Merriam Dictionary: Revelation: An act of revealing or making known divine truth. : an act of revealing to view. : something that is revealed. especially: a surprising or astonishing disclosure.

There’s a new subtitle on the mast of Bedlam Farm Journal. It went up yesterday (see above). Bedlam Farm Journal: Creativity And Gentle Warmth. Take a look above. That’s a big deal for me and a great big step.

I’ve been edging this way for some months but couldn’t quite land. A good fair appeared in my blog messages and showed me the way. My father told me that men who loved flowers ran the risk of being called “sissies,” and he made it clear he was one of those people who say them in that way.

Lately, I’ve been observing that the only men I really like and relate to like flowers and even like photos of flowers. Truthfully, I’ve always related to women more than men; my father is partially responsible for that good turn in my life. If he made it upstairs, he is probably shaking his head at my new passion for flowers and their photographs.

I don’t really know what to make of it. I am hoping for a revolution in our country, a movement for a kinder and gentler nation. I’ve always had a huge problem with bullies; they are a poison to me. Lately, it has been suggested that I became one while fighting them. Ouch.

I have no excuses to make for that. I am a complicated work in progress. I want to get to a good place and have been working hard it it. I have a clear goal now. My blog is moving steadily and firmly toward my fantasy of a safe place, an idea that has been germinating inside of me ever since I formed the Army Of Good in 2016. I see we are needed more than ever, and I am committed to that idea of good.

That means I have to put my money where my mouth is; that is hard work. I mark my progress in small steps, not leaps.

I’ve been wrestling with how to deal with the cruel people who have infected and polluted the digital universe and my own blog with their lies and hatred. I know it’s a much bigger problem than me, but I have learned to speak up for myself. Sometimes I can be too loud.

Of course, I’m a bug trying to turn the tides back if I think I can stop these awful hordes or slow them down. It will take all of us collectively to do that, and we are not in agreement on anything important about our country right now. It will come, I know it will.

For all of the years I’ve been blogging and sharing my life – I started in 2007- I’ve tried one thing or another, the literal and naive Dutch Boy who stuck his finger in the dike.  A man who shows his vulnerability will become an almost instant target in America, a super sissy showing his innards to the outside world.

Finally, a revelation that speaks to me in a powerful way. It is the amount of positive vibrations I radiate that matters.

This revelation came from a surprising source, a long-time blog reader named Gretchen, who first called me many names – nasty and disturbing, and told me I was frightening her at times with my anger and cutting remarks to people I thought were disrespecting me. She told me she loved my blog, but what she wanted was a place of “creativity” and “gentle warmth.”

At first, I thought she was one of those people disrespecting me. But she broke through the wall and showed me that she was one of those people who liked me a lot and hoped to improve me.

(I should say I got a lot of messages from people thanking me for standing up to hostility online and pleading with me not to change or give in to the people we call trolls. Gretchen was not one of them.)

But she got me at the right time.  I felt it was time for a real and meaningful change. I mean it.

Gretchen, who I do not know and will almost certainly never meet, went right to the core of me. She showed me who it was that I really want to be and pushed me to make that choice, inside and out—time for the sissy to come on out.

I’m not giving up my desire to speak up for myself, but there are different ways for me to do that, and becoming a troll to fight trolls isn’t good enough for me. I like to fight for myself; it is about time. But the best way I can do that is not to call people names but to do what Gretchen wanted – help create a place that celebrates creativity and gentle warmth, not Middle School name calling and nastiness.

In her words, I saw myself as the person I am and want very much to be.

I really do want the blog to represent creativity and a gentle blog. I think that’s what is needed right now in my world and yours, and I’m in a good position to move in that direction. It is what I have always wanted and what others saw in me before I saw it in myself.

That was a moment of revelation for me, especially since 2016 when so much fear and anger was unleashed on our unsuspecting nation. It turned out that half of the country hates the sometimes smug and distracted other half. It was only a time before the angry and disconnected swarmed to a new kind of leader whose ideology was hate and dishonesty, simply and honestly. The Army of Good was my answer; I didn’t want to be one of those people.

I value the rest of my life too much.

Creativity and gentle warmth. That is it. That’s on the masthead now.

I couldn’t see it, but I knew it when I heard it. And I’ll give my flowers some credit. They pulled the best in me out of me and into the open.

I’m a pilgrim on a path, in many ways, seeking something that calls to me but that I can’t always see or feel. People like me often have to be stoned or kicked in the head to see what’s in front or inside them. Sometimes we get lucky. When Maria met me, she saw me right inside of me. My own father never knew me or liked what he saw.

Sorry, Dad.

“It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered, or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,” wrote Amit Ray, author of Meditation: Insights and Inspirations.