Aug. 29, 2026

The Blockhead Project: Why Are We Grieving For Dolly?

The Blockhead Project: Why Are We Grieving For Dolly?
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WEBVTT

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Well, Blockhead Nation, good grief, good afternoon, good evening. Whatever

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time you are tuning into this little podcast, I appreciate

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you being here. You are currently listening to your favorite Blockhead.

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Come on in, take a seat, relax, and join me

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in the Blockhead Mansion, a.k.a. my living room in my

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house with my three dogs asleep at my feet. So

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those of you that are here, if you are not

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familiar with this show, you are listening to a Peanuts fan.

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I am always, always going to be a major fan

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advocate for Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy, Linus, and the gang.

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I am a fan of the comic strips that you

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can access online now. Still remember the Sunday comics. I

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am a fan of every TV series that ever came

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out related to the Peanuts. I'm a fan of the

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2015 movie. I believe the animated movie of the Peanuts

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was flawless for many different reasons. And the goal now

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is for this blockhead, this fan of everything Peanuts related

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and everything in between, to finally see the Charles Schultz Museum.

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And that will be happening in June of 2027. So

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the little red-haired girl and I will be making a trip.

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We'll make a trip to San Diego. and we'll take

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a day trip up to Santa Rosa to see it

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for ourselves. So that is loading, pending, pending actions in

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the near future. And I'm sure some of you might

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have come by because you wanted to know about the

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topic at hand. You read the title, and you thought, oh,

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I've got to hear what this guy has to say. Yes,

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we have celebrities, well-known icons... People that were parts of

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our lives that have spread their wings, that have been

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called home. One of them in particular, one of the

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greatest singers of all time. It's like the old hymn says,

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when all of God's singers get home. Maybe that's why

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you're here. Maybe you're curious about the show. Maybe you're

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curious about the topic. And I'll start with, I will

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give a huge shout out to a friend of mine

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in Houston who does fantastic work in the realm of podcasting.

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I happen to be a voice in the podcasting world.

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He happens to be an advocate, a mentor, a coach.

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Giving a shout out to Ozeal for Pod Houston. He

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recently did an audit of another show that he has

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tuned into, and I think he did a phenomenal job

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of it. But when he mentioned about the title on

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what you would consider cleaning up. If you are part

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of this show, you've got to understand that since the

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passing of my mother in December 2025... As a person

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who is now navigating life without their parents, who is

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happily married to the little red-haired girl, we're in a

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new chapter. And this show is really sometimes when I

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need to express my grief or talk about my journey,

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then you are along with me. We have revamped the show,

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and there are things that will still be talked about.

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I'll always be a Peanuts fan. First and foremost, God

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is king. God is sovereign. And that will always be

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a topic that's brought up here. But there are a

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few other things that have been drifting around in my

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head because some of you are like, you're also a teacher. Yes,

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teacher by day, podcaster by weekend. This is the trail

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that I have blazed for the last 10 plus years

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with this show. And I still thoroughly enjoy it. And

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before I get into Dolly Parton's passing or even Tim

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Curry or the others that have passed in the year

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2026 and we're all looking around going, what is going on?

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And you start thinking, man, there must be a countdown.

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There's an end of days that we're expecting at this point.

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There might be some of you that are teetering on

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the brink and are looking at that. So I'm going

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to start with simply this. One of the absolute favorite

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series that I had for the Peanuts that came out

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many years ago in the 80s was something called This

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is America, Charlie Brown. First and foremost, I'm also an American.

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I'm very patriotic. I'm a U.S. Navy veteran. Served four

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years on a ship called the USS Pearl Harbor, LSD

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52 stationed out of San Diego, California. I met Pearl

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Harbor survivors who were there on December 7th, 1941. Their

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stories changed my life forever. And I was having a

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discussion with somebody at Open House. I won't go into

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detail about it as a teacher, but we brought up

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something about how there were some of us who go into,

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I think she went into sociology. got a degree in

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one of those professions that a lot of the outside

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world loves to call, and I quote, useless degrees. Well,

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we very much live in a world where those that

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are left-brained and are methodical and those who can analyze

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data and can help a company perform the bottom line

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and can pull profit and margin and those who can

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analyze the data and maybe even manipulate it. There is

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some truth to all that. For those that are in

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those fields, they've always been well-rewarded, while us storytellers fall

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by the wayside. And maybe that's just where I fall into.

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I fall into being a narrator. I've always wanted to

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be a storyteller, and this podcast has allowed me to

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do that in my own way. And when I think

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about the TV series This Is America, Charlie Brown, that

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was the simplistic... that started in my life was just

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watching Charlie Brown and understanding what it meant by the

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founding fathers. If you ever need a very simple way

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of knowing how that came to be, Charles Schultz did

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a great job of it. I always thought that if

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he wasn't a cartoonist, he may have been a very

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good pastor, but he also may have been a very

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good historian. He understood American history very well. He saw

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Hitler's first solution up close and personal as a soldier

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during the great Second Great War. But I bring all

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that and see if I can bring this full circle.

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Because if you watch any of those episodes, especially the

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one about writing the Constitution, which is not an easy

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topic to understand about how our founding fathers came together

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in an emergency meeting in Philadelphia, and you had, as

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the play Hamilton discusses, your Federalists, who said we need

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a stronger central government, and you had your Anti-Federalists, who

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stood against it because there was no Bill of Rights included.

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This is something that you would get if you watched

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the Charlie Brown series, This is America, Charlie Brown. It'd

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be a fun-filled, entertaining show for you to watch, to

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see it from beginning to end. While Linus is the

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intellectual one that gets a bird's eye view of what's

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happening as the debates continue back and forth. So I

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want people to realize that as time went on, It's

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not my movie recommendation to anybody that's watching this show,

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but I can tell you that one of my favorite

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movies of all time will always be Good Will Hunting.

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If I had to pick my top three, I would

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definitely say in the top three is The Shawshank Redemption,

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Good Will Hunting, and Stand By Me for many different reasons.

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And a main movie will always be The Peanuts movie.

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Recently most favorite, of course, Masters of the Universe. I

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can talk for days about that movie. But if I

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can just take one scene from Good Will Hunting, this

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is where they go into a bar, those who have

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seen it, Ben Affleck hits on some girls, and he

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claims that he had a class with them, and he

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gets called out for it by one of the guys

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in the bar who's a Harvard student, probably high academic,

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and he asks a question that stumps Ben Affleck. But

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for anybody that knows anybody that understands the simplest ideas

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of American history, could have debunked anything that he said.

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It seems like Matt Damon is super intelligent in this scene,

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and it's not. It's not that difficult of a concept. Meaning,

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he says, I want you to give me some insight

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into the evolution of the market economy in the Southern Colonies. Guys,

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anybody who can think in the most simplest terms can

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realize that the Southern Colonies The original 13 colonies, before

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they became the 13 states in the U.S., were farmers.

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Or they were slaves. I mean, that is not a

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difficult concept. The southern colonies were known for plantations. Mostly tobacco,

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but there are many others. If you go to the

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Central America area, you see the sugar plantations, the coffee beans,

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I mean, you name them. And what do you need?

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You need cheap labor. So you do have farmers. You

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do have slaves brought over on the triangle trade. You

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do have the Columbian Exchange. It's been an exchange even

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prior to this anyway. That is not a hard concept.

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But he tries to mask it to where he sounds

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so intelligent when he says it could be analyzed as

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agrarian pre-capitalism. Guys, there's nothing deep about that at all.

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They're farmers before the millionaires started showing up in New York.

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I mean, that's where all of our millionaires in the

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North really started to come into play. And then when

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you have the completion of the Erie Canal, that's an

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economic superhighway that makes millionaires left and right in droves.

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That's not hard. But if you watch Matt Damon, he

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comes in and beautifully sets the stage where he goes,

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you know, you memorize some historian and just quoted what

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they said. Next week, you're going to quote a geographer

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who said this about the 1740s. Then you're going to

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go on and regurgitate Gordon Wood. And that's what I love.

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That's where it all begins. Gordon Wood, talking about, and

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I quote, the pre-revolutionary utopia in the capital form affects

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the military mobilization. And if I just talked over your head,

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let me help you. There's a book recommendation in the

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blog for today's podcast. It's called The American Revolution of History.

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Written by Mr. Gordon S. Wood. He's a real professor

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at Brown University. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993.

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for the book The Radicalism of the American Revolution, has

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written many books on the Revolution. The time period after that,

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he was part of the Oxford History of the United States,

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where he wrote Empire of Liberty. So much work coming

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out of this one professor. He's phenomenal. And he never

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wrote anything that I could find where it talked about

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pre-revolutionary utopian capital form and effects of military mobilization. That

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sounds like something a Marxist historian would say. I couldn't

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find it. But if you ever want to know what

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the American Revolution was all about, that book, or if

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you want to do the audio book, it's available on audible.com.

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It's my recommendation. You'll get a better understanding of American history,

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on what led to ultimately what defines us as a nation.

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We took our independence. Canada was slowly given their independence

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over time. There's still what you call a constitutional monarchy.

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We are a democracy in action. Far from perfect, but

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we took our independence and why it happened. So that's

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my book recommendation, but if you need a simplistic approach,

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This is America, Charlie Brown does a wonderful job through

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many of the episodes, especially the one on our founding fathers.

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You need more depth on it, read Gordon Wood. Many

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of those books are on my bookshelf right now here

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at the Blockhead Mansion. And I'm not saying that to brag.

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I'm saying that I wish people would realize that that's

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where my patriotism comes from. So my work in teaching

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history is far from done. Now, if you need good

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therapeutic chances to laugh, but also sink deep intellect, I

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wouldn't recommend the top three movies I just told you.

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I love The Shawshank Redemption. I love Good Will Hunting.

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I love Stand By Me. One of the greatest stories

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ever told was the pie-eating contest in that movie. But

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if you want to see therapy on a youth level,

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all you got to do is follow my movie recommendation

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for today's show. It's in the blog. Go watch The

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Breakfast Club. I'm serious. Go watch that movie. Just seeing

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the group therapy, they all realize they're not so different

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after all. They all like music, sometimes the same song,

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as you saw them dancing to one particular song. But

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if you look at the athlete, the brain, the basket case,

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the criminal quote, and the preppy girl that's going to

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become prom queen, if you see all these and get

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them on a level playing field, you see they're all

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just human beings and they were brainwashed by what happens

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inside the school. where the tribes are split up. So

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I'm going, I'm dabbling in a lot of different things

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to consider those that are listening to this show. But

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now I get to one of my favorite parts, the

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song recommendation. Something that could really challenge you. It's Hawk

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Nelson's song, Everything You Ever Wanted. If this one hits

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you in the guts today, it's not necessarily meant to.

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But it is a deep dive. If you have a

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parent that you never felt like you could measure up to,

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if you had a sibling that you were compared to,

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why can't you be more like them? If you just

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felt like you just were never enough, first of all,

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I can prove that you are in the eyes of

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your Savior. But maybe this can also be

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But see if it resonates. As we roll into

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the scripture of the day, I'll spend some more time

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in depth on the biblical aspect. Because God is king.

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And find your worth and your value in his eyes.

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Thank you for coming back for part two. Our scripture

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reading for this podcast comes from Matthew 5, verse 6.

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I'm reading for the NIV version, New International Version, and

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this is also a reflection that comes from the website blueletterbible.org.

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Here's what it says. Blessed are they which do hunger

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and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. To

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continue into the commentary, here's the reflection. Your hunger shall

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be filled. Your thirst shall be quenched. Ever shall the

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child of righteousness be seated, for the lamb is his food.

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Capital letter for lamb, by the way. The lamb is

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his drink. Christ is the living manna and the living water.

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If you don't know the story of the Israelites in

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the wilderness, there are mornings when they are provided manna,

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bread from heaven. which they are supposed to preserve and

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not take too much of. It's an interesting story. But

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the living water, Christ is that stream of living water,

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as a book by Richard J. Foster talks about in detail.

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Let's continue. The Christian feasts upon Christ's body that is

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broken for us. His blood that is shed for our sake.

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His blood covers the multitude, blockhead nation. So go, believer.

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Oh man, this reflection is loaded. So, if you're still

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here and you're asking about the topic at hand, about

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Dolly Parton's passing, what I can tell you is I...

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am forever grateful that my mother, my wife, my little

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red-haired girl, and myself were able to go to Dollywood

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the summer before my mother passed. And let me just

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say that Dollywood is wonderful for women and children. If

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you're a man, be ready to carry the items and

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the merchandise. Be ready to help with the drinks and

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I'm just telling you from my side, what I loved

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was the music. There were many local groups that would

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sing Dolly Parton's music. True talent. One of them, I believe,

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was her niece that has a set and a stage

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set for her where they reenact and they play Dolly

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Parton's hits. And of all of them, they were very good.

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Every one of them sounded great. But when they went

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into Jolene, my ears perked. I sat a little bit

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more erect in my seat. And I was totally, as

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the kids say today, locked in as they were playing

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this song. Beautiful rendition. And we have others that have

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passed away recently too those that grew up with Remember

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the Titans it's hard to see the young daughter that

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has passed on to know that Home Alone 2 will

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never feel the same again It's hard enough to watch that,

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seeing the Twin Towers in the background. It's even harder now,

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with the comedic relief for Tim Curry, to no longer

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be there. If you go watch the 1982 movie Annie,

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and to see him do his rooster call. I'm just

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throwing out a few examples I can think of here.

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Those of you that are fans of horror films, you

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know about Pennywise. But guys, there's so much that the

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Bible can unpack for you. And one of them is

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the entire book of James. Especially James chapter 5. Because

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you have to ask, what does it mean to save

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a soul from death? Well, the book of James, according

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to gotquestions.org, reminds us there's genuine faith, not only in

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just believing, but doing. There's your salvation, but then there's

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a sanctification process. So through the letter, James addresses a

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mixed audience, with chapter 5 especially. Some who do have

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genuine faith, And others, they're just merely associated with the

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Christian community. So this is coming from gotquestions.org, and I quote,

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When James speaks of one who wanders from the truth,

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he's referring to a person who has not yet experienced salvation.

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Earlier in the chapter, he explains, When sin's allowed to grow,

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it gives birth to death. Continuing that lifestyle that ultimately

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leads to eternal death and separation from God. We can

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unpackage that with Romans and Galatians very quickly with the

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Apostle Paul. But we'll just stay here. When someone persists

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in a way of life contrary to the truth of

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God's word, despite professing faith, they prove they're lost by

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their actions. I don't think we can ever say that

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about Dolly Parton. What we saw in the background. What

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she gave to where her charity was, where her heart was.

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So when James says that turning such a person back

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from wandering will save a soul from death, he's not

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talking about physical death. All people, believers and unbelievers, will

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face physical death. We know that. We have been dealt

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that many times. I have dealt that with my parents.

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You might have dealt that with someone that is close

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to you. And now we have so many from our

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generation that we adored and now they're no longer here.

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So instead... In this passage, James is pointing to spiritual death,

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the eternal separation from God, that the Bible consistently describes

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as the ultimate consequence of your sin. So James is

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not saying that the believer has the power to save.

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Salvation is always the work of God. But he emphasizes

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a key role that believers have to play in the

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redemptive mission of God. When we share the gospel, you

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also pray for the lost. In our adult Bible study,

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we're getting into Daniel chapter 9. If you need a

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book that is the epitome of how to pray, Daniel,

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in his later years, we act like we're always too

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busy to pray. This is a man who was pretty

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much the chief staff of the Persian Empire. And boy,

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did he find time to pray. So, Back to when

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we share the gospel, we pray for the lost. We

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lovingly guide someone towards Christ, and we participate in that

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divine work of salvation. God saves, but he uses us,

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his people, as instruments of that saving grace. That's all

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through James 5, guys, if you want to elaborate more.

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But if you're just like, well, Blockhead, I'm grieving right now. Well,

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that's a different story, too. Jesus talks about that in

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John 16, verse 22. Jesus says to his disciples, now

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is your time of grief, but I will see you again,

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and you will rejoice, and no one will take away

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your joy. John chapter 16, I mean, grief, when you

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think about it, it's the pain, it's the sorrow, it's

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the affliction. It hurts so much because their absence is there,

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and they mattered so much to you. when they were

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in your presence. So to understand why the disciples are grieving,

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we've got to hear Jesus' words here of hope. And

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that's the full context of John chapter 16. Jesus knew

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what was in the hearts of the disciples. He knows

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what's in your heart. When Jesus says, now is your

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time to grieve, he's acknowledging your immediate feelings about this

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impending death. You grieve now I mean, the sorrow over

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their master being taken from them. The shattering of the

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hopes of a Messiah who was supposed to come and

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was supposed to level the Roman Empire, and he came

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in on a donkey. He came in as a prince

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of peace. Not what they were expecting at all. And

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they're like, I don't understand. And Jesus validates their feelings

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of loss, of confusion. of despair. It's a good example

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of how we care for those who experience these similar emotions.

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But please know in this same verse, John 16, verse 22,

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Jesus points to the future. I will see you again,

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and you will rejoice. Death is not the end, blockhead nation,

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because our Savior is defeated death on the third day.

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He said he would. Luke 24, verse 7, that the

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Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of

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sinful man and be crucified and on the third day rise.

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So for now, there's sorrow. For now, there's grieving. But

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Jesus rose again. That's everlasting joy. And he will return

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one day. He's ascended. He's at the right hand of God.

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We have one of God's singers who got to participate

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in the marriage supper. You can't look at worldly happiness

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this way. That's predicated upon circumstance. No, the joy we

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have is in Christ based on the assurance of his resurrection.

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In him, we have deep and abiding joy. victory over sin,

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victory over death, defeating Satan, who is constantly breathing down

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our neck. So please know, may the God of hope

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fill you with joy today as another singer went home,

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as believers, who towards the end, I can't speak for

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if they accepted Christ or not, but be with me

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in this divine work of salvation. as we read the word,

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as we pray over it, as we meditate on it,

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as we interpret it, as we don't read ourselves into it.

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When everybody wants to talk about, for I know the

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plans for you to prosper you, please read that in context.

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That's Jeremiah, a prophet, that's talking about these captives taken

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to Babylon who are promised to be restored to their land.

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Please understand that. There's always going to be wrath, but

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then there's going to be hope for the remnant, and

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there's going to be a restoring of the land in

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God's time. He's not bound by time. He's the Alpha

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and the Omega. He works outside of our time span.

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We don't have the understanding that God has. It's far

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superior to ours. So may that overflow from your heart

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today with hope, the power of the Holy Spirit, as

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Romans chapter 15 talks about. So, Blockhead Nation, and I'll

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say it, beloved, those of you that are here, this

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is part of my grieving process to share with you

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the true eternal hope that is that one day, imagine

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the heavenly host as we're called home and one of

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those voices is Dolly Parton herself in a new body,

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in a perfect body. for him to look at us,

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knowing we've done nothing to earn this. It's Christ's blood.

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It's Christ's sacrifice. The atonement for our sin. And he

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looks at you and says, well done, good and faithful servant.

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Rejoice in the Lord always. Rejoice in the Lord. I'm

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sure I said Lloyd. Forgive me for that. A little

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bit of dumb and dumber thrown in there. Those will

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appreciate that. Either way, rejoice in it, Blockhead Nation. Why

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are we grieving? I understand momentarily, but are we going

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to stay there? Are we going to leap for joy

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in our hearts knowing that's one of many that we're

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going to see that my mother got to be part

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of the heavenly host to say, hey, welcome home, sister.

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And many more to come. And time is nothing to him.

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So much to contemplate, so much to leave you with

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in this episode of Blockhead Nation. Hopefully we'll catch you

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in two weeks. Same blockhead time, same blockhead channel.