Illinois Beach State Park, Zion, Illinois
Today’s view
This morning when I woke, I checked the time on my Kindle paperwhite book and it said 6:39am. Immediately, I felt refreshed and in good spirits! A half hour later, Blaine was up and I discovered my book hadn’t switched to Central time. And despite the fact that I’d slept well, the knowledge that I’d actually gotten up at 5:39, made me suddenly feel tired. Weird!
It’s cool and rainy today. All day. Too bad because we really wanted to check out the campground and were hoping to see the beach the way we remember it. And we’re just plain tired of relaxing!
And we only have one day here.
This morning, we listened to Pastor Mike (from The Chapel in Green) teach on Revelation. Today it was centered around the Word of Christ to the church in Pergamum (Revelation 2:12-17).
This church – as with many of our churches today – was succumbing to the ways of the world instead of standing firm on the principles and truths of God’s Word. They were allowing the idea that it was alright to assimilate into the current sins of society – leadership and others in it (Christianity) for financial gain, idol worship and sexual immorality. They were adhering to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. A group who were teaching that essentially, you can have your cake and eat it too. That you could worship God and still behave and think just as you always have – the “anything goes” mentality. That compromise with the beliefs of the world was fine in God’s eyes. Sound familiar? It’s true – the more things change, the more they stay the same.
But that’s not the case. It wasn’t okay in the Old Testament days, it wasn’t okay in the New Testament days, and it’s not now. Jesus Himself called them to repent. To turn from their erroneous ways and thoughts. Just as He calls us today.
Paul also touches on this when he tells us in Romans that “Although they know God’s righteous decree . . . they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them.” (referring to sinful behavior)
But we are not to condemn people. We are called to love. We are called to open their eyes and hearts. Let those opposed to God – whether believers or non-believers – see what loving Him and being loved by Him can do.
Love. It’s always about Love.
The rain stopped long enough for us to get in a bike ride in the afternoon – probably about 6 miles. They have a nice bike path that runs sort of up and down the coastline of the Park. It wasn’t always by the water, but much was.
We took a short walk to the beach before the bike ride. We wanted to check out the nuke plant a little closer.
Looks more like Lake Erie or the Carolina Atlantic coast than Lake Michigan.
That fence is to keep people off the plant property.
Look at all the erosion!
And it never even stormed!
We wondered how fast the coastline is disappearing here. . .
One lone pink flower in a sea of yellow.
These yellow wildflowers are all over around here.
The path took us past long-ago abandoned concession areas. Sad.
It was a little wet in places.
Tests the steering skills!
About halfway, Blaine stopped to take off his unneeded sweatshirt. I heard, “What in the world is that?!?” I never know with Blaine. Is he jesting to get my attention, or does he really see something remarkable? The boy who cried wolf’s got nothing on him! 😊
He wasn’t jesting.
The mysterious . . . . ‘what in the world is that?’
After some brief research, I discovered that what we saw were juvenile sandhill cranes! You may remember me mentioning them in previous posts from this past winter. Well, turns out, they migrate through the Chicago area on their way north this time of year. We haven’t seen any flocks of them, but here’s two!
And of course, I have to stop and smell the ‘roses’ along the way!
Another item of note is the two Macy’s gift cards we found. They’d obviously been left in the rain for a while, but appeared un-used. I took the new-found treasure home and looked up the card numbers to check the value. Not valid. ☹ So I’m guessing they were stolen from a store at some point and abandoned. Why they were tossed on the bike path rather than in the nearby trash can is anyone’s guess. Bummer! I thought someone (or two) might be receiving a great Christmas present from us!
For one part, we had to go down a road to get to the next part of the path, but no one was around. I guess because it was Sunday and no one was working?
Seemingly the road to nowhere . . . .
A surprise find!
This building was huge!
At the Warwick Building
Now THIS was a surprise!
I looked up this guy. Wow!
Check it out!
So let’s talk about Dr. Dowie for a moment. I’m not going to share all the details about his life, because there was just too much! If you’re interested after reading this, you can look him up.
Dr. John Alexander Dowie
I was expecting him to be some industrialist or something. Nope! He’s a self-proclaimed evangelist/faith healer/businessman! And a shyster!
He was born May 25, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland and died on March 9, 1907 in Zion, Illinois (the town he founded) at the age of 59. During his lifetime, he also settled in Australia, New South Wales, San Francisco and Chicago. He married his cousin and had two children. I know, yawn . . .
But his in-person faith healings were staged and the mail-order ones had to come with money before he’d pray for them. Surprisingly, he had a very large following after his ‘performance’ at the Chicago World’s Fair. He was also in debt up to his ears when ‘mysteriously’ his church building burned down and the insurance money allowed him to pay off his debts. He also bought securities in bankrupt companies and sold them to his constituents. He was sued by a couple of women and lost, but that didn’t stop him. In 1900 (his followers now totaling about 6,000!), after secretly buying a bunch of land 40 miles west of Chicago, he started the town of Zion. People flocked from all over to live there under his rules – No smoking, drinking, eating pork and they couldn’t use any form of modern medicine. He also had a range of businesses, healing homes and a large Tabernacle. The town has been characterized as “a carefully-devised large-scale platform for securities fraud requiring significant organizational, legal, and propagandistic preparation to carry out.” Followers were forced to deposit their money in the Zion Bank, which looked as though it was registered, but was really unincorporated and under Dowie’s control. He also sold worthless stock in a bunch of Zion’s businesses. The entire town was continually in debt and eventually crashed as he became increasingly senile.
Eventually, his wife and children left him. He suffered a stroke, went to Mexico to recover and while he was gone, his second in command took over and even though Dowie tried litigation, he was never able to regain control.
What a story!! And by the way, I think this story also qualifies under “the power of suggestion”!
Here’s his family
An advertisement for one of his meetings.
This is him dressed as “Elijah the Restorer”, as he claimed to be at one time.
Back to the ride:
By now, you can probably tell there’s not much to take pictures of around here.
Except the Nuclear Power Plant.
I think the bike path goes around three sides of it! (the fourth side being the Lake)
These flowers were interesting!
They grow in ready-made bouquets!
Another healthy dinner tonight as we gobbled up Giant Eagle fried chicken (frozen and brought with us from Ohio – they make the BEST fried chicken!) and I also whipped up ½ a box of Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay biscuits. This left from a full box we received as a gift in the Fall. They’re pretty good, but the recipe I have is better. At least we had a salad, so there’s some good in there. . . .
We ended our day watching “Weekend at Bernie’s” again. It’s still funny!
CHEDDAR BAY BISCUITS (Red Lobster clone)
BISCUITS:
2 ½ C. Bisquick baking mix
1 C. Cheddar cheese (finely grated)
1/4 + 1/8 C. white wine
1/4 + 1/8 C. milk
GARLIC BUTTER:
¼ C. butter – melted
½ t. garlic powder
½ t. dried parsley flakes
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Combine garlic butter ingredients. Mix well and set aside. Combine biscuit ingredients and mix well.
Drop 1-2 Tablespoon portions of the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Brush garlic butter on top BEFORE BAKING.
Bake for 14-16 minutes or until the tops begin to turn light brown. Brush more garlic butter on top before serving.
Makes 15-20
HINT: These taste EXACTLY like the ones at Red Lobster – and are just as addicting!