priest spoke about John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”  He liked that verse, so he called himself John Grayson.

Against her parent’s wishes and after she arrived back home, Nancy immediately moved from Marion, Ohio, a small rural town filled with corn fields and factories, to marry John and they became John and Nancy Grayson.  Over time, her parents grew to love him and visited every chance they could, especially after the two children were born.  Now 51 years into their marriage, her parents have passed on, and he still has no idea who his parents were or what he did before he woke up in that hospital.  All he knows now is that he must go back into a hospital because of his dreaded dry cough.  It’s gone on for several days, and the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is at high tide.  He needs to get tested to see whether or not he has contracted the virus, but his desire to not go to the hospital and get tested is almost as great as his desire to be healed.

John drives himself to St. Vincent’s, a monstrous and beautiful hospital in the center of Worcester.  He parks in the parking garage and walks slowly into the double doors in the middle of the cavernous cement shell.  His body is not young and nimble like it once was.  He feels every bit of the 70 years life has given him, though he doesn’t know how old he actually is.  He picked a random birthday too.  John and Nancy and the kids and grandkids celebrate on April 15th every year because that was the day he woke up at the hospital.  He also considered celebrating on March 18th, as  that’s when Nancy told him he arrived Into her care.  He trods up the garage steps and out across the front drive.  A large white canopy tent is set up in front of the entrance of the hospital, and security guards ask those coming in questions to ensure their viability to be able to get care in this place today.

Apparently John answers all of the questions correctly because they usher him inside the glass revolving door.  Signs point him to exactly where the Coronavirus tests were being administered, and he stays on that path.  He sits in a waiting room for an hour, and they call his name.  Two nurses with intense personal protective equipment beckon him to follow them, and he does as he is instructed.  They don blue scrubs, an N95 mask that are all the rage these days, and thick goggles.  One of the nurses opens the door to a small room and asks him to go into it, and then tells him to take off his clothes and put on the hospital gown neatly folded on the chair in the corner of the room.  They leave and John starts to take off his clothes.  He feels funny stripping in a place where anyone could come into the room at any time, but he knows the nurses request isn’t optional.  These are not the kinds of days that the patient has many options.  This is a doctor’s market, as it were.

The nurses enter the room after knocking about five minutes later, which John is thankful for, and they insert a swab deeply up his nose.  They tell him he will feel discomfort, but that is an understatement.  He wants to punch the nurse who took the test in the face.  Just as quickly as that thought arrived, the nurses take the swab and walk out of the room, leaving him to wonder if now he went from being John Grayson to one of the exponentially growing statistics being touted by the media as the reason we must quarantine ourselves off from the world.  His grandkids and most people had started calling it “the Q”, and he rather liked that designation, so he did too.  But he found “the Q” event as a whole to be quite irritating.

About a half hour later, just as he was getting to the deep part of his thoughts on life in the Q, the doctor opens the door and slowly walks in the room, as well dressed as the nurses had been.  He smiles through his mask and tries to make John feel comfortable, but no one feels good in the hospital these days.  The doctor appears to be around the same age as John, or maybe a few years younger.  John sits down on the hospital table when the doctor introduces himself and asks him to talk.  The gown lifts above  John’s knee, and he feels vulnerable all of a sudden flashing bare legs and feet at the doctor’s direction. But then there is something in the doctor’s eyes as he looks down that direction.  He doesn’t speak, but suddenly excuses himself and leaves the room.

John doesn’t know what happened, but he does a double take at his legs again.  Nothing funny about his knees.  Years of running have taken its toll on them, but they are healthy enough to walk for now.  They don’t always like him when he wakes up in the morning, but after a few minutes or so, they forgive him.  His legs appear normal enough, for a 70 year old.  And his feet are oddly shaped – Nancy always says they looked like Flinstones feet – but nothing weird about them, except for the small heart shaped birthmark on the top of his right foot.

After two minutes of thinking, another doctor walks in the room, surprising John.  The new doctor starts to ask him questions that are different than what the previous medical practitioner asked.  They are personal. “Where are you from?”  “Tell me about your family history.”  He even asks if he had been in Vietnam.  John takes the questions in stride, and answers them honestly, going as far as to tell the doctor that he does not remember his life before he woke up at the army hospital some 50 plus years ago now.  The doctor thanks him for answering the questions, and walks out of the room.

Almost immediately, the original doctor returns to John’s room and John thinks he sees tears in his goggled eyes.  A long pause settles between the two men, and John doesn’t know why.  He feels like the doctor is going to give him some kind of diagnosis deeper than some fad virus that lots of people have.

“John,” the doctor says quietly,”I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe that you’re my brother.  My brother that I haven’t seen for 50 years.  I have looked for you, and over time, given up hope that I would ever see you again.  I was told by more than one person that you were dead, but I believe, somehow in my heart, and based on what I see in you – and your birthmark – that you sir, are my brother.  My brother, Mark, had that exact birthmark on his foot.  My brother, Mark, though it has been 50 years…looked very much like you.  And though I may be wrong, I am almost sure that you are my brother Mark.  So I cannot give you a little help and then let you walk out of here without telling you that.”

John sits stunned at what the doctor has just said.  He doesn’t know what to say.

“What did you say your name was again?” John barely breathes out.

“It’s Peter,” the doctor replies.  “Peter Martin.”

“If you are my brother,” John asks with moist eyes, “Then why…why didn’t my parents file some sort of missing report? Why didn’t they ever report me missing?  I’ve seen the records, and the army, and Nancy, my wife, they all did the research.  No one with the last name of Martin ever reached out and inquired about what happened to me.  They just forgot about me?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Peter says grabbing the chair in the corner and placing John’s clothing on the floor.  The chair finds it’s way next to John and Peter continues.  “They started to reach out, but your brigade had been accused of something, well, something horrible.  They reached out anyways, but as soon as they mentioned what brigade you were apart of, whoever they talked to would hang up and say something about the My Lai Massacre.  At the time, we had no idea what that was, but for a while, it became a major news story.  It looked like you were involved in it, so they stopped calling.  But as we talked some more, we knew you couldn’t have been involved, so we tried to figure out a strategy to find out what happened to you.  Eventually, we found out the name of those in charge of your brigade.  Those who did horrible things to that village…”

Peter’s voice trails off as if he is begging John to not have been a part of what happened.  John found out later that almost 500 men, women, and children were brutally murdered by the 11th Infantry Brigade.

Peter continues.  “During the trial of Lieutenant William Calley Jr…”

John’s eyes widen when Peter says that name.  It tenses up his body, and gives him a chill he hasn’t felt in years.  Peter notices but keeps going.

“Our parents received permission to ask Calley if he knew you, and knew where you were.  They told me he was nice enough when they talked to him, but he told them you were lost and killed in a battle a few days before the massacre.  He said you would never be recovered, so we mourned you.  We cried.  We had a funeral and a reception.  Our parents died heartbroken over the next five years.  They were older anyways, but your death accelerated the process.”

Peter kneels down humbly next to John in tears, and John knows Peter is not only telling the truth, but he understands all of a sudden who he is7.  He walked into the hospital today as John Grayson, and would hopefully be leaving as Mark Martin, brother of Peter Martin, a hero at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

 

 

If you’re interested in more writing from Martin Holman, check out his first novel, “Flat Earth” on paperback, kindle, or Apple Books.

Go buy a book!

My first novel, “Flat Earth” is now officially released and ready to buy digitally!  You can buy it on Kindle or Apple Books or Kobo or Smashwords. Print versions and audiobooks will be coming shortly. If you’re looking for a good book to read, consider trying this one for a late night read or your virtual book club!  I hope you like it!  If you choose not to buy it, still go buy a book and support authors during this time.

 

p.s. This picture is a snapshot I took at 12:00 pm when my first book was officially released.

That time I almost Quit

On a cold December morning in 2017, I met with a group of friends (that I still meet with, though this morning it will be on Zoom) and we discussed our dreams.  Not the kind that you have when you’ve spun through a deep cycle of sleep and are close to waking up, but the ones that spur you on to make it through this life.  The dreams that push you to be better than you are, while at the same time help you be the person you were created to become.

I told the group of men that my dream was to write a novel.  That desire had been lodged within me at least since I turned 26 and had experienced one of the craziest drama filled events my life would bring me through, and I started to write about it.  But I never finished that manuscript.  My friend Steve, though, challenged me to start and to finish a novel, and each week for the next several months, he reminded me by questions why I needed to keep going.

So I started the journey.  In late December of that year, I began what is now chapter 33 of “Flat Earth”.  But I didn’t know how to write a novel.  So by June of 2018, another manuscript of about 10,000 words laid quietly in the halls of my desktop files known as “Documents”.

Then in late 2018, I found myself in the unfortunate predicament of stepping down from a job I loved after 20 years.  So I talked extensively to Dan, another friend of mine who is a writer and has published several books.  Dan taught me the art of outlining, how to do an outline, and how not to be subservient to an outline while you’re working through the creative process.  Finally, I was on my way to finishing my novel.

But one other thing happened that helped me during that time.

My wife and I didn’t know what we were going to do after I left my job.  All cards were on the table.  One dream my wife always had though was to live for an extended period of time with our family of six in a hispanic country.  We talked of Puerto Rico or Panama or maybe even Valencia, Spain, the place where Carie studied for several months while she was in college.

We decided to travel to Valencia, Spain, where we lived for a month in March of 2019.  I can’t tell you how amazing this place is, and even now, a part of me longs to be there at times.  Now you might say, “Well Marty, you had the opportunity to go to Spain, of course you finished your book there.  While that might be true of someone just out of college traveling Europe using a backpack and daddy’s credit card, that is most definitely not true of a father of four kids 6 and under.  My wife and I spent the days from 8 – 8 walking and riding a bus around the incredible city of Valencia, where we found ourselves knee deep in culture, beaches, history, and a Christmas like celebration (they also do Christmas) that month known as Las Fallas.

So I spent the hours of 9pm – 2am or, on some occasions 3:30am – 8am writing and working from 10,000 – 65,000 words of this novel, and when we arrived home, I finished the other 30,000 words over the course of the next three months.

Over the last 6-8 months, I’ve edited, fine-tuned, and rearranged “Flat Earth” into what it currently and I hope you enjoy it, but even if you don’t, I was able to do something I absolutely loved and dreamed about for what almost half of my life.  Tomorrow my novel will be released, and I’ll have the satisfaction and the discomfort of having people read, enjoy, critique, or absolutely hate what I’ve written, but that’s totally okay with me.  My dream is complete.  Now on to the next one!

Would you do me two favors if you are reading this:

A) Would you read the first chapter of “Flat Earth” if you haven’t done so?  You can find it here.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on that today or whenever you are reading this.

B) Would you share this post on social media with someone or with people who you know might be quitting on a dream?

Thanks so much for reading my journey, and I hope you enjoy “Flat Earth”.  It releases at Midnight tonight.

Some Good News Network

In case you are one of the last people in America who haven’t seen John Krasinki’s “SGN” Network, we thought we’d share it with you here.  John and his wife Emily Blunt decided they had heard enough bad news everywhere and playfully produced a newscast of all good news!  Check it out and comment what you think of all this good news, including John interviewing Steve Carell, his co-start from the sitcom, “The Office”.