Navigating the Autumn of Life: A Nonagenarian's Wisdom on Faith, Change, and Embracing LGBTQ+ Acceptance

As the golden hues of autumn descend upon us, we're joined by a remarkable soul, Arlo Johnson, whose 90 years on this earth offer a treasure trove of wisdom and insight. Celebrating more than just a milestone birthday, Harlow opens his heart to us, recounting the joyous embrace of his community and the tender family moments that remind us all to hold our loved ones close. Yet amidst the festivities, he courageously confronts the tides of change as society's norms shift beneath his feet. With a vulnerability that's as rare as it is moving, he shares the inner turmoil of balancing his deep-rooted faith with the burgeoning acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals—a conversation that is as poignant as it is necessary.

Venturing further into Harlow's musings, we grapple with the concept of an all-knowing deity watching over humanity's ever-expanding journey. Arlos reflections prompt us to consider our place within this vast tapestry of existence and the humility required to accept the limits of our understanding. His message, steeped in gratitude for the gift of each day, serves as a gentle nudge to live with intention and appreciation. Arlo's voice, seasoned by time, guides us through these contemplations, we invite listeners to join us in honoring the simplicity and profundity of cherishing life's blessings, one day at a time.

Transcript

Arlo: 0:02

Well, good evening. It's Arlo Johnson from Vernon, BC On April the 25th at 9.30 pm. Spring is here. It's starting to warm up a little bit not too much yet, but it's nice to see the spring is here, the leaves are coming out, things are turning. It's nice to see the spring is here, the leaves are coming out and things are turning. I was going to mention a little bit about the last few days days.

Arlo: 0:38

April 25th my birthday was on April 22nd. I turned 90 on Monday, april 22nd and I don't know, first day, business started like on the 21st. On Sunday, yeah, cakes and stuff and whatever from some people On my birthday actual birthday, I didn't really. Oh, sunday, the day before my birthday, my sister arranged for cousins and my son and his girlfriend and I guess that's about it Four or five people come over here to the Vernon Rest Home, brought a cake and cards and stuff and whatever. Well, which was nice, I guess. Then, actually, on oh, I forget what day it was, but the rest home here had a deal for people with birthdays and got cards and stuff there. Then I think it was on 23rd, oh, yes, 23rd Then went out to Desert Cove with big cake and stuff out there and people you know wishing well. I'd drive down the street and people would run out to the street and waving at me and saying Happy birthday our own residents, you know and walking through the main hall, people were waving at me. I thought how the heck do they know it was my birthday? But what it is is. I guess it's a bit of a milestone. You know, I should have never planned, I didn't think of myself being 90 years old and it, you know, just crept up on me. I'm now yet 90 years old and out of style To the world. Well, I can't help that. There's things that have affected me quite a bit on the not good side, due to what I was taught and all the things I went to catechism and Sunday school and church and whatever for 60 years, and what I've studied and whatever for 60 years and what I've studied since.

Arlo: 3:51

One of the things that has happened in this world is that the homosexual has become more prevalent. It's been around for a long time , I don't know, throughout history, and it's a thing that is very, very, what would you say, abhorrent to the creator of the universe, God and Jesus. And they basically are included in the list of things that keep people out of the city of God, or the book of life of Jesus Christ, along with many other things, But it was bad enough that God actually destroyed two cities and just destroyed them forever. And then for people to say, well, it's their choice, you know. Well, of course it's their choice, but it doesn't make it right.

Arlo: 5:16

The thing is, it seems to me so devilish that it promotes a lie. Gay, is it a gay lifestyle?, that's not what I thought gay meant when I grew up, and the gay lifestyle is couched in all kinds of so called love . And that that is another lie. They pretend to get married, man with man and woman with woman. That doesn't work out. You see all they know is flashy things they do, and pretend that this man is now my wife and you know that just grates me. I know that is a lie. Why should you promote and want to promote a lie?

Arlo: 6:26

And the thing that bothers me is that if people support and encourage gay lifestyles and whatever, I think they're going to be classed in the same boat as a homosexual and God is going to say I don't know you, Don't come around me, and why would I want that to happen to somebody? That is, you know there is nothing worse than that. You know you don't want that to happen to somebody. Now people get mad at you because you don't want it to happen. You're supposed to accept it. That's wrong. You can't accept something like that. It's not that there are not other things that are just as bad and God abhors, I know that. But why pick on one and try to glorify it? And that's what they do. They don't try to glorify people getting drunk. They don't try to glorify, you know, all kinds of things murder and robbery and killing and whatever. Well, they do in some cases, but not like that. They don't try to glorify it.

Arlo: 7:58

I'd say that, you know, take the rainbow colors and use them as their symbol. The rainbow colors were given by God as a promise to the world. So that's caused problems. I've had to live with that. Now I've been ostracized over that. My own family, they don't want to talk to me anymore because they figure I'm biased and whatever. That's too bad. I hate it because I know it's wrong to do that. And the thing is I didn't change. They changed, not me. You know you don't live 90 years and see everything that's going on , you know it's a fair amount of time and realize that in the last 10, 15 years between abortion and homosexual and gay and whatever, I mean that's been the big push. Now it's transgender and this and that All perverted stuff, perverted natural human beings, and they glorify that.

Arlo: 9:30

What it amounts to is and I've said this quite a few times is it's a prediction that Isaiah made and that was thousands of years ago. But anyway, he wrote in the book of Isaiah. It's in the book that when good is evil and evil is good, you know you are living in the last days. Well, that's exactly where we are now. Only a lot of people overlook it, plain overlook it, and say it's all just you know modern times and ha ha ha, isn't that bad? That's bad, that is so bad. And why in the world would a person or people willingly and I say willingly put themselves in a situation where they're going to be barred from a second, wonderful, perfect life forever? This life's earth deal cycle that we're born into actually makes us great cosmic travelers.

Arlo: 11:14

I'm going to figure out how many miles I've traveled since April 22nd 1934. And I'm going to have to sit down and figure it out because I know that I'm revolving, the Earth is revolving, which I'm on, and we're at about, most likely, 1,000 miles per hour. It's 1,200 at the equator, but we're quite a ways from the equator, so we're going a little slower on the curve. Now that's 1,000 miles an hour and I'm traveling around the sun through space at 68,000 miles per hour. Now I don't know exactly how many miles it is around the sun. One year trip. I'm doing that for 90 years and that makes a lot of mileage. That's what you call high mileage. Yeah, I guess, instead of saying somebody who lives a long time, is old , I could say that well, they're high mileage, which would be true.

Arlo: 12:33

We are born into this world Created Bang just like that between a male sperm and a female, egg, Boom. We're created A mystery of mysteries of how it all works and it all happens in an instant, everything that's going to require that life to take place. Now that that comes with only one thing that survives, and that is the spirit that God puts in you when you are conceived and it leaves you when you die and goes back to God who gave it, to you. It most likely carries a full record of everything you've ever done, and I think that's what it's there for. You are created, put together cell by cell, boom, boom, flying together at high speed. In fact, most like y thousands of cells an hour being produced and going here and going there, and then to end up like I am, 90 years later, still going. The body is still producing itself stuff and looking after, healing itself and replacing itself.

Arlo: 14:20

Now the thing is and I knew this , and it came to me like I don't know why, but it came to me like when I was 15 years old. I remember I don't know what day it was, but I remember that I had this thought that came over me that what was I doing here on this planet? And I realized that I was here to make a decision, and so was everyone else, because it was, I realized then that people lived and died and whatever, and didn't stay here forever.

Arlo: 15:02

So what it ends up being, is that we are given a life. We didn't buy it, we didn't get it from Walmart or the hardware store. We were given a life. We were given a vehicle, a body to live in. It's not ours, we didn't produce it, we didn't create it.

Arlo: 15:32

And all of a sudden, about nine months later, we come out of this womb that the woman carries and we pop open our eyes and take a look and say what is this? And we see people looking at us and we don't know who they are and we don't know anything. Basically, maybe there might be some sort of slight instincts to know. I mean, we know that we have to suckle and have food and we know what we have to eat and if we don't eat, we'll bawl and holler and cry to get it. You know things like that, survival things but we have to learn everything and \we're kind of slow learners. It takes us a year or so to even learn how to walk. Now the thing is there's people dying. One person dies every two seconds or something like that in the world, and that's around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all the time.

Arlo: 16:58

Now, we came in this world as a gift. We were given a body and a life. We were given a body and a life and we were here to make a decision about who did this for us and why we should be grateful. Some do, some don't. Now, when we leave, we leave with the same amount as we came with nothing. In fact, we don't even a Spirit. Our spirit has gone back to God and we're just a shell, just a wet spot on the rug.

Arlo: 17:48

But anyway that's a fact, you can't argue that, nobody can argue that. You can argue and win, because that is exactly what happens to everyone. We come and we leave, and the only thing we are capable of doing is acknowledging that God created us and that he sent his son to save us because we couldn't keep his law, and that was God's plan. In the long run, that was his plan. The only way he could create sons was for someone else to take the fall for them, because they couldn't quite do it. And being , made in the image of God, God fine-tunes the rest later, God fine-tunes the rest later, because you know to cultivate somebody to be your son forever and to think like you and do like you and have the mind of God and whatever, hopefully.

Arlo: 19:29

Now, I think the worst possible thing is that people want to believe that there's nothing or whatever, and they do it in full realization that there's no hope for them, none, zero. And I think about that so much. I think that how, what a total waste for a person to live on this planet for 50 to 100 years, or whatever it is, and just plain fail, fail to do one simple thing that God wanted acknowledgement, that he had made arrangements to save you. Now human beings are in such a class that we're most likely rated way higher than we realized by God Almighty. It's because he created us in his own image and from a little bit of bits and pieces here and there. It appears to me that the angels in heaven and spiritual beings are in basically not jealous but in awe of human beings because they are a spark of the eternal God. They are created in the image and everything of God. Nobody else is created in the image of God.

Arlo: 21:18

That God created and to arrange the universe in such a way that was compatible for life on Earth, for his children, and to change the universe around afterwards to create an eternal kingdom where his children could reside with him. Which means he said he's going to create a new heaven and a new earth. New heavens ,that's a lot to change and a new earth. This earth is going to be dissolved and redone. I mentioned this before. The city of God that God is creating, or Jesus is creating. Jesus said I'm going to prepare a place for you. So it's obviously he's the builder and it's so large that it won't fit on this planet. He has to create a new heaven and a new earth , and this earth is going to be so big like 366 times larger in volume than it is now for the city of God to be able to be here, the city of God that he's planning is bigger than the continental United States . Its width or dimension is bigger than the border of Canada, and the Gulf of Mexico. One side it would be hanging out in the Gulf and then going the other way 1500 miles and then going up 1,500 miles. That's a huge city, mind you, I have no way of actually being able to figure this out, but I've sort of tried to think about how many people have been born and lived on this planet to date.

Arlo: 23:41

And, you know, maybe for the next 5, 10, 20 years too, who knows? But I'm sure that it's going to be over 100 billion, So out of that amount of people, how many is God going to keep? is not sentimental person or something. You know everything is absolutely right and wrong, and between right and wrong, true and false, and everything. There is no in-between, and he is all-powerful, all-knowledgeable, and we can't figure out actually how to handle that because we can't fathom it. So we may as well admit it, and I think it's sure a good thing that God is who he is. We're very fortunate.

Arlo: 25:00

Anyway, that's enough of getting old. You know, it's a goal that a lot of people have, I guess, but in my case it's just goal that a lot of people have, I guess. But in my case it's just a matter of I'm not in charge. I'll get up, have breakfast, dinner and supper, as long as it's a deal, as long as I'm supposed to and be thankful for it. So that's all for tonight. So thank you and I wish you the best and I would ask God to bless you. Thank you.