The world, life today and a poem for those who have gone before!

As some of you might have noticed I was missing from blogging for a while.  Some of the reason due to illness, some of it due to not feeling like thinking about the crazy world we live in and the horror of our times.

Missing from our society is the rational day-to-day mundane parts of life.  We have media blasting us on all sides about politics, wars, fundraising, sports, supposed star personalities, new products to buy and things that really do not matter to a vast majority of the world’s people. To them, the day is made up of getting up…trying to feed, cloth, and shelter their families and themselves.

It is sort of disgusting to watch our modern entertainments such as music, videos and TV revolve around sex, nudity, absurd fashion, video games and media hype. Storage businesses are booming because we feel compelled to go out and buy items many of us cannot use or do not need,,, because we feel good to be able to buy things.

We no longer repair things we just throw them away and companies make items to be tossed or make things too cheaply or too complicated to repair.

So I settled back and tried not to think about anything…it worked for a while…but only a while.  So for a look back I decided to put history aside and post one of my latest poems.  It is not very good or great… but in a way, it is the history of how I feel about today, the world I am in and the people I have met, ... and those who have passed before.

So I will post this poem for Dianne Lodor, a dear friend and a tireless worker for Eaton and the Community, as well as one of original members of our history group.  I miss those who have gone before very much, and I am sure you have those you miss as well.... so this is for them and for you also... 

I hope you enjoy! View the video and note all of the missing people and perhaps yourself when you were younger in 1995.

Memories like cymbals clanging

In the empty corner of each room

Feelings left unfinished

Brushed aside to hide the pain

Of love

Time heals they say

But that is not so

It only deadens a heart grown heavy

With our life when filled 

With woe

It marks the channel of the oceans current

Changed by our tides ebb and flow

So out on this sea of life we sail

Not knowing the way wind 

May blow

Poems left for other lovers

Line by line written so

But memories prove unforgiving

In feelings that eyes do 

Not show

Life is like a bottle

Set adrift at evening time

The ride it takes only guided

By the moon and its

Earthly tides

With no control and no clear path

We wander shores of sand and sea

Always searching for love

And in the end finding 

Life’s realities

A Sad Day in Eaton as we celebrate the 183rd Anniversary of the Historic Eaton Church!

Today is a sad day in Eaton, another of the Neighbors for Historic Eaton has passed, Tom Clark.  The Rev. Tom Clark was a major mover in the Hamlet of Eaton helping to keep the Historic Eaton Congregational Church alive.  What is ironic is that he would die the day before the 182^nd Anniversary of the founding of the church that is now the Eaton Bible Church.

I thought I would include a piece on the church and Tom… that was put into our Bicentennial History Book in 1995…20 years ago.

EATON COMMUNITY CHURCH

1979-1995

     Thomas E. Clark began his pastorate at the Community Church of Eaton in 1970, the same year that Eaton was reduced to a single church.  Previously there had been three churches in the village.

     The church is a Bible believing church with a vision.  In the early 1970’s Bible studies were organized with as many as three groups meeting each week.  As the congregation increased, it became necessary to build an addition in 1981 for Sunday school classes.

     In the past 25 years we have continued debt free while adding storm windows and vinyl siding to the building.  The front, back and balcony of the sanctuary paneled.  New hymnals, new chairs for the choir loft and a new piano have been purchased.

     For the past 6 years  (*26 years now) we have been enrolled in Awana Clubs International and with the increase of youth it became necessary to purchase land behind the church and begin our gymnasium, which we hope to dedicate in this Bicentennial year.  To date all bills are paid.

     Beyond this even more we encouraged by the numbers of dedicated servants.  Several have entered into some kind of full-time service for Our Lord!  There is only ONE WAY, and Jesus declared it when He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

….Here a snip it of the churches history by me on this day 3 years ago!

Today is a special day in Eaton, it is the day the current Eaton Church was dedicated on June 6th in 1833.  It’s the historic sight I see while having coffee in the morning.

At that time it was the Congregational Church, its founding members included two of the original incorporators of the Baptist Theological Seminary that became Madison University and today's Colgate University.

In 1848 the church hosted the Congregational Society’s yearly northeast meeting at which time the Congregational Society officially adopted an anti-slavery stand.  Some information on this is in the Cornell College Library.

The church had many noteworthy pastors including its first installed minister the Reverend E D Willis.  I became interested in Willis because he lived in my house, a house that Allen Nelson Wood and his wife would buy on their return to Eaton.

The church’s members at that time included Allen Nelson Wood founder of the Wood, Taber & Morse Steam Engine Works and both his partners Loyal Clark Taber and Walter Morse.

Other famous Eatonites who attended services were Melville Delancey Landon and his family. Landon became a well known as both a writer and as a lecturer. Many rich and famous people attended the church during the Victorian era during what time Grover Cleveland’s brother; the Reverend William Cleveland was its pastor.

The church still today houses a historic Meneely Clock and Bell, and the churches windows which bear the names of some of Eaton’s greats... still grace its interior; an interior that sports hand turned pillars turned by Allen Wood himself.

During the Civil War the Eaton Churches banded together and held services attended by each other patrons during the week to pray for the wars end.

Eventually, the Congregational Church became part of the Federated Churches of Eaton and then later became a Community Church under the Pastor Thomas Clark who improved not only the building, and but helped institute a fabulous AWANA program. During the time he was pastor the congregation also built a large activities build that is used today for youths to play basketball and games and to host special functions.

Let’s look back to 1995 and Memorial Day & Rev. Clark speaking!

A Message to Garcia and doing a job well, one that makes a difference!

This week as the old adage goes “things come around full circle,” and they did!  The Neighbors for Historic Eaton were formed way back in 1995 for our Bicentennial and the piece of literature that I tried to use as a stimulus was a simple short essay written in the late 1800’s by a man named Elbert Hubbard called “A Message to Garcia”.

The message was a simple one, …one man can do a job well and make a huge difference.

Everyone thought that trying to get a museum and historical society and Bicentennial together was basically impossible…yet it I felt it could be done if everyone did their one job.

The reality is that this is a thought that I have used over  the years continually, and especially during the Madison County Fair…I did not ask people to do a hundred jobs..just one, and do it well.

To those who don’t remember…A Message to Garcia was a short magazine filler article by Hubbard that reflected a true story of the Spanish American War.  The message was from our then President McKinley to Calixco Garcia who was a Cuban revolutionist and a leader in the Cuban insurrection against Spain, a man in change of rebels in the Cuban Hills.  McKinley sent the battleship Maine..which was later sunk..(Remember the Maine”), to remind Spain of the United States investment in Cuba.  McKinley needed the help of the rebels to force the Spanish out of Cuba….. from the essay..

“Rowan was sent for and given a letter (by McKinley) to be delivered to Garcia. How the “fellow by the name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia—are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail. The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?” By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing—“Carry a message to Garcia.”

This 1,500 word essay took the world by storm and today it is used by people as inspirational words, motivational works and anything else that fits.  It is basically like the Shaker saying “Do everything as if you have 100 years to live and yet you will die tomorrow.” 

When we started the “Neighbors” I told everyone including influential people we were trying to recruit for help with our projects..which included getting a small business for Eaton. the story of Roycrofters and the success of that small business in a little place called East Aurora, NY. 

The question always came back..”Well then if it was successful, what happened?”  I reply, “Elbert Hubbard went down on the Lusitannia!”

So this week Bob brought me copies of Elbert Hubbard’s book set called “Little Journeys” and I grabbed them and brought them to the museum where they will be on display…the reason..the books are filled with Hubbard’s short stories of famous people who have been a success and who have made a difference in this world with their art, literature, intellectualism and yes ….in their singular purpose of doing the job at hand to the best of their ability - like Rowan did in bringing “the message to Garcia”.

This is a trailer for a PBS series on Hubbard and the Arts and Crafts movement.