Date: 2008-08-05
From: Pleasant Pond Mt.

To: Shaws Boarding House
Miles today: 29.2

I arrived in Monson, Maine yesterday in the rain. The difference between Monson and monsoon is an o. There are 114.5 miles left. I will be entering the 100 mile wilderness tomorrow morning. It is 100 miles with little chance of resupply. They used to recommend 10 days of food but I plan to hike it in 6 days. There is a place called White House Landing about 65 miles in where you can get limited supplies. It is on a lake and when you get there you sound a horn and someone will come across on a boat to pick you up. I am at the library in Monson and was reading some other hikers journals. Most of them actually talk about the trail while I usually blather on about other life issues. All you really need to know now is mud, mud, mud with more to come. I picked up my last food drop this morning and am also glueing and duct taping my shoes back together gettng ready for the 100 mile mud walk. I doubt whether I will have reception during this section so my next entry may not be till after I finish my hike next Wednesday. I stopped in and visited Daryl and Mary Whitmer in Monson this morning. He is picking me up tonight to join them for a meal. This is the think tank John Schmid sent me to. I am releaved I didn't do the posting I had planned about intellectuals. It had some good stuff in it but may have to wait for the book, if then. I have eaten so many blueberries the last several days that at night when I close my eyes I can still see them. That's enough trail talk for me. I was talking with Daryl this morning about the man on my guest site that was critical of some of my postings. It seems some others took offence to his reply. I told Daryl I was so pleased to have a critic because it made me think I might be a writer. I skipped through the woods saying "I have a critic" over and over. Then the man turned nice on me and now I have all kinds of doubt. This made me think of a topic that has been bothering me my whole hike. I told Daryl I might pick up a few critics by posting it. I have music loaded on my Verizon phone and Sundays I listen to it. It is the old hymns about redemption and the cross. I have to admit I cry when I listen to some of these old hymns, thinking of the price paid for our redemption. I called Ina, my friend sending me my food drops and told her how these songs make me cry. She said they make her cry too, although for a different reason. She cries because she dislikes them so much. [She is redeemed but still needs a lot of prayer] This got me to thinking about something that has bothered me for years. Imagine the following happening. A group of upper crustorian Mennonites including some from the academic world gather together with a mission in mind. They are carring cans of spray paint and scatter across America to visit our Art Museums. Their mission, cover up art they find offensive. Psst, there, that lady is decent again. Security! lunitic on floor two. Impossible, you say, that would not ever happen, especially in acedemic circles. Well, something similar did happen to our songbook. A group of these upper crustorians, including a few feminists took umbrage at the references to God in our songbooks and took the hims out of the hymns. Fannie Crosby would be very upset. Isaac Watts would be shocked. What would we ever do without these folks looking out for our well being. Sanitized for your protection. Now when we sing these songs and come to the previously offensive word, half the congregation still sings the artist intent and the other half whatever it was replaced with. Now it sounds like the Bremen Town Singers. I believe I speak for thousands of other Mennonite people who also were upset by these Mennocensors. If this doesn't pick up a few critics I may just have to quit writing. This is part one of a two part series.