Dear Jackie,
If you send me your e-mail in a comment on the blog I will write to you. All blog comments are screened so your e-mail will not become public knowledge.
I am glad things are going well for you, making new friends, that is wonderful, as are you.
Peter
Mr. Walsch is known for writing the best selling series, “Conversations with God.”
The story goes like this. According to the New York Times, author (I use the term here with great confidence) Candy Chand wrote a lovely, heart warming Christmas story about her son, Nicholas, and his Christmas pageant. It was published in 1999 and again in 2000 in a book called “Chicken Soup for the Christmas Family Soul” where, according to the Times, Ms. Chand is clearly identified as the author.
Mr. Walsch’s response to all this, his apology, which I don’t believe, and his explanation, which is beyond belief, is worth telling in case any of you are trolling about for science fiction story lines or are gearing up for a remake of
The Twilight Zone series.According to the Times, Mr. Walsch said he was “truly mystified and taken aback by this — is that someone must have sent it (Ms. Chand’s story) to me over the Internet ten years or so ago… Finding it utterly charming and its message indelible, I must have clipped and pasted it into my file of ‘stories to tell that have a message I want to share.’ I have told the story verbally so many times over the years that I had it memorized … and then, somewhere along the way, internalized it as my own experience.”
In case your eyebrows are only halfway up your forehead and you have the overwhelming desire to drive them right up to your hairline, read on. Mr. Walsch went on to say, “I am chagrined and astonished that my mind could play such a trick on me.” Gee, Neale, I hate when that happens.
Your astonished that your mind could play such a trick on you?? Are you fucking kidding me? Your mind
is you, knucklehead.Ms. Chand does not believe Mr. Walsch. Good for her. Neither do I. And while I would like to end this essay with my own parting shot at Mr. Walsch, I think what Ms. Chand said in a telephone interview more than deserves total sway here.
“Has the man who writes best-selling books about his ‘Conversations With God’ also heard God’s commandments? ‘Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie, and thou shalt not covet another author’s property’?”
All I can say is,
You go girl!There are times, like now, this early January morning, it is 5:43 a.m. as I write these words, that two ideas join hands, two images, if you will.
One is about the complete and utter joy I feel when I get regular mail, not e-mail, mail. Yesterday I was comfortably ensconced in my ugly orange Archie Bunker living-room chair writing in my journal when I saw the mail carrier arrive and put mail in the mailbox. It was all I could do not to leap out of my chair and race to the mailbox because when I see mail arrive I am often swept up in the same kind of joy a child feels on Christmas morning.
Am I alone in the world in my response to getting mail? I doubt it. Getting mail is in some way a reminder that the world knows you are alive. And the utter joy I feel when the two magazines I subscribe too (The New Yorker and The Atlantic) arrive is indescribable.
The second notion I was pondering is the answer to a question I have been asked recently, twice actually, about what I want in a relationship, what I want to be true in a relationship with a woman. There are some non-negotiables for me in a relationship: no emotional or physical violence, no drugs, preferably someone who does not smoke (anything), and at the risk of sounding shallow and close minded, I have a tough time with unshaved legs and armpits. Silly of me? Maybe. But maybe not. I know there are woman who will do an about face when they see I have a beard or goatee.
Now, what does getting mail and relationships have in common, and why am I, for some reason, connecting them in my head? Damned if I know. However, maybe it has to do with the hope that in any relationship there is always a joy and wonder felt when listening too and experiencing what comes out of the mind and heart of the person you are with.
Again, what does getting mail and relationships really have in common? Not sure. But, what the hell, this is my essay.
I can say that above all else in any relationship I want us to be best friends – emotionally, physically and spiritually at peace with each other – and safe to be who we are with each other, as happy nesting quietly together at home as we are exploring the world around us.
Has this been a fragmented, disjointed essay. Sure has. What can I tell you… other than thank you for toughing it out.
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Keep Bernard L. Madoff in jail for Godsakes. The guy is the likely head of a $50 billion Ponzi scheme and what? He’s home in his penthouse with an ankle bracelet on? Are you kidding me? Now it seems he and his wife have begun mailing valuables to family members. And there is still some question in the eyes of some nitwits as to whether or not this twit should be in jail?
A Ponzi scheme, by the way, is a pyramid scheme of sorts in which a fraudulent investment operation pays returns to investors from money paid into the scheme by other investors when, in fact, there are no profits at all. The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi who used it when he immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1903.
And then we have poor Harry Markopolos, a financial examiner who’d been warning the SEC for nearly 10 years about Mr. Madoff. He was supposed to be a star witness for Congress when suddenly he backed off claiming, in part, that he was not feeling well enough to travel.
Let me pause here for a moment because there is a chance, however remote that might be, that someone reading this may believe Mr. Markopolos is telling the truth about not feeling well and is not being coerced, pressured or, dare I say it, threatened into not testifying. Lest I leave such a reader unattended, may I say to him or her that I willing to sell my 600,000 acres of the approved-for-oil-drilling parcel of Alaska Wilderness for the amazingly reasonable price of $100,000 – cash on the barrelhead, thank you very much.
My heart does go out to those of Mr. Markopolos’s ilk. I’ve been a human rights activist and whistle blower at times when people are getting, how shall I say, fucked over, and have paid a heavy price for it.
But as to where Mr. Madoff should be resting his dishonest greedy little head? A nice firm cell bunk would be my choice. I think that’s a nice return for him, dontcha think?
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At any rate, bless you Jackie for your question and be safe in life.
My best to you all,
Peter
Peter S. Kahrmann - Est. 1953 