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"Well I am a wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world of woe.
There ain't no sickness, toil, nor danger
In that bright world toward which I go."
-Folksong*
Hello
My name is Will Rand Sampson.
I live between the worlds of Wyoming and Louisiana. I live in Middle Earth, between heaven and hell.
As a truck driver, it sometimes feels like I am living "long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away," sometimes among the ice monsters on planet Hoth, sometimes with Ewoks on the forest moon of Endor.
I have always wanted to be a writer, but I never gave myself permission to try. Since the age of 12, I tried to be a filmmaker, because I thought perhaps I could make a living of it. But I discovered I loved it too much to treat it as a job. Now I'm a truck driver. As I write these words, I am stuck in a hotel in Casper, WY, waiting for a cracked radiator to get fixed. Perhaps God is giving me a chance to finally finish some ideas that have been nagging.
You might notice a religious edge in my writing. For a long time, I was confused about God. I also suffered from so-called "mental illness."
I once watched a Youtube video about Siberian Shaman, in which being a Shaman was described as an illness. The symptoms of this illness are depression, alcoholism, and bad luck. The cure is to listen to the voices calling you on the Shaman path. Rather than "shaman," we might say "priest, prophet, and king." After some trials and tribulations, I converted to Catholicism, and my "mental illness" went away.
Is God really dead? Raised by scientists, I think in terms of hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion. The data is in, and the evidence is conclusive. It is a joy to share my witness.
*The original melody was composed by Johann Georg Ebeling and lyrics written by Paul Gerhardt in 1666 in Germany as "Ich bin ja nur ein Gast auf Erden". The song is based on Psalm 39:12 and Psalm 119:19.