Randy Elrod's Blog, page 11

La Fantasía es mi Arenero de Adulto

Uno de mis recuerdos favoritos es papá construyendo un tosco arenero para nosotros los niños. Era de madera vieja y estaba lleno de arena fina y blanda. Jugábamos a fantasear durante horas y construíamos castillos de arena dorados que brillaban al sol, fingiendo ser valientes caballeros como Sir Lancelot, blandiendo lanzas gigantes, salvando a bellas...

Fantasy is My Adult Sandbox

One of my favorite memories is Dad building a crude sandbox for us children. It was constructed of ancient lumber and filled with soft, fine sand. We would play make-believe for hours and build golden sandcastles that would glisten in the sun, pretending to be brave knights like Sir Lancelot, wielding giant lances, saving fair...

Todos mis mejores amigos

3 de septiembre de 2024 No importa cómo nos definamos, a menudo nos falta la prueba de que hay otros como nosotros, lo que puede resultar profundamente solitario. Lo más aterrador de todo es que podemos empezar a entender lo que significa ser alguien que está apartado de alguna manera: por su complejidad, raza, discapacidad...

All My Best Friends

No matter how we define ourselves, we often lack proof that there are others like us, which can be profoundly lonely. Scariest of all, we may begin to understand what it means to be someone who is set apart in some way: because of complexity, race, disability, or one of the dozen other ways society...

Inside Then Out

One of the most traumatic events in life is experiencing an American religious community from the inside and from the outside. I spent most of my life living, working, and ministering in the “Bible Belt,” the cultural and political epicenter of American evangelical Christianity. Still, I’ve been progressively branded a traitor to the faith during...

Leaving America

Why did I leave? What was I looking for? How did I get the courage to give up all I knew for a place I had barely seen? Was it the desire to flee the division, turmoil, and seething anger—the racism, ageism, mass murders, and gun violence? Was it a need to escape the trauma...

The Yes Within Ourselves

We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, to affirm our deepest cravings. The yes within has been educated out, churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out of our being. The heartbreaking truth of life is that we get farther away every year from the yes that was born within us....

My Erotic Awakening (as an Eleven-Year-Old)

I am trying to remember how I discovered Robert Heinlein’s books. I may have picked them up while working as an aide in my public school library in the 5th or 6th grade or, more likely, at Goodwill, where Mom would take us to buy second-hand books. Thanks to a minister father, I was raised...

My 15 Favorite Watercolors (out of 300+) and Why

I’ve completed over 300 paintings in two decades, an average of more than one per month. That does not include numerous sketches, graphite drawings, castings, artistic photographs, and three-dimensional art. Choosing favorites from creations that are all one’s “babies” is daunting. But here are my favorite fifteen watercolors and my interpretation, fully realizing yours may...

Why This Non-Druggie Believes in Psychedelics

I have never been much for drugs of any kind: aspirin, decongestants, blood pressure medicine, cholesterol-lowering medicine, marijuana, or any other drug-type product. Perhaps this life-long aversion to medicine unconsciously comes from my old-time Pentecostal background that opposed medical directives and advocated divine healing provided in the atonement of Jesus.  However, after seven decades of watching...