By

Thomas B. Wallace, Editor and Publisher

          For those who don’t already know, this writer makes his real living as a Nationally Registered Emergency Medical Technician – Paramedic on a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Now this means a lot of things but in this particular setting it means an explanation as to why I have been so late in rendering this column and editing the newest edition of Human Imagineering. Every two years EMT-Paramedics are required to accomplish the following continuing education:

40 Hours of a State Certified Paramedic Refresher course covering 15 different curricula

24 Hours of Continuing Education covering the same subject areas

  8 Hours of Advanced Cardiac Life support Refresher Training

  4 Hours of Health Care Provider CPR Refresher Training

            I have done this religiously for the last 25 years and for five years before that as an Emergency Medical Technician-Basic as well.

Anyway, during the first week in November I accomplished the first, third and fourth of these requirements – having accomplished number two in 2002 - but it put me in a motel, with very poor internet access and almost no time to work on the WebZine. But that is not the reason that I am picking this topic for the Boomer On the Ground column this month, to brag about how much I accomplished. Rather, it is to give the readers who care enough to click on this column some perspective on what that career means to me, and perhaps to them also and how that affects, or does not affect this WebZine.

You see, it is almost a certainty that you the reader will one day need someone like me, the writer, to reach down into your life as it dwindles and fades,  or suffers and writhes in pain and either pull it back up into life or at the least diminish the suffering and ease the fading. It is a career that has paid me well but not richly, and given me an opportunity to do something that most people will never have, to make a real and substantial difference directly in the lives of others.

This is a feeling like no other in the world, and there is a sense of accomplishment it that I would not trade for all the riches of the world. But, I would be entirely remiss if I did not acknowledge that it is by God’s Grace and permission that I have ever been a party to such a redemption, and, in that sense then, my career as a paramedic is a metaphor and a parallel to my career as a creative artisan. For it is by God’s Grace and permission also that I am a party to any creative act.

 It is a humbling mystery to me why God wants us to participate with Him in such a majestic venture as this universe but it appears very much to me that He does. And this too is a feeling like no other in the world and one that I also would not trade for all the riches of the world. That there is anyone out there who might read these efforts and reward them with their attention is a privilege and an honor for which I would like to say thank you.

That I may invite you to find in Jesus Christ the organizing principle of creation that lies in Divine Love should not be seen as either preaching or attempting to convert you the reader from your dearly held beliefs. Rather it is an attempt to share the wonder and mystery, excitement and joy of this creative journey into the heart of God. When we invite God into our hearts… and here I do not speak of that touchy-feely, squishy organ that can do nothing more than react (feel), but rather the heart is the mind, body and soul that thinks, and feels and decides and acts… and through His Son Jesus, He invites us likewise into His heart… and His is a heart beyond our wildest imaginings. The only thing He asks of us in this journey is that if we are to make something with Him, make it something that adds to the creation and not something that subtracts from it.

So then this endeavor, as it parallels my other career will likewise be an attempt to reach down into the dying and withering creativity of the people of this world and to lift it back up into the light of life and joy of accomplishment. Let me say unabashedly that I believe the following to be true in its absolute sense…All Being is Metaphor, All Metaphor is Literal, All Life is a literal working of the Metaphor of the life that expresses it. In that sense then I will ever extol the idea that there are no accidents, that all life has meaning and all meaning can be discovered… come on along into the undiscovered territory of creation… we are all explorers on the grandest journey of them all... 

Note: A Brief note on the title of this column… The military has a saying about combat and that is that it cannot be won or evaluated unless there are “boots on the ground”. I am 54 years old, which means that I am a “baby boomer”[1] and decidedly not a member of the “target demographic”[2], so in the combat for the hearts and minds of the creative universe I am Boomer On the Ground – pun decidedly intended.