Bishop Bryant

In my small boy days, my family lived in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. Some say my town was the epicenter of modern evil. But as a boy, I did not know that. My hidden government village was a treasure, a fenced-in enclave perched on a plateau in the Jemez Mountains.

It was surrounded by wilderness filled with bears, mule deer, cougars, rattlesnakes, horned toads, juniper and pinon trees. Pueblo Indian spirits drifted along its winding rocky roads, and hovered over its endless trout streams. The historic carnage conceived in Los Alamos laboratories occurred alongside an unremarkable boy’s mundane, innocent childhood.

Now I see the evil and good of those days as an åamodt, the Norwegian word that describes the confluence of two streams. To me, Los Alamos was where evil and good traveled parallel paths and breathed the same air. I was ten when my family moved to Florida. Later in life, I left there and toured the South (and Cambridge, Massachusetts) but landed in North Carolina.

As I grew older, I wondered if we all got a guardian angel or if God assigns them only to fools. I got one. Her permanent posture is sitting head bent far forward toward her knees, hands covering her eyes, while her head slowly swings right to left. She laments often. She is seldom off duty, although my mother, wife, and a few others have provided some relief.

I have been fortunate to go to reputable schools, marry the right woman in my early forties, practice law, own and steward a candy factory, and sunset my work days as the CEO of Wine to Water, a clean water charity. I am a subscriber to the Good News of the Gospel because it is the road map for going upstream in this life and then on to next one in the hereafter. Nothing else I have heard, seen, or experienced makes more sense.

Enjoy Upstream. In writing it I found my purpose.

Give us your name and email if you want to hear from Bishop Bryant when he posts. If you have something to say or ask, fill out the Comment form below this.