Lord of the Piston Rings?

So i was looking at a leaf spring from an old car in my yard, yes, i am a redneck, get it out of your system now, moving on, and suddenly i pictured this guy.  This Uruk Hai but not in Middle Earth, Last Earth: Post Apocalyptic Earth.  My fancy gave him a 3/4 inch rebar arrow and then took off trying to re-imagine the Lord of the Rings in this new setting.  What if hobbits were halflings readapting to a pastoral setting after the technological breakdown?  What if Sauron was pushing to reinstate the techno-industrial empire?  What if his "eye" was a remaining satellite?  Goblins came out of tunnels, basements and sewers?  Man was easily lured back to his glorious past, forgetting the evils he had wreaked upon the world?  i'm still fuzzy on elves but they'll come.  What do you think?  What would this world look like?  How would it effect the story?  What would the ring be if magic was symbolized by something else?

i Love Those Stories

A distraught customer brought me into her dining room and showed me the damage.  Apparently the brush her elderly husband had used to polyurethane the trim had previously been used for painting something white.  The effect he had achieved is sometimes called "pickling," ghostly white streaks all over the dark, wood casings and chair rails that can only be removed by sanding everything back to bare wood and starting over.  She was less than reassured.  In fact, she was mortified.

"Every time we have someone over, the dinners, I just want to die," she confessed in a conspiratorial whisper even though her husband can barely hear you if you yell in his face.
"Well, just invite over people you like," i quipped because my go-to response to other people's agony is poor humor.
"Oh, it's only ever family, my children."
"Then they don't care," i assured her, "someday it'll be just another funny story about Dad."
She heaved the sigh of someone carrying the world, "There are too many of those stories."

It didn't occur to me right away, these things rarely do, that's why i'm a writer and not a great conversationalist.  i just lost a man i called Dad last year, my wife's father.  A man i'd known and loved since i was fifteen.  One thing has become clear to me since then.

There are never enough stories about Dad.

Eve-ill

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God indeed say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ² The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, ³ but from the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God said, ‘You shall not eat from it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die’.” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that on the day you both eat from it, then your eyes will be opened and you both shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise, then she took from its fruit and she ate. And she gave it also to her husband with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed together fig leaves and they made for themselves coverings.

⁸ Then they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden at the windy time of day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ And Yahweh God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ And he replied, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I am naked, so I hid myself.” ¹¹ Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?” ¹² And the man replied, “The woman whom you gave to be with me—she gave to me from the tree and I ate.” ¹³ Then Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” ¹⁴ Then Yahweh God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
    you will be cursed
    more than any domesticated animal
    and more than any wild animal.
On your belly you shall go
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put hostility
    between you and between the woman,
    and between your offspring and between her offspring;
he will strike you on the head,
    and you will strike him on the heel.”

The story of a marriage.

Children learn early on to meet their own needs.

A child who doesn't feel loved, doesn't feel significant, doesn't feel special to anyone meets another child who worships him.

They get married.

They're happy... for a while.

Eventually, little by little, clue by painful clue, they both figure something out.  The one, that he is not a god, that her worship is misplaced and doesn't fill the need in his soul because he was not made to be worshiped but to worship, the true God, Yahweh.  The One who's love he needs and always had.

The other figures out that he is not a god, he cannot fill her needs and she has wasted her worship on a broken idol.

How does the story end?

Monday

So it's Monday.  The man in our earlier illustration or the woman in our commenter's illustration, has gotten up.  They have had a cup of coffee or tea and they are suspiciously eyeing the lightening sky.  He reads a passage from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening.  She from another devotional.  (i don't know her, so i don't know which one.)  They check facebook.  They peruse the news.  They realize all they are doing is trying to distract themselves from IT.  From Monday.  From the lightening sky.  From the solid, cold fact that another day dawns and they are going to have to figure out how to spend it.  How to live in it.

Then they realize something else.  This is not all they are trying to distract themselves from.  They are trying to avoid talking to God.  Why?  They have no drive for the day.  They have no hope for the day.  They have no daily bread this morning.  The manna doesn't seem to have fallen last night.  There was no revelation.  No miraculous change of circumstances.  He's still working a job he hates.  Her child is still dead.  When they count their blessings this morning, life itself doesn't feel like one.  It feels more like something to be endured.  They know this is wrong.  They know this is a lie.  But it's cold and bitter and extra sugar and religious platitudes just make it cloying.

They need something REAL.

Words.  Words like Faith, Hope and Joy.  They ring hollow.  They seem like taunts.  Why?  "Why Lord?!  You have promised us these would be good gifts You gave?  Why have i been excluded?" they cry.  Ah, finally.  Their pain, their suffering finally brings them to the Father.  And though they don't hear the words, they somehow hear the answer.
"Why indeed.  These are the fruits of the Spirit.  Given to all healthy branches."  The voice they do not actually hear says.
"i am not a healthy branch."
"This is true."
"Why?"
"Why do you think?"
"Because i have no faith, hope and joy!"
"Isn't that more the sign you are not a healthy branch than the cause?"
"Yeah, i guess so."
"So why do you think you don't have them?"
"i dunno."
"Guess."
"Cuz...i guess, you didn't give them mmmhmmme."
"I'm sorry.  Couldn't quite make out your mumbling there.  Why again?"
"Cuz you didn't give them to me?"
"Right.  Why is that, ya think?"
"i dunno."
"This is going to take a lot longer than it needs to."
"Cuz you didn't wanna."
"I love you.  Why wouldn't I want to give you good gifts?"
"i dun... umm, cuz....i dunno."
"This is true too.  But you think you do.  Why don't you just say it?  Go ahead."
"You won't get mad?"
"Try me."
"Cuz...cuz you're mean."
"Aah, man, we've been dancing around that festered splinter for a while now.  Because I'm mean.  Yeah.  Why do you think that?"
"Well, (You gave me a job i hate and can't get out of.) (You took my child!)"
"Yes, I did."
"Yeah, well, that wasn't very ... nice."
"Am I good?"
"Wha?"
"Am I good?"
"Yeeeah, i guess so."
"How do you know?"
"Well, you died on the cross for me and forgive my sins and stuff."
"And have I ever left you?  Are you an orphan?"
"nn"
"Sorry?"
"No.  But I feel like one!  Why did you do this to me then if you love me?"
"Why indeed.  I love you.  I will never leave you.  I am good.  You don't feel my love.  All who remain in my love grow fruit.  Yet you don't see my fruit growing in your life.  Hmmm.  Weird."
"Yeah...   maybe..."
"Maybe?"
"Maybe i am not actually, not connected to your, i dunno, your love...or something?"
"Hmmm.  Interesting thought.  See where that takes you."
"Well, maybe i was trying to draw life from somewhere else?"
"Well, that would be weird.  I am the source of life.  Where else could you draw life from?"
"(From work and significance...)  (From being a mother...?)"
"And if I blessed that, what would you have become?"
"I dunno."
"No, you don't.  And i don't ever want you to.  It's something terrible.  Something I would do anything to spare you from becoming.  You are my precious child.  How I long to teach you so much more, I long to fill you with my love but you won't come to me.  Not truly.  Not with your heart.  You've been coming to me asking for what your heart actually wants.  The broken cistern it's been trying to draw life from.  And it's not me."
"I'm so sorry.  How do i change that?"
"You don't.  You can't.  The heart you have will always want what it wants.  You need a new heart."
"How can i have a new heart?"
"I must give it to you.  I will melt your heart of stone and give you one of flesh."
"Please do that, Lord!  When can we start?"
"We've already begun."

Anybody home?

(Wah...wha....waahHHCHOOOOO!!  snif.)  Wow, haven't been here in a while.  The Coop is dusty!  It's good to sit and talk with you again though.  Today i bring ya a conundrum.  It's a doozie.  Might take a bit words to work out.  Clear off that table and we'll spread it out and see what we can make of it.

Man hates his life.
Earnestly desires a significant life.
Only a life fully submitted to God brings life.
But if man submits to God only to get what man wants from God he has not truly submitted.  He has only tried to follow a formula to get what he wants.
So how does a man love God for God alone?
How does he learn to do this while still getting up every day and living a life he hates?

hmmmmmm...

Helpin' a brother out

If you don't know Nicholas Kole, you should.