Jun 12, 2022

  Living in Unconditional Love (66) 

“Love flows from God to humans without effort: 

As a bird glides through the air without moving its wings- 

Thus, they go wherever they wish united in body and soul, 

Yet separate in form.” 

–Mechtild of Magdeburg 

 

My wife Eileen died from esophageal cancer in February 2020 one year after being diagnosed, 60 years to the day that we met on Long Island. Then my brother Tom became ill, and I spent a total of six weeks being with him in Ohio, but he died in October 2020. My sister-in-law Sue Mahoney died from Covid-19 in January 2021. On top of it all stood the pandemic, locking everyone down almost two years, and even though it is abating, I wear my mask anytime I am out among people, unlike many. 

 

06/12/2022 A difficult week for me for many reasons, but the dominant one was that our wedding anniversary was on Friday, June 10. We would have been married 61 years. I had been to the cemetery last Sunday, and saw that the gladiolas were up, but had been trimmed by the person weed whacking around the stones. I will go there in the fall and dig up the grass and create a small border around the stone. When I went back the next day to put support sticks in to alert the groundskeeper they had already grown another inch or so it seemed; but definitely taller. 

 

However, that was not the only reason for the difficult week. I have been scammed, seriously, effectively wiping out my bank account that I use – I have other accounts for my retirements, vacations, etc. I am embarrassed I fell for this, but I was assured this is a very sophisticated scam that takes in the brightest people; I am one of many that have been taken by it. You should know about it as I have been told it is something new. 

 

Back in February, just before I left for Peru, I accidently touched an email while I was trying to erase it. It instantly froze my computer, becoming caught in a ransom approach. I had to call a number to get it cleared for a fee of about $500. I had to let them into my computer to do that and free the computer. Because of the time constraints for my travel I did that, and they said that they would install a firewall to prevent that in the future. So, all seemed well, and I checked the computer often, but it seemed fine.  

 

Then at the end of May I received a phone call telling me from the persons who had ‘installed’ the firewall (or so they claimed) that they would refund that monies because they had been purchased (no idea who “they” were, and they always neatly skated around the question when I asked.) and they could no longer support the firewall.  But I had to let them into the computer to directly deposit the funds. So foolishly I did. I saw the 500 on the screen, then suddenly two more zeros appeared just as they said here it comes; supposedly they had returned 50,000. They showed me my checking account, and it seemed to state that indeed it was that much higher, as they had moved other available funds from other accounts I have in the bank there to appear that much higher. The person I was talking with seemed really upset; he said he would be fired over this, and would I help him return the funds. Being a nice guy, I agreed. The rest of story is two weeks of doing this and doing that but draining my funds each time. But the amazing thing was that this was a long-term planning: the locked ransom (and relatively low ransom fee) computer just got them into someone’s computer to determine available funds, and then three months later springing the trap. Clever, and I had to get the computer cleaned and I now have all new bank accounts. These final steps were on Friday and Saturday, and Friday was our anniversary date. They kept asking for some strange things, so when I finally asked Dan about this (he had overseen the fraud department at Citizen’s Bank in Pittsburg and knew all the approaches or could find out) He had been chatting with a friend who had described this new approach in detail, including the wail “I will be fired” and repeated it back to me before I had told him the details. So here I am, with some retirement funds gone (in order to replace some loans that were extended), some reduction in traveling plans, etc. And the long task of getting all who I pay automatically and receive pension funds with the new EFT numbers. Next week will be busy. 

 

The bottom line is never, ever, let someone take over your computer. There are other ways to return funds that are isolated from the internal software. Ransom attacks are something else. 

 

And you never think it will happen to you. 

 

But it can. 

 

And yes, this has been reported to the FBI in detail. 

 

But, in truth, things have been good. Beautiful iris, small tomatoes on my two potted tomato plants, first roses showing color, peonies are starting to bloom with the early bloomer in full glory. First day lilies blooming, lilies are stated to show bloom buds, the turkey hen still on her nest (I had stated it takes ten days to hatch, but it takes 21 days or so), days are cool but nice with occasional rain. In other words, nature is glorious. God has indeed been good to me, and a little humbling incident is disturbing but I am still good with all and makes me realize I am not all-knowing. 

 

Meditation  

 

Gentle One, I lean on You in times like this when my humanity is humbled. You help me to see life is still glorious, by showing me the wonders of all You have given me; including flooding me with memories of 61 years of wonder with Eileen. I am grateful for all You have given me over my life, and I search for ways to share my bounty and wonders of our world.