Twenty-Eight Years Ago This Afternoon.....

.... I was at pre-game football practice on the game field at Atascadero High School as starting senior center on this date in 1988. This was after school and before the team was to drive down to Orange County to play Trabuco Hills High School in a CIF Southern Section semi-final game. I was interrupted mid-practice by mom showing up to tell me Granpda McGee had just died (at age 84) at his senior convalescent facility on Heather Court in Templeton, CA. I ended practice at that moment and went home with mom. She and my brother and I drove down to southern California and spent the night in a motel. My team spent a boisterous and distracted night in a motel even closer to the school. I participated in the game the next afternoon into evening. We got blown out something like 42-7 much like the Los Angeles Times sports section had predicted.

My head was only partially in the game for obvious reasons. I had just lost the second most significant male in my life following losing my dad three years earlier during my freshman year of high school. By this point I was already circling the drain mental health-wise as I slid further into chronic and crippling anxiety attacks and depression which I worked hard to suppress from those around me and this would only get worse. I'm still trying to rebuild my life to this very day 28 years later. However, rebuilding I am, and God is good to have me still be here and have rebuilt as much as I have with so much still to go.

Long Time No See Grandpa McGee

This evening on Facebook, a friend of our family, Pastor Don Rhoads, who was a protege of my maternal grandfather, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, mentioned in response to my posting one of grandpa's Sunday Sermons from his time at the iconic Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles sometime during the period 1949-1970, that there were video recordings of grandpa on Youtube. I never imagined there was any such thing on Youtube and never bothered to check. How foolish have I been?! Below are what I found with the topmost being the oldest (when he was youngest) and in descending order his newer stuff as he got older as near as I can visually determine his age relative to each video (I might have #1 and #2 switched wrong). Just looking at these briefly really makes me miss him a lot.

Quote of the Day - Death Valley Scotty

I have always loved this quote from legendary raconteur and racketeer Walter E. Scott, but had forgotten it until reminded of it on Twitter this morning. By the way, my late grandfather Dr. J. Vernon McGee met this man who was also known as "Death Valley Scotty" at Scotty's Castle back in the middle part of the 20th century.

"...Don’t give advice---nobody will take it anyway. Don’t complain. Don’t explain.”
~ Death Valley Scotty

Top Ten J.V. McGee Things You Probably Didn't Know

Here are ten things I bet most of you did not know about my late maternal grandfather, John Vernon McGee, known to you as Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

1. Hated his first name John, hence "J. Vernon" McGee.
2. Was a reserve in the US Army cavalry as a very young man. 
3. While casting about as a youth, at least once attended a Communist Party meeting.
4. Met his soul-mate, Ruth Inez Jordan, on a blind date set up by mutual married friends.
5. Tried to enlist as a chaplain during World War II but was informed he was too old.
6. Was an avid rockhound often heading to the High Desert in the 1940s & 1950s. 
7. Enjoyed photography, especially of flowers and Pasadena's Rose Parade.
8. Favorite flower was the camellia which grew in abundance in his back yard.  
9. Was strongly afraid of flying in an airplane (but flew a lot anyway).
10. Once received a high-end popcorn maker from actress Joan Crawford (long story). 

Cal Tech Kim-Day

Today I did a "Kim Day." A "Kim Day", for those of you who don't know, is a day in which I pretty much ignore my phone, do not attend to any of my regular responsibilities, and I take a day trip somewhere to do something cool... cool to me anyway. My 1990's into much of the 2000's was one giant "Kim Day" so I don't do them much anymore having pretty much expended a lifetime's worth. In fact, nowadays, I do this less frequently than a blue or a blood moon.

I was born in Pasadena, CA. Pasadena is home. Pasadena has changed. I have changed. You can't go home again. I don't want to live in Pasadena again. However, I can visit Pasadena. I enjoy visiting Pasadena and reflecting. Then I find myself happy to leave and head back home to the Central Coast. While growing up I either lived in Pasadena-Altadena, lived in a nearby city (Monrovia or Temple City), or visited Pasadena-Altadena from the Central Coast where I have lived since 1982 when I was age 11 turning 12. While growing up on the Central Coast my family commuted to Pasadena almost every weekend after my dad died in 1985.

Earthquakes have been an integral part of my entire life... a recurring theme and a common thread connecting so much of it. Also part of my reality has been the California Institute of Technology a.k.a. Cal Tech. Being in Pasadena, living or visiting, it has been a regular presence in my life, just like earthquakes. Added to that propinquity with Cal Tech, earthquakes in Southern California made Cal Tech a regular part of my earthquake experience as it has been for all Southern Californians since the days of Dr. Charles F. Richter. The public face of Cal Tech, earthquake-wise, has been Dr. Kate Hutton for 37 years. Whenever there has been a significant earthquake, she walked us through it emotionally more than anything else, by answering our questions. She was and is not just our seismologist, but also our quake mommy whom we run to for comfort after a scary earthquake. I feel like I grew up with her even though I never met her until more recently. I first encountered Kate online on California's Earthquake Forum and a bit later on California Disasters. She is good people and, despite her celebrity, remained a regular person which is more than can be said for many people who become famous. I later met Kate in person in 2009 at the Los Angeles County Arboretum when I did the Monrovia Rockhound's 46th annual rock show. 

For some time I have been wanting to take a tour of the seismo-lab at Cal Tech. In 2006 I did the USGS Menlo Park tour on the 100th anniversary of the 1906 "San Francisco" Earthquake. Heading into the holidays this year I felt it was time to take a Cal Tech tour. This year thematically for me as been a year of not holding back and trying new things and when necessary, stepping outside of my comfort zone. I mentioned to Kate my desire to drop in on Cal Tech and she graciously agreed to indulge me. Despite my car's mechanical integrity in question I decided to "damn the torpedoes" and go down to Pasadena today and trust God to keep me safe and my car roadworthy... which He did. Initially I hoped my mother would share the experience, but she was unable to attend.  Therefore, today turned into a "Kim Day."

The cherry on top for me was the fact a Santa Ana Wind event was setting up across Southern California today. On this day, I first encountered them on the south side of the Cuesta Grade where I was buffeted by down-slope winds at about 5 a.m. When I broke out onto Gaviota Coast on Highway 101 at about 6 a.m. I was greeted by about the most magical scene I have ever witnessed. The first light of dawn was turning the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel a dark blue to almost black upon which mysterious-looking but beautiful lights on oil platforms and ships twinkled. The sky was starting to low-glow in the east and illuminate just enough of the landscape of the Channel Islands beyond and on the Santa Ynez Mountains onshore to create a spectacularly beautiful sight. I did not feel like stopping to take photos (except one) and I'm not sure many a photo taken from the 101 Freeway corridor would have done the sight due justice. At the Ventura River I encountered the first current of strong Santa Ana Winds since the Cuesta Grade earlier. I could see its footprint on the sea-surface which was rippled by the winds where just north of there the sea-surface was smooth as glass. By the time I reached the Los Angeles Basin the winds were still in the process of clearing out the haze but the north wind could be seen pushing it ocean-ward. Below are some images of the highlights of my day.

Dawn over the Santa Barbara Channel.

This the the following images were taken from the top of Lake Avenue in Altadena, CA.

Verdugo Hills and Crescenta Valley

Downtown Pasadena, CA.

Downtown Los Angeles, CA with Palos Verdes Peninsula at left in distance.

Crescenta Valley with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's campus visible at center in middle distance.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada-Flintridge.

Lake Avenue headed down the hill towards downtown Pasadena, CA.

Downtown Pasadena, CA.

Downtown Los Angeles, CA, with the Rose Bowl superstructure at right in the foreground.

Where you see hills, think earthquakes because that is how these hills were built up over geologic time.

Santa Catalina Island is in the distance, then Palos Verdes Peninsula in middle distance.

Whittier Hills and Orange County beyond.

Santa Ana Mountains in the distance.

Whittier Hills and Puente Hills

I saw this CERT class advertisement on a sign on Lake Avenue.

Dr. and Mrs. McGee's old house at 1285 Woodbury Drive in Altadena, CA.
To me it always was and remains "The Folk's House."

The new owners have really fixed it up nice.

The charming but destructive ivy is all gone in front but the wonderful trees are still there.

The late Dr. Lois Groth's old home now stands abandoned and looks like a haunted house across the street from "The Folk's House." This used to be the tidiest and neatest property on all of Woodbury Drive from east to west.

A beautiful Santa Ana Windy day in Pasadena... these are the most beautiful days of the year at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. To me this is a quintessential Santa Ana Wind scene in this neighborhood that conjures many fond memories from my childhood.

I love this campus... I'm just not smart enough to attend school there.

Perhaps the most interesting map on the wall this day at Cal Tech's seismo-lab.

The media room at the seismo-lab at Cal Tech.

Kate firing up the big screen.

This was a simulation of the earthquake early warning system.

Each media outlet has its own feed connection.

Interesting paleo-seismological exhibit.

The Cal Tech Earthquake Exhibit
All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - J. Vernon McGee Memorial Sunset

This was the scene I captured from the same location as previous Picture of the Day image I captured earlier in the day (intersection of Jardine Road and Highway 46 east of Paso Robles, CA. Twenty-six years ago today my grandfather, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, passed away aged 84 at the convalescent hospital at the end of Heather Court in Templeton, CA, across the street from Twin Cities Community Hospital. That location is in the dark distance at the bottom left of this image. This El Niño sunset seems a suitable tribute to my favorite grandfather.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Jeremiah's Lamentation ~ My Lamentation - Pt. 2

Last November in this blog I posted PART ONE of this two-part series. Tonight I will cover the second part of the passage in question, to wit, Lamentations 3:22-47. By way of review I repeat my previous preface.

Back in the time of my wandering in the wilderness (biblically, metaphorically-speaking) during my 20's and much of my 30's I was lost inside my own head and lost from the world as I suffered under the heavy burden and dark oppression of mental illness and spiritual desolation. This was the direct result of  both spiritual as well as social things in my environment such as my father's untimely death when I was 15 and then losing Grandpa McGee when I was 18 just three years later which makes this time of year difficult. All the while I was dealing with the social drama on both sides of my family (and within it my immediate family) along with all the crap that comes with coming of age at that time. The real topper on this story was my having God actively in my life yet wanting little to do with Him. This placed me in direct conflict with the Him which is never a great idea.

There were multiple levels of environmental causation for this as well as spiritual causation from my losing my dad and not having any males in the family step in and be my mentor and father figure to my being under God's reproof for my pride, stubbornness, idleness, selfishness, and unthankfulness. My mental illness took the form of major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder that I know of and perhaps others I don't yet realize.

I have turned back to God and I am doing ever better on all fronts, spiritual, mental-emotional-psychological, physical, social, academic, etc. This is not to say I don't experience up and downs and plateaus and an occasional two-steps-backward-to-get-three-steps-forward any different than anybody else. However, at least I am in a consistently healthy place yet with room to improve in some areas that continue to bedevil me and yet I am still ever growing and evolving.

On a morning a month ago at church I found myself reading my Bible in the cafe and opened to this passage and was blown away by it as it caused me to recall that dark place I know so well but have not been in for some time now. I am dividing this up into two parts for the sake of functionality on this blog and ease of perusal for you, the reader. The FIRST PART offered an insight into the place I was during those dark years, a place which I realize others have been in although in a different context and for a different purpose. This sequel offers the upshot resolution to my ongoing story, to wit, what I had to do to get back on track with God.

"It is of God's manifold mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion fails not.

They are renewed every morning: how great is your faithfulness.

The Lord is my portion, I say to myself; therefore will I hope in Him.

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him.

It advantages a person to both hope in and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

It is beneficial that a person bear their yokes in the time of their youth.

They sit in silent solitude, because He hath laid this yoke upon them.

They put their face in the dirt, if yet there may be hope.

They offer their cheek to them that smite it: they are fully reproached.

For the Lord will not cast us away forever: but though He inflicts grief upon us, yet will He show compassion according to his manifold mercies.

For He does not enthusiastically cause harm to people.

Crushing underfoot those in bondage in the Earth, depriving people of justice before God, and defrauding people in their endeavors, the Lord does not approve.

Who says anything at all and it happens when God has not commanded it thus?

Out of God's mouth proceeds not things both bad and good?

Why do the living complain about the punishment of their sins?

Let us examine ourselves and  judge our ways and turn back to God.

May we offer upward our hearts to God in the heavens.

We have transgressed and rebelled and you have not pardoned us.

You have enveloped us in your anger and persecuted us: you have killed us seemingly without pity.

You have obscured yourself from us as if with a cloud so that our prayer should not reach you.

You have relegated us to the status of scum and garbage in the eyes of other people.

All of our enemies have criticized us.

Fear and hazard has come upon us, desolation and destruction."

~Lamentations 3:22-47 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Jeremiah's Lamentation ~ My Lamentation - Pt. 1

Back in the time of my wandering in the wilderness (biblically, metaphorically-speaking) during my 20's and much of my 30's I was lost inside my own head and lost from the world as I suffered under the heavy burden and dark oppression of mental illness and spiritual desolation. This was the direct result of  both spiritual as well as social things in my environment such as my father's untimely death when I was 15 and then losing Grandpa McGee when I was 18 just three years later which makes this time of year difficult. All the while I was dealing with the social drama on both sides of my family (and within it my immediate family) along with all the crap that comes with coming of age at that time. The real topper on this story was my having God actively in my life yet wanting little to do with Him. This placed me in direct conflict with the Him which is never a great idea.

There were multiple levels of environmental causation for this as well as spiritual causation from my losing my dad and not having any males in the family step in and be my mentor and father figure to my being under God's reproof for my pride, stubbornness, idleness, selfishness, and unthankfulness. My mental illness took the form of major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder that I know of and perhaps others I don't yet realize.

I have turned back to God and I am doing ever better on all fronts, spiritual, mental-emotional-psychological, physical, social, academic, etc. This is not to say I don't experience up and downs and plateaus and an occasional two-steps-backward-to-get-three-steps-forward any different than anybody else. However, at least I am in a consistently healthy place yet with room to improve in some areas that continue to bedevil me and yet I am still ever growing and evolving.

This morning at church I was reading my Bible in a freelance fashion (in the cafe, NOT the sanctuary during the service) and opened to this passage and was blown away by it as it caused me to recall that dark place I know so well but have not been in for some time now, thank God. I am dividing this up into two parts for the sake of functionality on this blog and ease of perusal for you, the reader. This first part offers an insight into the place I was during those dark years, a place which I realize others have been in although in a different context and for a different purpose. The Second Part offers the upshot resolution to my ongoing story, to wit, what I had to do to get back on track with God.

"I am the man who has seen troubles by the rod of His wrath.

He has led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

Surely against ME is He turned; His hand is turned against me all day long.

My flesh and my skin has he made old: He has broken all my bones.

He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and travail.

He has banished me into a dark place as one who has been long dead.

He has walled me in so that I cannot escape. He has placed heavy chains upon me.

Also, when I cry and shout out to Him for help, He shuts out my prayers.

He has placed roadblocks of hewn stone in my path, he has made my paths crooked.

He was unto me as a bear stalking me, as a hidden lion crouching.

He has derailed me and torn me asunder and left me in ruin.

He has drawn down upon me with his bow and targeted me with his arrows.

He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my heart.

I was a derision to all my people and their taunt all the day long.

He has filled me with bitterness, made me drunk with gall.

He has shattered my teeth with gravel, buried me in ashes.

You removed me far away from peace: I forgot what prosperity felt like.

I said to myself: "My strength from and my hope in God have died",

When I remembered my affliction and misery along with the bitterness and gall.

I still remember all of this and am humbled.

My memory of it all gives me hope."

~Lamentations 3:1-21 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Quote of the Day - Dr. J. Vernon McGee

Today was a memorably beautiful spring day here on the Central Coast (North County of SLO Co. in particular). As I was walking my dog this morning I remembered an old saying my Grandpa McGee (Dr. J. Vernon McGee) used to utter on such days:

"I'd sure hate to be dead on a day like this." 

My Rockhounding Pedigree Runs Deep

Today my mother showed me some images she recently received of herself and her parents (Dr. and Mrs. J. Vernon McGee) taken back in the 1930's and 1940's. The source of the images are the Dunn Family whom attended Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, CA, people whom the McGee's liked and respected. Amongst the images a member of the Dunn Family recently sent mom are three showing my grandparents out on the Mojave Desert on a rockhounding excursion with the Dunn Family. We already knew the McGee's liked to do that sort of thing back when my mother was a child. Mom had childhood memories of making such trips out to the Mojave Desert back in the 1940's into the 1950's including to Scotty's Castle back when it was still managed by the Gospel Foundation which repeatedly allowed the McGee Family to lodge there. What we did not know was that my grandparents went on rockhounding jaunts prior to my mom's birth and that they specifically visited the mining town of Calico, CA, in the late 1930's, something we realized as a result of viewing the images below. Calico is a place that has always been special to me and my parents as they used to take my brother and I out there when we were growing up in the 1970's into early 1980's. I visited the place again twice in the 2000's. Now that I know more fully my family connection to the place I feel compelled to get back out there as soon as I can make the trip. I also now know that my family rockhounding legacy goes back about 75 years. It is also worth noting that my paternal grandfather James Edwin Noyes also cast about on the Mojave Desert back in the early days around this same time and ultimately worked for Continental Conveyor which designed and built conveyor belt systems for mines and quarries around the world. Special thanks to my friend Mark Wiberg for digitalizing these images for me and to Lin Kerns for cleaning them up for me.

Grandpa McGee at far right and Grandma McGee second from left.

Grandpa McGee resting on a blanket while Grandma McGee snacks.

Grandpa McGee (foreground) walking out of the Calico General Store circa late 1930's.

  All photos by Gene & Alice Dunn or Luther & Helen Dunn courtesy of Margie Dunn (All rights reserved).

Dr. J. Vernon McGee's LA Times Obituary

Rev. J. Vernon McGee, 84; Pioneer Radio Evangelist

December 04, 1988|TERRY PRISTIN | Times Staff Writer

The Rev. J. Vernon McGee, a pioneer radio evangelist and pastor of the Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles for 21 years, died Thursday of heart failure at a nursing home in Templeton, Calif. He was 84.

McGee's "Thru the Bible" series, which he launched in 1967, was eventually heard on 600 radio stations and was also broadcast overseas. The program was based on a midweek Bible class he had begun teaching in his early days as a pastor.

McGee first recognized the value of radio ministries in the 1930s, and his popular broadcasts and powerful personality helped swell attendance at the downtown church at a time when other urban parishes were in decline. Under his leadership, membership grew by a third, with as many as 4,000 worshipers crowding into the church on Sundays.

Despite the acclaim, McGee played down his oratorical talents, often describing himself as "just a plowboy," according to the Rev. Dale O. Wolery, associate pastor of the Church of the Open Door.

'Not a Pulpit Thumper'

"I do not feel that I have the gift of an evangelist," McGee said in 1965. "I am not a pulpit thumper. I just talk."

But it was precisely McGee's down-home approach that inspired his listeners. "He was very practical in his Bible teaching," Wolery said. "He explained the Scriptures verse by verse and taught them clearly."

Born in Hillsboro, Tex., McGee and his family moved 24 times before he was 14. After the death of his father, a cotton mill engineer, the family settled in Nashville, Tenn. McGee became a bank teller but left that job to study at Southwest University (now Rhodes College) in Memphis, Tenn.

He earned a bachelor of divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia and master and doctor of theology degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas.

Ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1933, he was pastor of churches in Nashville and in Cleburne, Tex., before taking up the pulpit at Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian Church of Pasadena in 1941.

Retired in 1970

After eight years in Pasadena, he became pastor of the nondenominational Church of the Open Door at 558 S. Hope St.--famous for its neon "Jesus Saves" sign--where he remained until his retirement in 1970.

Fifteen years later, he delivered the final sermon at the church's downtown site before the congregation relocated to Glendora. Wolery said McGee preached at dedication services for the new facility last July.

McGee had a well-publicized break with the Presbyterian Church in 1955 after he charged that the church's "liberal leadership has taken over the machinery of the presbytery with a boldness and ruthlessness that is appalling."

 McGee, the author of more than 100 books on Bible subjects, is survived by his wife, Ruth of Pasadena, a daughter and two grandsons. A private graveside service is planned for Monday. Officials of Thru the Bible Radio Network plan to hold a memorial service next month.

Source

Are Demons Volcanic Or Volcanoes Demonic?

Two Sunday's ago I was in attendance at my Sunday church home (as opposed to my Saturday evening church home). My usual pastor was not there as he was filling in at another church elsewhere in the county whose pastor was away. We now have two assistant/associate pastors so filling in for our primary pastor for a few weekends in a row is not crippling. The new assistant/associate pastor is a decent man and I like him even if his manor is a bit too animated and forced-folksy for my taste. In all fairness even my beloved maternal grandfather, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, had a bit of what I think of as "forced-folksy" in his on-radio repertoire. By that I mean that the individual thus practicing it is talking in an unnatural (for them) good-old-boy country-esque/country-istic fashion for effect. There is nothing wrong with that and it does come from a long tradition. It's just that I do not personally care for it as I just like to hear the straight dope in a direct and articulate and undramatized fashion. I don't need to be entertained or soothed or given an emotional "happy ending" in church. In fact, in a church or preaching context I abhor the very concept of it. Just call it a pet peeve of mine!

To further preface what I'm clumsily working my way toward saying is that my Sunday church home is Pentecostal and Charismatic while I am quite contently agnostic when it comes to Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement. There are good people there I love and respect and whom I know have very real relationships with God who are rather decidedly of these persuasions. I could get into the semantics of why I disagree with them on a doctrinal level not to mention on an experiential and practical level but that is for another time that I fully intend to see come about here.

Anywho, this new assistant/associate pastor (who joins the one we already had and whom I also like) talked about this and that and none of it really spoke to me on that day. However, at a certain point a rather curious development appeared in his sermon. He related an incident when one of his now-grown sons got violently ill when the son was a small child. This pastor related that the kid had violent diarrhea which came in bouts throughout the night and this pastor stayed up all night with the child to care for him. At a certain point he noted that immediately preceding any episode of this violent diarrhea he would detect a sulphurous odor in the room and then the child would get violently ill. He claimed that he got a verse from God at a certain point that let him know this illness was demonically-caused and the smell was coming from the presence of the demon(s) when they arrived to attack his son again.

Okay, here I go: it is this sort of small-minded, simplistic, superstitious, doctrinally-unsound, tin-foil hat tomfoolery of some Pentecostals and Charismatics that at times makes me want to break furniture. In these instances they are not only wrong but they are an embarrassment to our faith and have "given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme". Their hokum nonsense gets smeared on the rest of Christendom by the unbelievers out in the world. It's one thing to get mocked for serving God or have one's faith mocked by unbelievers; I'm totally down with that. It's quite another thing to face ridicule over the emotionally-unstable, anti-intellectual, doctrinally-unsound hokum of some Charismatics and Pentecostals.

What I'm getting at here is that there is no place in Scripture that suggests demons smell like sulfur or rotten eggs and more to the point I guess: the Bible does not anywhere suggest that demons have a volcanic origin thus imbuing them with the strong odor of hydrogen sulfide gas. Demons are not volcanic and volcanoes are not demonic! However, having explosive diarrhea can give you a sulphur-smelling arse! Catholicism inherited a lot of pagan concepts such as the volcanoes of  Greece and Italy being entrances into the Underworld. Later, writers like Dante had a field-day with these deeply-ingrained traditions of Hell being in the bowels of the earth populated by demons with pitch forks tormenting the damned. Even much of Protestantism for all its efforts to "un-Catholic" has not been able to get these Catholic concepts and traditions fully unrooted from their own concepts and traditions about Hell. And Pentecostals and Charismatics disproportionately relative to other sects of Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, tend to focus and rely upon emotionalism over rationalism. God has not much use for either our emotions or our rationalizations when they are out of sync with His own emotions and thoughts. Where a rational Christian like me in that situation would have thought to myself: "Holy shit, my son is so sick his ass smells like sulphur or methane... he is REALLY sick!" this good man with whom I strongly disagree on this point went through a mental-emotional process culminating in his imagining that demons were attacking his kid and God was telling him it was so and thus he boldly (and successfully) rebuked (thought he) the foul demon(s) when in fact the diarrhea ended of its own accord after playing out its natural cycle.

Scripture makes it clear that Hell has not yet been opened and thus even if Hell was volcanic in nature (just for the sake of argument) then nothing of its nature would yet be manifested outside of  it. Consequently,  no demons would be able to travel to and fro from Hell and thus have the heavy odor of hydrogen sulfide gas permeating their non-corporeal bodies which would not be possible anyway as hydrogen sulfide gas is corporeal (for lack of a better word) and not something that a non-corporeal entity would have lingering on it as it passed through the membrane that separates our universe from the adjacent one they occupy most of the time. Indeed, Hell is the final punitive destination for the demons and thus is a place they fear and would never wish to enter as they will be imprisoned within it at some point in the future and lasting for all eternity. This is likewise true for all those people here on Earth who in the past or in the present or in the future never accept(ed) Christ's gift of His life for all our sins.

Random Musings of a Ramblin' Fool XXXIX

With the end of the month coming tonight at the witching hour I thought it about time to finish at a busy month on Eclectic Arcania with another edition of Random Musings of a Ramblin' Fool. I thank all you my readers for really starting to hit this blog fairly hard as we had nearly 7,000 hits over the last month which is a continued increase and a big step for us given how dead this blog had become during my hiatus from blogging late 2009 through early 2011.

Goodbye Adsense... Goodbye Blogspot?

I appreciate that some of you clicked on my ads here but apparently some of that behavior was not considered kosher enough for Google's lofty standards of commercial activity. Over a week ago they shut down my Adsense account. This is what they said:

 After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.

Of course never mind that I never clicked on any of my ads even once and never encouraged anybody else to do anything unethical. I will appeal this ruling next week but it will be to no avail undoubtedly. Apparently, the late Steve Jobs suggested Google was becoming Microsoft and I'm starting to think he was right about that. Given my long-term plans for this blog to become profitable I will eventually have to move it to another blog hosting site or perhaps even to my own website. Stay tuned!

Santa Ana Winds, Diablo Winds & Mono Winds

As I write my wind chimes are clanging loudly as katabatic winds rip the state of California from Dan to Beer-sheba. In NorCal we have damaging Diablo Winds doing their thing and as of tonight trees already trees have come down onto and blocked US101 in Sunnyvale, CA. In SoCal we have damaging Santa Ana Winds doing their thing and as of tonight the LAFD is announcing parking restrictions on narrow, winding roads in the hilly areas of their jurisdiction in the event fires break out and such roads are needed to be clear of parked cars so that fire apparatus can make access. In CenCal we are experiencing high winds from the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada all the way to the Central Coast where fires have already broken out on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in Western Fresno County. In the Southern Sierra there are powerful Mono Winds raging through the passes and foothills of the west slope. This statewide event is being referred to by some meteorologists as a once-a-decade event. The concern is not only for wildfires but even direct damage from the wind blowing over vehicles or knocking down powerlines or ripping off roofs and such as well as indirect damage from downed trees and poles and such as well as damage from wildfire if such occur to a significant degree. Stay tuned!

Down The Home Stretch

The end of my Fall 2011 semester Cuesta College is within sight with finals week after next. I still have a shot at straight A's but will probably pick up a B or two which is still just fine given my level of focus this semester strayed with my working and blogging and general time management issues. These latter issues need to be better adjusted for the coming semester given my intention to go full-time. Stay Tuned!

Viva La Volvo!

I must say I am quickly falling in love with my 1994 Volvo 850 I purchased several weeks ago for a grand. The thing runs like a top and with two new tires recently purchased the thing is a dream to drive. I am so blessed by this "God Thing" that worked out so well and so unexpectedly following the death of my 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue that was given my as a gift last June but lasted all of about two and a half months before the tranny began to fail on me. My day trip to Fremont, CA, and back over the Thanksgiving holiday last week was its shake-down cruise and it passed with flying colors.

Santa Barbara Gem Faire This Weekend!

Guess where I shall be? My friend Dave has invited me to assist him in his Rocks & Relics booth this coming Friday through Sunday at the Earl Warren Showgrounds for this weekend's installment of Gem Faire. I hope to see some of you there. Certainly, I look forward to seeing the regulars there whom are perhaps Dave's most numerous and faithful "regulars" of any of the shows he does. I will be downwind of the Santa Ana Winds coming over the Santa Ynez Mountains so I should get a dose of Santa Ana Winds while I'm there Thursday through Friday this week.

My Latest Addiction

The Walking Dead on AMC has replaced BSG as my current television passion. The show is well-written, well-casted, well-acted, and well-executed all around to the point that if feels like a movie, not a TV show. It is based upon a graphic novel although it does not uber-closely abide by its original plot-line. Most of us when it comes to zombie apocalypse themes are biased about them by our experience with the George Romero movies starting in the late 60's and onwards which although very intense and fun and in some cases (like Night of the Living Dead) were trend-setting they relied more upon gore than this show does. This sets The Walking Dead apart given most other zombie movies abide by the Romero mold . This show is soulful and sentimental and intelligent and brings up moral questions without telling you what the answer should be and thus becoming preachy (something it shares with BSG). The first season of this show was comprised of only six episodes while the ongoing second season comprises 13 episodes with a third season having recently been ordered up by AMC quite fortunately. I give this movie the highest rating possible and strongly urge you to check it out.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee Death Anniversary

My maternal grandfather, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, whom I talked about last month HERE, died 23 years ago tomorrow morning (12/01/88). I found out during football practice for a C.I.F. Southern Section football game against Trabuco Hills High School later that week (we got blown out on their field) in the semifinals. It was during this time that my sanity was in full retreat as was my retreat from life in general. Aw, the memories!

Fini

A Marathon of Loss

Twenty-six years ago this morning I lost my father, James Gordon Noyes, in a tragic and freak accident less than a month after his 39th birthday. I outlined my experience with this part of my life two years ago today in my Losing a Father piece on the 24th anniversary of that sad day. Two years later and I reflect upon a marathon of years of loss in various forms.

My family was always small with both my parents being only children and their parents having not many siblings and those siblings and their offspring having at best a peripheral presence in my life or more commonly none at all. I lost my father in 1985 to start off the train of tragedy. Three years later I lost my maternal grandfather, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, as touched upon in my Dr. J. Vernon McGee Was My Grandfather  piece. At that time his wife, my late maternal grandmother, Ruth Inez Jordan McGee, began to die from her mind outwards through her body, a process that would not reach its conclusion until nine years later as she slowly descended into death which finally occurred in 1997. Then a year-and-a-half later my paternal grandfather, James Edwin Noyes, died at 84. Now all I have left are my mother, Lynda Karah McGee Noyes, with whom I have had an at-times troubled relationship with over the years although God has healed that fully. Then there is my only sibling, my  brother Andrew Carey Noyes with whom I am not close after years of a troubled relationship which seems to be undergoing some healing. Finally, there is my relationship with my remaining grandmother, Martha Virginia Van Stone Noyes, with whom I have also had an at-times troubled relationship which it appears God has likewise healed.

Loss has been an overriding theme in my life not limited to the physical death of people. Spiritually I was dead for most of my life until quite recently. My sanity died in 1988 and not coincidentally did not fully return until quite recently as well although that process began several years and preceded my spiritual Renaissance and Great Awakening. The church that comes closest to being my home church while I was growing up and which left the greatest mark on me in my life to date lost its way and made spiritual shipwreck while I was still young. However, it left an indelible mark on my both good and bad.

Through all of this there has been little comfort to be derived from my fellow human beings. I have felt largely on my own because I have been largely on my own. God has used this to teach me to not lean on people nor on myself but to look to Him for guidance and comfort and healing. My process of becoming who I was created to be is far from complete but at least I can see this process underway. Indeed, it has always been underway even when I didn't recognize it and was in darkness and blindness. Everything that has befallen me to date has been part of God's plan for my life and has been engineered by Him to instill in me the qualities I will need in the future and to teach me hard lessons I could and can only learn by experiencing my life as it has been and continues to be.

I remain to this day haunted by the subject of loss and how the news of it is delivered and received.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee Was My Grandfather

This is not a biography of my late maternal grandfather for which there is a good one on the Thru The Bible Radio website as well as a good one on Wikipedia. This is not my own life story (for which the following isn't even a complete outline) nor is it my testimony which is something I plan to share here at some point in the future. What this is for me is a public embracing of something with which I have had an uneasy relationship with all my life and thus have most often not embraced by not even acknowledging it to others.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I dearly love Grandpa McGee and I miss him terribly. I probably miss the version of him I never met that lived before I lived and was dead before I was born more than the version of him that he had become by the time I arrived on the scene. I was 18 and in my senior year at Atascadero High School when he died at age 84 in Templeton, California. He fathered my mother Lynda when he was about my age now (40ish) which made him a father who was old enough to be a grandfather and later a grandfather old enough to be a great-grandfather. Consequently, I did not have him in my life for as many years as most people get to have their grandfather who lives to be 84 years old.

Living under the shadow of a great man, and Grandpa McGee was a great man I can assure you, is never easy for anybody. Certainly his over-sized personality and life overwhelmed my personality and life. Like all great men he was very complex. Those who think they knew him in most cases did not. He had two distinct personalities, his public persona whom his listeners came to believe they knew and his private personality his family knew which was his true self. He possessed a great many internal contradictions which created tension between these two versions of himself. That tension never found resolution during his natural life.

As a young male human being growing up and later coming of age and trying to make sense of it all and just simply trying to fit in at a time when fitting in is a foremost social imperative I found the drama that being the eldest grandson of Dr. J. Vernon McGee engendered was oft disruptive to life and on some occasions even a bit overwhelming. That situation continued into my early adulthood and became conflated with my own mental-emotional-spiritual issues which lead directly to my present condition and status in life.

For much of my adulthood I would have given anything to have experienced a normal life growing up and thus one would think, a more normal adulthood. Given I had no other frame of reference with which to compare my life being Dr. J. Vernon McGee's grandson in some respects it often seemed somewhat normal even while clearly even back then being anything but normal. 

Being the grandson of Dr. J. Vernon McGee afforded a modest share of material comfort. For example, grandpa was generous at Christmas and for our birthdays and we often ate out at nice restaurants. Also I grew up in a middle-class Atascadero home that was payed for by Grandpa McGee. My childhood was physically comfortable while otherwise less so.

Although Grandpa McGee lived comfortably he was hardly a wealthy man by the standard of way too many of his contemporaries and even more so those who have come after him. After he died his trust left me enough money to pay for college outright which was quite generous. However, there were no grotesque sums of money accrued through his book royalties and no money personally gained through his ministry (Thru The Bible Radio) as grandpa was not driven by the love of money nor was he ethically-challenged as seems to be the industry standard for "men of God" (particularly those utilizing electronic media) in the modern era.

I experienced my own internal conflict growing up in Grandpa McGee's shadow. Part of this conflict was the sense of while loving grandpa dearly and he being my favorite grandpa I nonetheless felt trapped when talking to his fans who always seemed to tell me how lucky I was to have that legacy. These well-meaning people had no idea what they were talking about given the complexity of that "legacy" which was loaded with positives and negatives. Grandpa McGee was not always easy to be around (he was moody and self-absorbed at times) and I did not always get along with him even though he was often a lot of fun to be around, too, because he was also playful and funny and charming and highly intelligent. Another part of my own internal conflict was the sense that everybody expected me to follow Grandpa McGee into the ministry which idea I eschewed.

Like Grandpa McGee, I have always possessed my own set of internal contradictions. My entire life I have always been a free spirit and a highly socialized loner with many acquaintances but few close friends which is one of my own internal contradictions: I'm an introverted extrovert (or rather an extroverted introvert). To a fault I have always preferred to follow my own path. Part of this was driven by my own stubbornness. However, part of it was out of necessity as I struggled alone with mental illness for the better part of 20 years starting in my senior year of high school when the sum of everything in my life to that point, to wit, my dad dying and other family turmoil (of which Grandpa McGee was a central element) overwhelmed me and crushed me. This was possible because I was not walking in unity with God and He used mental illness to discipline and transform me in pretty much the same way He did with King Nebuchadnezzar.

I am now dangerously sane and yet to my somewhat surprise I have discovered that the world seems to have gone utterly mad (or was it already?) while I was away (in a manner of speaking). God and Time  healed me after years of reading and self-educating and journeying and searching a lonely path. That path has by way of a number of twists and turns led to where I am sitting this very moment in Paso Robles, CA, in my modest home where I live simply but comfortably while I make ends meet while underemployed following the demise of my small business in this moribund economy. I am now going back to school attending classes at Cuesta College where I am maintaining a 4.0 G.P.A. I am working on my general education there with the intention of transferring to a university sometime in the next few years. My current direction is Emergency Management but that could change if God directs because I'm through making my own decisions and am now simply following God's appointed path for me.

I am now starting over in life in my early 40's. For the first time in my life I am happy and have found peace. I have also thoroughly come to terms with Grandpa McGee and forgiven him and forgiven myself just as God has forgiven both of us. I am now able to embrace that legacy and can even see some of him embedded and encoded within me and my personality and am thus honored.

Other posts on Granpa McGee:

Dr. J. Vernon McGee's LA Times Obituary

A Marathon of Loss 

Top Ten J.V. McGee Things You Probably Didn't Know