John didn’t much care for the
‘modern day conveniences’ of city life.
I was told he would give the city folk a bad time about all the things
they had to endure, the hated parking meters was one of them. He said he did just fine without those, and
the other contraptions city folk had to deal with.
For his birthday his friends had
rounded up an old phone booth, a parking meter and a fireplug and put it on the
entrance to his driveway just off Bake Oven Road. He left them up.
On one of my trips to the Ranch,
I noted that he had left a car parked next to the fire hydrant. I gave him a ticket for parking too close to
a fire hydrant and another for parking at an expired meter – I phonied them up,
of course, so they weren’t valid.
He enjoyed the prank, he said,
but he wasn’t too happy, at first, finding two tickets on his car – actually his
wife’s car (she had left it there and rode into town with a neighbor.)
So, John was at that meeting,
that morning. When the Mayor had
concluded his remarks and asked again for some of the City’s citizens to take
over, without success. He then said the
meeting was adjourned.
There were a number of reporters
there that morning and several questions were asked.
However, the best question was
from John. He asked the Mayor, “Are you
going to apologize to the citizens?”
The Mayor, taken aback by the
question, said, ‘no.’ ‘I haven’t done anything to apologize to the citizens
for,’ he had just recently taken over the post (he was about the 4th
or 5th Mayor since the Rajneesh took over the town and had not been
there when they had.)
There was something else said by
John that basically said that he believed the Rajneesh – as a people – owed the
citizens an apology, but the Mayor made it clear he wasn’t going to
apologize.
One of the reporters was from a
television station in Portland. She had
a camera man with her and he had set up to cover the council – while she heard
John’s question, it hadn’t been clearly recorded since the mike wasn’t on him
and the camera was pointed away.
As everyone was leaving, she
approached John. She asked him to repeat
the question. He said, no.
She was a pretty young lady and
she tried using all her feminine wiles to coax him into asking the question on
camera. She said that they didn’t know
he was going to ask it, so they hadn’t been able to record him.
He said, no, I know how you
people work. You ask a question and then
you keep asking, I won’t ask it again.
The young reporter was
persistent, “all, I want is the question on camera, I promise you I won’t ask
anything else.”
It took several long minutes of
pleading, over 15 minutes as I remember, but she finally got him to agree.
I just stood back enjoying her
maneuvering and working this crusty ole rancher.
She said okay, what I am going
to do is ask you what you said and you ask your question. She almost had him – almost – however, she
said ‘and then......’
John cut her off and said, see,
I told you, you would do that I am not going to ask the question.
She pleaded a bit longer, but
she had blown it and realized it.
I just stood back and smiled –
we had seen a lot of her through the summer as her station recorded incidents
about the Rajneesh, she looked over at me, by now, grinning from ear to ear and
just gave that ‘well I tried’ smile, shook her head and they left.
Afterwards I joined the recently
retired Mayor at City hall and took possession of the keys, paperwork and the
weapons the Rajneesh had purchased with Antelope city funds. Can’t remember how many sidearms, nor what
they were, just remember the AR-15.
I thought to myself, why in the
world would this little town need such fire power? Especially since they had plenty on the
ranch. The one thing I did note was that
they had returned everything, and from what I heard was they had not taken
anything they shouldn’t have.
I placed the boxes of files in
the County Road Department’s garage there in the city. (I called the County
Judge and Road Master and had asked permission right after I received the call
from the citizen.)
I placed the firearms in the
trunk to take back and secure at our office as the citizens had requested. Later, at their request, I sold them at
public auction and all the funds went back to the city.
I headed on down to the ranch
and passed a few cars coming out of there.
I passed one young man walking up the hill as I went down.
I drove through the ‘city’ which
was now a ghost town. There were
caretakers still on the property and they stayed there until the ranch was
foreclosed on – there were not many of them and all they could do was maintain
part of the facilities – they chose to work at Rajneesh’s private area.
As I headed back up, I stopped
and picked up the young man who was walking out. He was heading to Madras and then south. I gave him a ride to Antelope and then he
went south towards Madras from there.
He told me that he had been at
the ranch almost from the beginning. He
had worked long and hard, 12 hour days - 7 days a week as most of them did, to
help the commune build the facilities, planted crops and generally did whatever
needed to be done.
I said, “Must be frustrating;
you wasted four years of your life on the ranch, now it is nothing.”
He said, what I had heard from
some of the other members, “No, it wasn’t a waste of time; I got to be near the
Master and listen to him every day.”
We talked some more as we drove
to Antelope, one other thing that I remember him saying was that he didn’t
always understand what Rajneesh was saying.
One day he would say one thing and the next something else that
contradicted what he had said the previous day.
“But, what he said was the truth at the time he said it.”
I just shook my head.
Later that month I attend a
Sheriff’s conference. I related how the
people of Antelope had appreciated my coming down and helping them.
One wise older Sheriff, said,
(paraphrased) Art, it only takes one oh no, to wipe out a hundred of those good
job Sheriff.
He spoke from experience, and,
now, so can I, he was correct.
Ephesians 4:16-17 From whom the whole
body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,
according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase
of the body unto the edifying of itself in
love.
17 This I say therefore,
and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in
the vanity of their mind,
I woke up this morning and my
mind was spinning. It was bouncing from
one thing to another, so quickly if I had been in a car I would have had
whiplash.
It went from the worship Chorus,
“Fill my cup, Lord,” that begins with Fill my cup Lord and ends with and make me
whole.
Then immediately my mind went to
the song “Unchained Melody” I need your love, God speed your love to me – was
the part of the verse that came back continually.
Then it would go to the Noah
Galloway, a war veteran who lost an arm and a leg in 2005 in Operation Freedom,
dancing with one leg and the other had a prosthesis on it on Dancing With The
Stars.
1,2,3; 1,2,3; several times, my
mind was going from one to the other without a break.
As my mind settled down after
several of these blitzes, I realized how important it is to be loved and whole.
Noah Galloway, a strong young
man who has gone through many hardships on his way to the program. His energy, his determination was
evident.
But he was not whole. I know that is not a politically correct
term, but one used often in the Word of God where people were healed and ‘made
whole.’
Noah lost his leg above the
knee. He explained, in one early
episode, of how his injury was different from a female dancer who was on the
year before.
She lost both legs below the
knees. He explained since she had her
knees she could bend her leg and she was more flexible with her prosthesis, not
that it was easy for her, but she had something he did not, her knees. It allowed her to make many more dance moves
than he could.
He could not do many of the
dance steps the other dancers, with both legs, could do because his prosthesis
would give way and he would fall – so his dances were stiffer as he had to keep
that leg locked.
His body was not whole.
As I listened to his explanation
about the knees I couldn’t help but think how powerfully made we are – God
thought of everything.
The joints are only one part of
many parts that makes our bodies work.
When you think about it we have
dozens of joints in our bodies. When
they don’t function correctly it impacts what we can do.
Joints allow us to pick things
up, to walk, to sit, stand, eat and the list goes on. When they are injured or impacted by
arthritis or other diseases they no longer function correctly and greatly impair
our ability to do things.
Man has learned how to
adjust. He has learned how to make it
easier for people suffering from a disability have more function in that part of
their body. While it isn’t perfect like
the original, it helps.
We also speak of not being whole
without the love of another person. We
truly long to be with them, “they complete us.”
They make us better and stronger than we are when we are alone, without
that love.
We desire that connection, we
desire to feel love and to be loved in return.
We were made to have those feelings.
But we were also made to have a
connection with God. Man tries to make
prosthesis for that connection. He tries
to use his love for other humans – or even animals - as a substitute for loving
God.
Man tries to find other means to
fill the void that his soul cries out for – trying to fill it with addictive
behavior, drugs, alcohol. Hobbies, jobs,
family are used to try and satisfy the pleas of the soul, but none of it
works.
We may experience love in the
connections with others, but it is just prosthesis if we are trying to use it to
reach a higher level and connect with God.
But unlike the prosthesis used for our body parts, this prosthesis cannot
substitute for the real thing.
The only way we can become whole
as God intends us to be whole, is to allow our soul and heart to reach out to
God; to accept His Son as Savior; to live for Him.
Then, we are whole, body and
soul together in the love of God, serving Him.
“From whom the whole body fitly joined
together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the
effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto
the edifying of itself in love.”
I want to
be whole; I want my cup filled to the brim with His Spirit and Love. While my body may be slowing down, my soul
can still be vibrant and alive as I worship God and live for Him.
Later, Art :-)
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