Dear friends -

I began writing these thoughts while out of town in Detroit at the first of the year. I know you haven't heard from me for a while. There are a number of reasons for that, and they can all be found in a file labeled "Life." I've been working, on and off, at finding the structure and processes that feel right for resuming our regular communication on a new and more sustainable and practical mode for sharing ideas. Now, as often happens, circumstances evolve their own priorities and planning is superceded by the action of the universe. That's a highfalutin' way of saying that I got a good self-butt kicking, so here I am again.

I'm also writing today to solicit financial support for what we are doing at Practical Truth Ministry. If that bothers you, we apologize, but it is a fact of our current human experience that most people have to be prompted to share what they have with others. We appear to be brought up in an advertising culture in which people are conditioned to act only when prompted, solicited, cajoled, enticed, or otherwise encouraged to participate. When one thinks about it, the fact that many charlatans and false prophets can generate millions of dollars in support of their spiritually bankrupt endeavors through extensive advertising and television broadcasts, while what we are doing here receives a trickle of financial support, is puzzling, to say the least. One of the basic differences between some of those who receive $millions and us is that we don't invest as much time and money in hammering people to give. We would like to think that it is not necessary to do that. We would like to think that people consciously just give regularly out of the goodness of their own hearts. Unfortunately, experience indicates that our thinking is out of touch with the reality of far too many people (we'll be talking about the reasons for that in the near future on the Web). So Please Stop Now And Seriously Consider How You Can Help To Financially Support This Ministry.

Some time ago I discovered Weblogs. For the uninitiated, these are essentially websites, or web addresses, where one can do a sort of online journaling. And that's what many hundreds of thousands of people all over the world use the concept for. An additional number of people, however, go beyond just journaling thoughts about their personal lives, instead creating commentary upon every topic one can possibly imagine, and designing ways, both textual and graphic, for expressing themselves in the realm of cyberspace. For many, this is a very regular process.

I quickly realized that I could convert our cyber expressions from the near 5,000 word eLetters which I used to post weekly, to regular journaling, and use email merely to periodically bring you up to date upon the latest highlights of my weblogging and where to find the output. This "great idea" didn't manifest immediately because the "fortunes of the business world," and the vagaries of life in general, once again intervened to temp me into not finding and applying the time necessary to underwrite this weblogging effort. I'm certain that many, if not all, of you can relate to the way we get sidetracked from what we desire to do. I remember Bucky Fuller telling me that once one no longer had to "work for a living, to work in order to justify one's existence," that they find themselves one day asking themselves the question, "what was I thinking about before I got interrupted." I have had exactly that experience upon more than one occasion. And it is those experiences that help us to get back on track with what we really want to do, and therefore what we should be doing with our lives.

Anyway, I've been legally unemployed for almost two and a half years now. To meet financial obligations, I have done a plethora of things to create a steady flow of financial income in order to "keep afloat." That's why I was in Detroit the first of the year, generating additional income by driving one of two 27' trucks and helping someone to move. And that's also why I began this past month as a part time Revenue Auditor on the midnight shift at UPS. Part of the price of "odd jobs" has been the amount of time such ventures have consumed and the difficulty that it creates for finding the sufficient, consistent time to "do what I really want to do, which is to share ideas and turn people on to possibilities, and thereby perhaps influence beneficial changes in people's lives, and through them (you), to positively influence the rest of the world." Now, with the end of the holiday season, I was suddenly notified, while in Detroit, that both my wife and I had been terminated from work that we had been doing for the past couple of years: she working full time, and me working part time. So, financially, we were once again standing upon the proverbial precipice which waits patiently just ahead of everyone's best laid plans.

My friend, John Crockford, recently forwarded a quote from Bucky Fuller stating that "the universe always provides," but with an additional "always" of "just in the nick of time." It's the "nick of time" that I am tiring of. The "nick of time" is totally incompatible with our current "economic system." But it's what we have to deal with.

Well, I'm taking all of this as another wakeup call. My dear friends, I need some cash and I need it now. If you have found benefit from the ideas and concepts that I have shared in the past, some financial remuneration would go a long way toward contributing to the continuation and expansion of those ideas and their proliferation throughout the world. If everyone on this list gave just $10 a month, I would not be working for someone else, but would, instead, be devoting my full time to expanding this ministry and what we have to share. Just $10 a week and we would be touching thousands of lives regularly instead of hundreds of lives occasionally.

I'm doing my part on this end, honestly seeking and accepting whatever work I can find while working on expanding my world of possibilities by initiating new ventures. And I regularly (daily) practice what I teach, which is why my attitude and expectations are still very positive and the universe continues to manifest in our lives here in miraculous ways, "just in the nick of time." But I throw a reminder in here by quoting Paul in his 1st letter to the Corinthians when he said (9:11), "Now if we have sown among you spiritual things, is it too much that we should reap material things from you?" Seems that this situational relationship has existed from the beginning.

Now, a look at what I offer on the net, just to bring you all up to date. My original websites are still on AOL. They haven't been touched in a couple of years because I maxed out the storage allotment (5 MB), but they are still very relevant. Please NOTE if you type the addresss that with AOL, upper case characters are apparently important in the URL address. In other words, if you have to type in the address yourself, be sure to pay attention to the capital letters (i.e. "SurfCity" rather than "surfcity"). To access a website, highlight the whole address (http://?.) by clicking and holding the left button on the mouse while identifying all of the text you wish to highlight, copy it (you can use the "Edit" dropdown menu in the top left corner of the screen or hold the "Ctrl" key down while pressing "C") and then paste it into your browser's address location bar on the upper part of the browser screen (again use either the Edit dropdown menu in the top left corner of the screen or hold the "Ctrl" key down while pressing "V") and then press "Enter" (be sure to first delete any "address" that may already be in the address location bar). I point out the foregoing because it has been my experience that many people who use the Internet for email nevertheless have little clue about where to go from there. And I don't know about you, but I've never liked having to admit to others that I have no idea what it is that I'm doing (personally, it doesn't keep me from admitting it, but I still find it uncomfortable at times). If you're already Net savvy, don't let the foregoing details bother you. The Net's there for everyone, old and new.

Our master website can be found at http://members.aol.com/ZTANSTAAFL . That site is known as TANSTAAFL City, CyberSpace, and it is a focal point for entering several different parts of our web sites, each part of which, incidentally, is directly accessible, as I'll explain. There are presently five components to TANSTAAFL City. The first is information about TANSTAAFL City itself. This is where you will find the story of why we decided to get involved in the Internet. There's also some background information about me, along with a resume. You might want to start by checking out "Current Highlights" and "What's New in TANSTAAFL City." Although what's new is old, it'll be new for most of you.

The second area in TANSTAAFL City is Practical Truth Ministry, accessed directly at http://members.aol.com/RevDeTurk . This is my ministry taken to the World Wide Web. As an ordained Unity Minister, I am using the Practical Truth Ministry site to make available that which I teach. I've always believed that the heart of a ministry is in sharing and practicing practical truth principles rather than in erecting large buildings with huge budgets and lots of politics. (For those who do buildings, I admire you and am grateful to you for your interest and expertise, for it provides locations in which people like me can teach; and we, in turn, can thereby help to draw new people to the ongoing work that you do.) Being nondenominational we can share these principles with anyone, anywhere, and they can then practice the principles that work for them wherever they choose to be, whether in another church or anywhere else in God's kingdom here on earth. A look at the "Sunday Services" area of Practical Truth Ministry will reveal new and helpful approaches to the truths that underlie our existence. There is also a section on tapes of various talks and classes we have presented in the past.

The next location in TANSTAAFL City is Major Domo's World, accessible directly through http://members.aol.com/ZMajorDomo . This is a very exciting part of our web site, for it is where the more secular Major Domo part of our consciousness is sharing new ideas, new concepts, and new perspectives that many people have never considered before. This is cutting edge. Be certain to check out "New Perspectives" while visiting Major Domo's World. It is guaranteed to excite or incite many of you out there. The world is changing dramatically at an increasing pace and Major Domo has his finger on the pulse of those changes and is very adept at explaining them.

Next is a site that is still being developed and is tentatively called "Beading Adventures". Directly accessible at http://members.aol.com/SherriSite , Beading Adventures is a site for my wife to do her thing. She designs exquisite beaded jewelry and has become quite knowledgeable in the world of decorative adornments. As we find time and more storage, this site will begin to take shape and develop its own slant.

Finally, there is a site called "Surf City". This is where we have provided links to other websites on the Net that we find pertinent. You can access it at http://members.aol.com/ZTANSTAAFL/SurfCity.html . Surf City contains over 7,000 links to websites that we think are interesting. Check out the site map. AOL and Yahoo and others have their own lists of what they feel are pertinent links. We've done the same, but hopefully from a different slant that will make Surf City a must for bookmarking (favorites). As time and space allow, this site will see more additions of new, efficient, quality links. We literally have thousands of new links that we have compiled over the years. Many of these links are literally quite astounding. I'd give you some examples here but once I got started it would be hard to stop.

So much for the work that we did in the past. Now let's get more current. Last year we created several weblogs, otherwise known as "blogs." For those interested in getting involved in blogging themselves, we recommend going to Blogger.com at http://www.blogger.com . Just be careful; blogging has been known to be somewhat addicting. That's not necessarily bad; it just means that one can develop an habitual interest in it. But that's just a part of our human nature. We all have habits that we've developed. Habits, in and of themselves, are not good or bad. The key word to always remember is "moderation."

Our first weblog is Practical Truth, located at http://practicaltruth.blogspot.com . On August 26, 2002, we logged the text for our series of classes that we teach entitled, "What We Believe That Makes Us Different." These are an update of the text which we had posted at our AOL RevDeTurk website under Sunday Services. In the future, we will be posting thoughts relevant to our ministry on this site. Of course, these will regularly share insight into better understanding the Bible by considering translations directly from Aramaic into English with an emphasis upon understanding ancient Aramaic culture, customs, and idioms. Our latest blog is the text for a basic introductory talk that we give entitled "The Quantum Physics of Spirituality."

Our second weblog is "Still . . . . . after all these years." You will find this located at http://zmajordomo.blogspot.com . On August 18, 2002, we posted our article, "In A Little Grain Of Sand," from our AOL ZMajorDomo website. In the future, this blog will be a continuation of what we had begun with "New Perspectives" before we ran out of space at AOL. This is where we will be examining the latest in scientific discoveries, free energy, quantum physics, the technological singularity, UFO's, the new economics, and much more. We will soon be posting an updated version of our paper, "Money And You." It will appear under the new title, "In God We Trust: The Truth Behind Money And You."

Finally, our third weblog is "Welcome To World Of The Web," which is located at http://welcomewebworld.blogspot.com . This is a continuation of sorts of what we were doing at Surf City. Here, however, we will be turning you on to Net Links, one-at-a-time with some explanatory commentary. In other words, instead of merely saying, "check out this link," we'll share the link with you in the way that we would if we were talking with you face to face. Just as a teaser, the next few links we will be blogging will have to do with the Global Consciousness Project, the entire California coastline in high quality photographs, and an audio and text transcription of a 42-hour seminar videotaped by R. Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller in 1975 entitled, "Everything I Know."

We are already aware that these three weblogs are going to occasionally bleed over onto one another, and that just means that you'll have to check them all regularly to keep up with what we're sharing. Our part of the bargain is to keep them updated regularly. Now, we hope that you'll excuse us if we sound a bit self-promoting, but if you read all of the information that we have mentioned above, we guarantee that you will discover ideas and perceptions that you've never known or considered before. We believe that we were all created for the purpose of growing in our knowledge and awareness, and so we attempt to stay out there on the cutting edge, hanging ten, and sharing what we find with you.

At last count we had over 600 people on this mailing list. That will probably change soon. We plan on moving our emailing efforts to a listserv, in which case everyone on the list will have to reply with a response agreeing to remain on the list. We are already aware that a large percentage of you will not do this, if for no other reason than that you just never get around to doing things like that (check out the end of our blog on "Quantum Physics and Spirituality"). We didn't want to make this change, however, until we had our weblogging in gear and had notified "all" of you of such. Now that that is done, we can continue with moving the list.

It is our intention that our emailing in the future will be roughly a monthly affair, bringing you briefly up-to-date on the latest of what we have posted on the web. But we will use our weblogs for the bulk of what we share. That way, you will be saved the large weekly emails of the past and can then keep your email box open and available for all of the spam that you receive on a daily basis. Also, what we have to share will always be available to everyone, everywhere, all of the time by being on the Web. We just hope that you will check out what we're doing before you decide to let yourself slip out of our loop.

You are always in our thoughts, our prayers, and our plans. We do what we do because we love sharing with others. Decades ago we realized that we all learn from experience. Actually, that's not exactly true. We actually "learn" from "new experience." When we discovered this fact, we determined that we would attempt to be, or to create, new experiences for people in the hopes that they would then continue to grow in whatever ways were most beneficial to their own individual development. In other words, we're not here to try to get you to think or to be any particular way, but rather to assist you in the eternal growth that is a part of your own divine nature. The only ideas we promote for everyone is healthy moderation, inclusiveness, and non-interference. We'll expand upon those three guidelines sometime in the future.

In synopsis, the following are the many ways in which you may access what we are doing:

Websites:

TANSTAAFL City, CyberSpace - http://members.aol.com/ZTANSTAAFL

Major Domo's World - http://members.aol.com/ZMajorDomo

Practical Truth Ministry - http://members.aol.com/RevDeTurk

Surf City - http://members.aol.com/ZTANSTAAFL/SurfCity.html

Beading Adventures - http://members.aol.com/SherriSite

Weblogs:

Practical Truth - http://practicaltruth.blogspot.com

Still . . . . . after all these years - http://zmajordomo.blogspot.com

Welcome to World of the Web - http://welcomewebworld.blogspot.com

Email:

revdeturk@yahoo.com

zmajordomo@yahoo.com

practicaltruth@yahoo.com

Snailmail:

3519 Westbrook Drive SE
Smyrna, GA 30082

Paypal:

https://www.paypal.com

We can now accept donations via PayPal. If you haven't been to PayPal, it's very easy to connect and make payments or otherwise transfer money with a credit card or with a bank account withdrawal. You have to create an account with them, however it is relatively simple and costs nothing for you or for us. If you wonder "how can they do this for free" then you will be most interested in my upcoming posting at our blog, "Still ?.. after all these years", entitled "In God We Trust."

Our nom de plume at PayPal is revdeturk@earthlink.net . We will soon have links to PayPal on our Blogs and the PTM Website. If you choose instead to mail a check, please make it payable to Rev. Charles DeTurk, as that is how our accounts are presently set up. Again, whether any of us like it or not, money is a major lubricant in our society that improves the ease and speed with which many things work. We are asking you, right now, for more financial support. Check out what we're doing and give generously today. You have no idea how many people your gift will touch.

Finally, I want to express my sincere gratitude to those who have been faithfully (regularly) supporting this work that we are doing. Your active faith in us goes a long way in inspiring us to continue with what we love to do. You are truly blessed and we thank God for your interest and support every day.

Again, as always, you are all in our prayers and have our blessings. We enjoy your feedback. Keep in touch. And we're glad to be able to say "hello" once again.

-- Charles