Arlo's Podcast, Life So Far
Mark of the Beast coming soon. Who will take it and who will not. Biggest eternal decision one can make in this world.
Arlo's Podcast, Life So Far
Exploring Life's Purpose: From Rural Alberta to Luxury Cruises
What if life’s true purpose isn't about material gains but spiritual growth? Join us on a heartfelt journey through the memories of a simpler time, where my trusty pony, Tony, helped plow our family garden. We reminisce about the vibrant sense of community and the unspoken trust that bonded neighbors like the ever-entertaining Hansel Johnson, whose tales always brought a chuckle. Reflecting on the industrious spirit of rural Alberta, this episode paints a vivid picture of resilience and camaraderie, as recalled from a childhood filled with coal-heated winters and the warmth of a bustling family kitchen.
As I near 91, I find myself pondering the deeper questions of existence, piecing together insights from decades of life on the farm. We explore the profound idea that our life’s mission transcends societal milestones and is rooted in becoming one of God's blessed sons. This conversation delves into cultural heritage, drawing connections to the Israelites in a spirit of understanding, not division. It’s a thought-provoking dialogue on spirituality, offering a fresh perspective on how to navigate life’s journey with purpose and clarity.
Switching gears, let’s talk about the thrill of cruise vacations, where luxury can be had without breaking the bank. A fellow traveler shares their exhilarating experience snagging a premium suite deal on a casino cruise, thanks to their loyalty perks with Holland America. This chat not only covers the perks of cruising but also offers practical tips for those with accessibility needs and financial expectations onboard. Through these diverse reflections, we weave together nostalgia, spirituality, and the modern joys of travel, inviting you to look at life’s multifaceted journey from new and enriching angles.
Good evening. This is Arlo's Soul Talk, number Nine and I tried to be pretty careful with it, gone over things so far so that there's too much wrong with spelling and grammar and whatever. Hopefully better than the first ones I did. But anyway, I was going to talk about the difference. Like you know, what I was just talking about previously in the last chapter was how we were living at that time. Now, when I look back in retrospect, you know I didn't consider us to be poor but I didn't consider us to be rich either, like we had everything we needed all the time, like not that we thought about it, but there was food around and all kinds of it all the time. And I didn't really realize at that time that I was living in a little bit of a factory system where I had to help along with everybody else and in my case sometimes I had to do a fair amount because I was the oldest and you know we had a large garden, big garden. We had a garden that we plowed with a horse, my pony, tony. We had a little cultivator. He pulled and I don't know we plowed it up in the spring or something I think Sometimes we did and I mean it was a big garden, weeding, weeding, a lot of weeding, but it was good. Black dirt and things grew grew in there and potatoes grew in there like crazy and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1:We had a big basement. I mean it was an eight-foot basement, full basement. There was two windows on the west side, like the house that was raised. You had to walk up about four steps to go in the house and there was a narrow windows, two windows facing west, and I think they were the only ones, if I remember right. And anyway we'd take one window out in the fall and whatever, and we'd back up with a sleigh or whatever and we'd have a wagon box full of coal and we'd get about two wagon boxes of coal for the winter and we'd back up to the house there and shovel it in through this window and it would just pile up down in the basement in a big pile of coal. And we had a big furnace. I mean it was like a big old furnace. I don't know where, I don't know where we got it from, but it kept that house nice and warm, that's for sure. It was big. Now the thing is the big difference. It's hard to imagine the difference.
Speaker 1:The whole world has changed since then and it's changed some for the better but I think on balance mostly for the worst. We've lost the innocence and the I don't know what you call it believability. We didn't. When somebody said something, we believed them. We believed that people were honest and didn't lie and basically they might have embellished a bit but they didn't lie.
Speaker 1:No, this neighbor of ours I remember he used to. We'd go through his farm on a Sunday and go across his farm and another farm to go to church, one mile Instead. You know, that was supposed to be kind of a road there but it wasn't built yet. So we went through his farm with horses and wagon and whatever and they'd get in the wagon and go to and whatever, and uh, he had, he had uh, the knack of uh kind of embellishing a little. In the spring somebody would say to him like sunday at church, you know, after church people keep talking or whatever. I remember this one spring, you know June or whatever it was this guy said to this neighbor, hansel Johnson. They'd say Hansel, how's your wheat crop coming? Oh, he said it's about this high, about, it's about this high. And as he said it's about this high, his hand kept raising up and up and up and up and you knew he was BSing and everybody said, oh yeah, ah yeah, to get a kick out of that, you know, but he had to embellish, he had to add on, but people knew that it didn't matter, people knew it.
Speaker 1:You know, when I think about it, these farms, like a lot of them, were one quarter section, 160 acres, and how I don't know how they managed Things must have been so darn cheap, like lumber or whatever, that you could just buy $50 worth of lumber and you could practically build a granary, build a granary. And because they had buildings on these farms, each small farm, there'd be a house, a pretty good sized house, three bedroom house or better, and a barn, a big red barn, and the granaries, the machine shop and this and that, all kinds of buildings and then machinery, equipment and machinery and other stuff around and it was like an interesting place. It was always interesting. There was always things going on doing something. I mean, my grandpa had a real machine shop full of things like a forge and whatever and big tools in there and he had a ice house.
Speaker 1:You'd go from the house back on a little curved path and on the path on the left hand side you'd pass this big mound in the ground and a and a steps down in the in the going down to a ice house. It was buried in the ground with at least four or five feet of sawdust on top of it and I think it was like about an 18 inch door thick door that would close and it was like angled and it would go in and close right in and it would be full of big, three foot by two feet by three feet, chunks of ice which had been on top of the ice cream cans, eggs, meat, whatever was sitting on top of the ice. And when you got to the middle of July they were sinking down into the ice a bit and, of course, melting, but the water would go right into the ground, just seep away into the ground and then you go past that place and then here's the machine shop I used to. When I was like six, seven years old, I used to go there with my eyes just big as saucers. I went in there and I saw tools and forges and anvils and big saws and stuff.
Speaker 1:How that all got there, I don't know. How that all got there, I don't know, and then go back out there again towards the house, and on the right hand side was what they called the summer kitchen and it was a kitchen with stove and everything, with a big stove in it and other kitchen stuff, but I mean no tables, chairs or anything really, because well, it was table and chair in there. It was, that was the cooking house and that kept the heat of whatever out of the house. In the summer They'd carry it from the outdoor kitchen into the house, just carrying it in every day. Day. Yeah and oh, I remember my memories of it. You know it's all. Everything was big, green and this and that all these buildings, machine sheds grandpa parked his car in there and other sheep, sheds and granaries and whatever pump houses, and then over to the barn which had horses, cows, pigs. Grandpa continually went into town at 9 o'clock in the morning, not every day but just about every day, hauling in milk, eggs, milk and eggs mostly I guess Milk and eggs, milk and eggs, cream and eggs Cream cans would fill up right away and into town with it and eggs, so many eggs, curtains of eggs, and basically they lived on that. When they got money it was for grain or hog selling hog grain or cattle, that would be most likely in the fall pigs could be during the year and the fall Pigs could be during the year.
Speaker 1:And it's funny how, when you look back and realize that you were a cog in a big wheel, I mean at that time where I lived in Alberta was an agricultural world. Every half mile down the road, one mile down the road was another farm All doing the same thing and all shipping it into town and going from there railroad into Edmonton or whatever. And that's only one little corner of the world. That's funny. It's really funny that your real reason for being born is to realize who you are, that you are a child of God, and that your whole purpose for being here is to make arrangements to understand what you believe in and who you trust and who you pray to and who you believe in. That's the only reason we're here, is to make a decision, because we're passing through this world. We're not in this world. We're passing through this world. We're not in this world, we're passing through, and that's a fact. It's like you come in this end and boom. You're in this physical world for a while and you go through the world. You go through and boom, you end here and you're finished and your spirit goes back to where it came from. You've now made a decision, yes or no? God knows what decision you made ahead of time. That even I don't Now. That's a hard thing, I think, for people to realize, to get away from the idea that what they can build up on this planet and how much money they can acquire and pile up and get is an important thing. No, that's a hard thing to say no to, but it's no. It's really here to develop your spirit and mind as to where you really came from and where you are designed to go, with all the things that God has done to make it possible. The people I don't think realize, or just stop to realize why.
Speaker 1:I have another book that I wrote about the Israelites and basically I say where did the white race come from? White people Not saying that to be racist or anything, I'm saying that to be saying where did the white race come from? And it all boils back down to Israelites. You know I lived in a white race nation. Everybody around me was white. I thought nothing of that. There was no bragging about it, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:And we were. Some of you know, we started out pretty darn poor, but not. We were only poor in one thing and that is money. We were not poor in anything else Not in food, not in lodging, not in anything else. Not in food, not in lodging, not in families, not in support or whatever. We had a coffee pot that was on our stove from about 6.30 in the morning on until maybe 10 o'clock or 11 at night Every day. It would really get. It was a pretty good size coffee pot too, because I mean there was most likely 12, 15 cups of coffee in it. But my mom was continually remaking it, continually Because there was people coming and going every morning and in the afternoon too, but especially in the morning around 9, 10 o'clock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, swinging in, they'd just get in, get in the door, sit down. We had a big kitchen table, you know, a big stove beside, you know, and a big stove beside it and a fridge and whatever and windows, all windows looking out on the farm, and that's where everybody met and that's where everybody sat around. We had like 12, 15, 18 people sometimes sitting around this table. It was a big table and that went on all the time. Never, as long as I can remember, it never changed and the visitors were always generally the neighbors in the morning, other people in the afternoon or evening, but usually they had to be in the evening because during the afternoon, whether we'd be out, maybe in the field or doing fun away or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I often wonder how my mother, who was a meek little girl that dad married, she wouldn't say shit if her mouth was full of it. It was very meek and but very frugal and very smart. She ended up handling all the money all the time for dad and he didn't mind. She was in charge of it, and when he needed money he'd just say, well, we have to do this now. I'm going to do that now. She'd do it. And yeah, the the thing is I get thinking about it. I I quit talking here. I shouldn't do that. I talk awful slow as it is, but I have a manuscript of this that is kept. It's printed right out. As soon as I finish this, it turns into a manuscript and I can print it all. Mind you, I have to edit it so much that, well, that's, all I can do is have to do that. Now the thing is, how do you relate to somebody? How do I relate to somebody? What these eyes have seen in? You know, going on, it's going to be 91 years a few months. Going on, it's going to be 91 years, a few months.
Speaker 1:I expected a woman to phone me from Seattle today. I phoned her about a cruise. I wanted to get some information. Oh, wow, you should do it right now, you know, because it could change, it could fill up and then you won't get wet. Anyway, I finally got a hold of her and I said well, how much is this going to be? You know, this casino cruise, I've been on quite a few already. Anyway, that's where they give you a free cabin and that's basically what they give you and you have to pay the taxes and the port fees, whatever.
Speaker 1:But instead of paying like $2,000, $3,000 for a cruise, the one I'm going to sign up, most likely tomorrow, is for an 11-day cruise for $465, and that's for the top suites. I get a suite with a balcony by myself. I could never go cruising on anything if I had to pay double on anything else. Oh, the price is this much. Oh, it's just you. This is based on the double occupancy. Well, no, it's up to $2,500 for a week or two weeks, I just say, ah, it can't be. Anyway, I'm going to sign up for it tomorrow. It's five months from now. I'm going to sign up for it tomorrow. It's five months from now. It's in April the 26th. It goes from San Diego down to Puerto Vallarta, back up to I forget a couple of stops Mazatlan, cabo San Lucas, and then it'll be back to San Diego and all the way back right up to Vancouver.
Speaker 1:11 days, that's not too bad. I've been on well, just one. That was 22 days and it was. I paid about four or five hundred dollars. Six hundred dollars Went through the Panama Canal, from Fort Lauderdale right to Vancouver, right around North America, the whole bloody way, well, not all the way around. So the I've been around on quite a few.
Speaker 1:I like cruises. I Very partial to them. I hardly go offshore anymore because of the walking and everything. My big problem is now getting from a taxi cab into the ship because you have to line up to get on the ship and it's a big line-up deal. And checking in and doing all this and my back just kills me Getting through airports. I got that down now so that I insist on a wheelchair and somebody takes me through in a wheelchair, right from the doors of the airport right to the door of the plane, and that's happened all the time. Really worked slick boy for me. And when I get off, there's a wheelchair waiting right at the plane door for me to go back out through the airport, which is just as hard. Oh, I thought my gosh. Now the funny thing is on this cruise that I'm going to most likely sign up.
Speaker 1:She said do you need assistance at all for accessibility or something? Well, I said kind of. I said I, I have a wheelchair. Go through the airport in. And I said I, you know, and I do have a disability deal on my back. Oh, she says then you know what the rule is if you don't have an accessible suite, we have to give you a bigger unit to make sure it's accessible. I said is that right? Yep, she said I can't give you just an ocean view. She said I'm going to have to give you a suite to fill it to satisfy the regulation. I said well, then, I am needing it. I chuckled and she laughed. She said, yep, I can do that.
Speaker 1:I thought, well, I better do this. You know, that's the top notch units on this ship and sometimes I think they're like thousands, thousands, ten, twelve thousand dollars and I'm going to get it for four hundred and sixty five bucks. I think they're like in the thousands and thousands $10,000, $12,000. And I'm going to get it for $465. And I'm single, I don't have to pay double or nothing. And the idea is I have to kind of have a little bit on the outs with Holland America because they think that they say you're supposed to gamble and spend money on here. You know, that's why we're giving you a free unit.
Speaker 1:And I kind of say well, you know, I don't mind playing these games if there's no money involved. At the end of the cruise they say, oh, you owe us. The last couple of times they'd say, oh, you owe us thousands of dollars. I said, oh, there's no money involved. What do you mean? No, I said I'm not going to pay you, that. I was just playing it. You were giving me debits, little debits, or credits or whatever, but there was no money involved and I didn't make any money. I didn't take any money out. I actually played with my own money a couple of times and so you got.
Speaker 1:In one case, I know, they got about $4,000. In another case, maybe about $1,600 or $1,200 or something, but I'm a three-star mariner with Holland America. This obviously has quite a bit to do with it, because she says she's talking to me. She says, oh, I see. Yeah, you qualify for this now and you qualify for that, I guess the higher up you get in the Mariner list. I've got another 120 points to go to four-star Mariner. I'm at 75 points now, which means I have sailed with them 75 days, 200, how much? Well, better than nothing, you know, I have to. I have to say it's, it's, uh. I have to say car and pay for a hotel and whatever. And if you have an all inclusive there, you know there's so much for that. Different ways, there are different type of holiday, so in one place. The one thing I like about cruising is you get on. They're a different type of holiday, but it's all in one place. The one thing I like about cruising is you get on board once, unpack your suitcase or your bag or whatever, and you don't have to pack it again until you leave and you've been halfway around the world, different cities, towns, traveling in a ship Big difference.
Speaker 1:When me and my wife used to go down to the States in the winter. We went down quite a few times. I never wanted a motorhome. I thought they were ridiculous To have to pay that much for a motorhome to sleep overnight and then pay to be able to sleep overnight at these parks and then eat in a restaurant. Anyway, I didn't believe that. I liked going to a motel, pull up in front of the motel park, go in and nice big room, bathrooms and TVs and whatever else and no hassle with a big unit worrying about getting down the road. And I did that for years and I believed in that and I enjoyed it. I never once had a problem getting a room, not because we'd stop at like three in the afternoon and get into town whatever town we were going to, and then we'd have some time to kind of lay around, maybe go uptown a little bit, go to some stores, maybe look around, drive around, look around at the town and then go for supper and back to the motel again, watch TV and then we'd see what's going on in this town.
Speaker 1:You try to get a newspaper of some kind. I, before I quit tonight, I want to go over one thing. This is we're getting to the end here, so hopefully you're still with me. It is so important that people and I say this because my sons and daughters and everything they do not think about this, and I don't know how in the world I can get them to understand what's important here. You know, I understand what God means.
Speaker 1:He said if you lose your life, you gain it For my. If you lose your life for my reason, you gain it. Well, you know, if your life is so tied up with being up with the Joneses, say, or whatever, following the latest fad with everybody and that is a big problem, because people can get pushed into believing stuff if they think that everybody else is doing it, and I'd look, you know, if I don't do it, I'm going to be strange, I'm going to be ostracized or gotten badly up. That's the big thing. People are now controlled by low-level fear. They're more worried about what the neighbors think, what their school board thinks of them or this group over here thinks about them. If they go to a party. They're all ha ha ha. The latest jokes about someone Usually politicians are politics. The politics can be dirtiest ever and it's ha ha ha.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hate that I'm going to have to do something. I don't know what, but for people to absolutely fail, miserably fail, to understand what God has done and provided to set up a system so they could believe in him and what he's done. And what is Jesus Christ done? That Jesus died in your place and in my place so that you could exist as his son in the future. That was the only way he could do it. He had to create all the stars and the universe and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:To start with, to make it so that we could even live on this planet, everything had to be just right Distance from the sun, tilt of the earth, all this stuff. The weather had to be just right. We wouldn't exist or live otherwise. Weather had to be just right. We wouldn't exist or live otherwise. There had to be agriculture, because we were living in a physical body and you had to feed it. And the future if they looked into it or if you look into it, and if I look into it, or if you look into it and if I look into it blows you away. At least it blows me away. I mean, it's beyond what I can imagine. That's how great it is. It's way beyond.
Speaker 1:And the idea that God is offering you and I, as you, I'm going to say you especially. He's offering you an eternal existence at the highest possible level, other than Him. Now, how can you turn that down? That's because now you are in a position of I mean existence as a, not as a human. You'd be in existence as a son of God forever, no higher, no higher existence or whatever, nothing higher than that. He created male. Well, he didn't create male, he created male in his image and then he created the female in the image of the male, and he didn't create anything else and call them his children. No, no angel, no animal, no being, not nobody except you and I. That's why it's so important to him, it is terribly important to him. Everything hangs on that. It's coming to the point where his plan has been a pretty good plan. It's produced now most likely close to 100 billion people over time. They're all sorted away and they're all waiting because sorted away and they're all waiting because they're all stacked away in his bank, his memory bank, his whatever of all his children.
Speaker 1:He is God Almighty and he wants you as his son. Now, I know that that sounds a little, you know, strange, or whatever you might say, but God is God and his ways are way higher than our ways. His ways are perfect. He doesn't want any bittering like there is on this planet between male and female, because he had to make them a little different, because one had to be nurturing, caring. The woman had to be very you know, being able to actually suffer better than the man to be able to take care of children and, you know, look after that, bring them up and then them up. And then he didn't want any, any interference in in his family. He wanted family. He wanted sons who realized who they were, realized who he was, who loved him and wanted to be with him and would worship him because it is required. He is so great that it is a requirement that he be worshipped by his children and all the beings and the.
Speaker 1:The business that women will not be in his kingdom is a stark reminder of the different he runs things than we would run things. But it does not in any way take away from women's value and men's value neither one, because neither one will be the same as they are here now. They will be sons, they will look like sons. They will look like young sons. When I say young, it seems to me sometimes somewhere I had a feeling that it discussed that somewhere and it was like the sons of God were like 20 years old or something in our idea, and they would be. They're most likely, you know well-proportioned and good-looking and whatever, even though they don't have a material body, but they have a spiritual body, which is I don't know how that works Obviously it's a body that lives in a different realm than we live now and is eternal. Something to think about.
Speaker 1:I tell people I don't tell too many because I don't get to but the whole thing is, the idea that you are on this planet is not for raising kids, getting married, raise kids, start a business, get a job, blah, blah, blah blah, retire and then die. That's not it. That's what will happen, but that's not the reason for it. The reason is to become one of God's blessed sons. That's what he wants. And then he's going to this world and everything in it is going to phase out the world. This world is going to phase out in a blaze of glory fire burning, whatever. So fire burning, whatever. So that's the thing is.
Speaker 1:That's not my idea, that is God's idea. Every single bit of it, nothing to do with me. But I didn't realize it for a long time. It had nothing to do with me, but I didn't realize it for a long time. I hope you do. I hope you realize it as soon as possible and not be a total, that your life is not a total failure, giving it up. Don't do that. Anyway, good night and God bless you.
