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.

Bathtime for Comet

(For any christian who, like me, is sometimes just sick to death of their own shyte.)

Here we go again,

Face down in a bowl of vomit

Oil on canvas heroin

Familiar ground for Joshua’s comet

Bath time again,

Cause I dragged us through the mud

Fur’s all matted with sin

I’ll get the washtub, you pour the blood

Sorry about this, Master

I wish there was more I could do

Than just sit in the holy water

While you scrub me good as new

Wish I really felt clean

Since you treat me like best in show

It’s hard to be a champ’een

When in the back of my mind I know

Your puppy with the golden tags

Will sneak back through that hole in the fence

And with my tail between my legs

Happily commit some same old, new offense

Time heals all wounds

What about wounds of guilt and shame

Is it just an ego bruised?

That makes me cringe when you call my name

I guess I thought

That some things were going to get better

But every time I’m caught

The baths just feel that much wetter.

OOP

Once upon a time it had been a vibrant forest.  Even the rot then had brought new life.  Now a lone pilgrim upsets the ash with snowshoe-wide feet and cautious step.  It quivers and shudders around the sojourner's legs in silent agitation as if each plodding tread were upon a hive of yellowjackets rather than upon the lifeless corpse of a thousand trees...

and the charcoal corpses of buildings made with the corpses of trees.  One could almost forget oaks and hickories weren't the only residents once upon that time.  This used to be home to the organic and the manufactured, music and noise, poetry and prose, the sacred and the profane.  The sharp eye safe behind goggled glass however picks out the alien artifacts of straight lines which nature abhors and mankind adores.  Scorched metal, broken glass, blackened cement, the swaddled pilgrim stops and examines them all.  Some are picked up and wiped with a gloved hand.  Only to be discarded in favor of the next.   Clearly the Pilgrim seeks something in this murky land.  Searching, scanning, looking...

looking for a sign.

Once, this land thrived.  Some time ago, it fell silent.  The pilgrim has come, looking for a clue as to why.  At last the eager gaze falls on a corner poking free of the ash, three letters visible even in the murky light, "OOP".  At last!  All the Seeker's will is bent upon the bent metal sign yet the Wise one  thrusts forward exactly the way an archeologist would.  With all the speed of a bomb disposal expert discovering a landmine, the gentle glove brushes at the accumulated ash and dust, glorying in the shards of glass and nuggets of rusted steel testifying to what lies beneath the paddle sized moccasins.  More letters are exposed, a "C", an agonizing blank space, then an "N", the hand quickens, "E, K, C" appear.  Holding back eagerness no longer, the pilgrim pulls the sign from the earth and lifts it above the cloud of anxious ash.  It reads...

The Fricken Coop

Greetings traveller.

If you're reading this
 you might be wondering where i've gone.

Fear not, i am not dead nor lost nor quitted...

i am off chasing a Rabbit Trail.

For now, i will keep the Coop up and open just in case

i wish to write or post something that's too long for Facebook

or too personal for the Rabbit Trails.

Fare well, God speed, and i hope to see you on the Trail.

Pappy Fricken

Jonah

This is a requested reprint of a worship service i wrote many moons ago. i have left it as is except for removing the song titles out of it. It not only shows us through the story of Jonah that God can use even the unwilling but that He loves all His creation, not just his 'chosen' people. God's chosen is anyone who will listen and humble their hearts before Him... and that includes prophets...

Welcome to New Life at Five Points. Welcome visitors, welcome back family. It is good to be here. The world gets one hundred and sixty-six hours a week to preach its message. Here we give God two for counterpoint. Ordinarily that thought would depress me. But God has given me a message this week that allows me to say that with a wry smirk. Yeah, that’s not just my normal expression. At least not today. For today I have a tale to tell you that has lifted my heart every time I thought of it this week. The service today might sound disjointed, the music may not seem to jive with the story. But it does, oh yes, it most certainly does. For no matter what we see going on around us here, no matter how dark it gets or how hard the tempest rages. No matter how far, how distant, how mythical, how impossible it can possibly seem:

God is in control. Jesus is on the Throne. The Spirit is with you and the worship of God never ceases.

I know, you’re skeptical. That’s fine. As you are about to see, God doesn’t need your full cooperation. But with that mustard seed of doubt firmly planted, the Not-Quite-Ready-for-Picklehead Players present…

The story of Jonah.

1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ² “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” ³ But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

⁴ But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵ Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. ⁶ So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”

Jonah Is Thrown into the Sea

⁷ And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸ Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” ⁹ And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” ¹⁰ Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of theLord, because he had told them.

¹¹ Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. ¹² He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” ¹³ Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.¹⁴ Therefore they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” ¹⁵ So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.¹⁶ Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

So the Moral of the Story is…do what God tells you to do or He’ll kick your butt. Yeah, maybe. But you know what God showed me this week? He told me that He loved a bunch of scruffy sailors. And that he used Jonah to present the Gospel to those sailors. He showed them that they needed to be saved. He showed them that their gods couldn’t do that saving. He told them that someone had to die for them to be saved. Still they tried to do it on their own, well-intentioned works! No God, killing is wrong! We can try harder! We’ll be good! But in the end, someone had to die. Someone willing and those sailors got it. And He got all that done, not with some great champion of the faith who lived a blameless life, but with a grumbly, disobedient, self-centered jerk. And I find that very encouraging.

Truth

(Found this while i was checking old material for anything publishable. This is a framework i did for a scripture reading at church one day. i dressed pretty scruffy, not quite homeless, but close. In other words, the way i would normally dress if i weren't in church. i didn't stand up front, i came from the back and started talking before they knew i was there. i stayed among the congregation the whole time so i spoke loud. i also was channelling Samuel L. Jackson the whole time performed. Don't know if i sounded like him but i since i heard it in his voice the whole time, i figured you should too. Don't remember now why i thought i could get away with all this but it started a whole season of my life writing skits and performing monologues for worship. So without any more useless preamble... the way it all began.)

Truth.

Not many people know what that is anymore. Not that many ever did.

Fewer still with the brass to whisper any of it aloud.

Elijah. Lotta folks have quoted God. Not many know his shoe size from lying face down before his kicks. Elijah came, swished the Truth around, poked a few hardcases with it and caught a flight for home. But he didn’t stay gone. When the Truth squeezed into the world in blood and amniotic fluid, Elijah was there again saying, “Surprise! Dad’s coming! Your room had better be spotless!” Little while later and he was untying the Truth’s Chuck Taylors so the only guy in the whole history of this vile, filthy cesspool of a rock who didn’t need a bath could take one. Elijah knew the Truth!

You would think that would make him popular. You think Ellen would ask him, “So, what’s the Truth like? Does he have a girlfriend? Why is the Truth a He?” No. Barbara Walters doesn’t want to interview Elijah. The ten most interesting people are factories of fiction not The Truth. Folks who know the Truth don’t get invited to parties. While the world watches Lettermen interview Oprah, the friend of the Truth gets taken away, quietly locked up and buried in two separate graves.

You think I’m kidding? You think I’m exaggerating? Would you know the Truth if you heard it? What if you run into me in the atrium of the mall and I’m saying,

¹ Oh, that you would burst from the heavens and come down! How the mountains would quake in your presence! ²As fire causes wood to burn and water to boil, your coming would make the nations tremble. Then your enemies would learn the reason for your fame! ³When you came down long ago, you did awesome things beyond our highest expectations. And oh, how the mountains quaked! ⁴For since the world began, no ear has heard, and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him.

Would you praise God? Or call Security?

Who you calling crazy?

i often hear that it is rational to have doubt. That it is not only logical to approach faith with skepticism but it is functionally the only way to faith. "Faith is believing in something you know ain't so," according to Mr. Twain.

But is this true? No offense, but i approach that line of thinking with more than just skepticism, i downright call it cuckoo in the cabeza. And here's why...

If God is talking directly to you and telling you exactly what He's going to do, like, i dunno, destroy a couple of cities with fiery hail and you even see Him do it and you go and try to make his promises happen another way cause you think He needs you to help Him out... that's nuts.

If God totally tells you how He's going to systematically decimate a country, bring you out of it, through the Red Sea and destroy your enemies in it and you see Him do it and then you whine about Him not giving you water when you want it... that's ludicrous.

If God sends fire from heaven and destroys a sacrifice and altar right in front of you to prove He's God and you continue to ignore Him and worship rocks, sticks and metal, that's stupid.

If God shows up in the form of a man, teaches the most amazing things you've ever heard, calms storms with a word, heals every disease known to man, drives out demons and you don't believe He can feed a few thousand people when He says to, that's willful blindness.

If God thought you up, gave you life, gave you sunshine, seasons, rain, food, breath, family, friends and all kinds of other things you don't ever think about coming from anywhere; and He did not think just being God was good enough cuz you were lost but He gave up His Godhood, became a man and died in your place just so you could rise from the dead and be with Him forever and you doubt His goodness or His love and devotion to you because you're not sure where the money's coming from or you've gotten sick or some folk treat you mean...that's just goofy.

It is not doubt that helps us get out of the boat and walk on water, it's not doubt that let's us trust when all earthly evidence fails, it's not doubt that saves or teaches us about love, it's not doubt that enables us to follow a fiery pillar or go into battle with a thousand to one odds.Can you be a son or daughter and doubt, sadly, yes. You can profess with your lips what you don't actually believe with your heart. But why would you want to?

St. Frederico de Arkansas' question

When does the reminder become the rite? When does response become religion? Or put another way, when does a good thing become a bad thing? A desire become a distraction?

i could probably just give you a quick quip of an answer but what fun would that be? Instead, let's talk about John.

By most accounts and systems of measurement, John the Baptist was a pretty righteous dude. He was prophesied about four hundred years before his birth (Is 40); he's announced by an angel (Luke 1); the Holy Spirit comes upon him in the womb (Luke 1); his father was a priest and his mother prophesied over him so you know he knew who he was growing up and followed the law to the letter, even raised as a Nazirite meaning he was under a vow to God. As signs of this vow, he never cut his hair or touched alcohol or even helped bury his parents! (Luke 1, Num 6) He separated himself even from people and lived in the desert on locusts and wild honey (Matt 3, Mark 1), not even coming too near to the cities when he began his ministry (Matt 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, John 3), which, oh yeah, just in case we had any lingering doubts, he began that ministry when he heard from God! (Luke 3) So chances are, he was what we might term a guy on the inside with God.

And yet in Luke 7 and Matt 11 we see John's faith falter. John is thrown in prison for speaking out against the King about his sins. That's what prophets and preachers do. They expound truth. They reveal what folk would rather keep hidden... their hearts. So this man, who from birth has known his mission, heard the will of God from God's own lips and performed beautifully, so much so that Jesus calls him the greatest prophet who ever lived, is thrown in jail for Obeying God! And that's when it happens...

i truly hope i'm not taking liberties with the text here but i think what happened is this, John was a prophet, yes, but prophets are men. Moses, Elijah, Jonah, these men hit their crisis of faith and they usually came right on the heels of their greatest triumphs, after they'd seen some of God's greatest miracles! God follows a distinctive pattern throughout the Bible. Miraculous, life-changing deliverance followed by signifying altar or rite of remembrance, followed by a people hardening their hearts and going astray and forgetting everything God has done. God sends the Death Angel to Egypt and spares those with the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, He gives them the Passover meal to remind them each year, they get to the Red Sea and start crying, woe is us. So Moses leads the Israelites through the Red Sea, they write songs of praise to God, a couple of days later they are whining about water. God gives them water (miraculously purified by a tree) and God calls them to a vow, so they whine about food. God gives them bread from heaven, every day for forty years, they put some in the Ark of the Covenant to remind themselves and they whine about the size of the giants in the land God promised to them. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So we were talkin' about John weren't we. Sorry John, we kinda left you in jail there didn't we? But so did Jesus! John sends disciples from prison to Jesus and says, "hey cuz, remember me? Um, kinda in jamb here. Was i right to place my trust in you?" Jesus' answer is cool. He's been healing folk all day and did so apparently in the sight of John's messengers. You can almost see him letting the disciples bounce on their tiptoes for a while before he turns to them and paraphrases verses in Isaiah about the blind seeing, the lame walking, the poor having good news preached to them but he leaves out anything about the captive being set free. Instead he says, "Blessed is the one who is not offended by me."

John had seen great things, hundreds if not thousands coming to be washed before the coming of the King. He had seen the King, heard a voice from heaven and seen the Holy Spirit in bodily form descend upon Jesus! If he had died at that moment, he may have died happy. Instead, Jesus knows his heart and he has one last gift for John. A period of repentance. John realizes that his faith is based on God giving him what he thought he was OWED. As soon as something went awry in John's plan his faith faltered. Jesus might be saying, you don't want me for me, you want me for what i can do for you! Jesus suddenly might not be the Son of God because he was in prison, because something horrible happened to my baby, because i lost my job, because i got cancer, because my spouse left me, because no one likes me, no one listens to me, thinks i'm special, because i haven't beaten this addiction yet! Maybe that's why Jesus says that "he that is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he."

God. Is. Always. God.

God doesn't forget this. We do. God doesn't want rites and rituals, He doesn't need them. We need the reminders. We need baptism to remind us of Jesus' death and resurrection. We need to do it ourselves to remind us that as far as God is concerned, we are completely in Christ. We are something entirely new! We forget who God is and we forget who we are! "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!"

So when does the reminder become the rite? When we can no longer remember why we're doing it. When does the response become religion? When we're doing it because we think we have to and not because we want to. When does the good thing become the bad thing? When the good thing becomes The Thing. When is the desire a distraction?

When the desire is no longer Jesus.

Why we're all not smoking craters by now.

i heard a man say again today that there are many paths to God. He believed that maybe in four or five generations that Man was going to get it right. We were all working toward harmony apparently. Aside from this being completely antithetical to the Bible... it's Pollyannish Denial on a Psychotic scale. This guy cannot be watching the same news i am.

All day long, the more i thought about what he said, the angrier i got. i let it slide at the time because i had already gone toe to toe with this guy a couple of weeks ago and i had already gone head to head with another member of the group this morning and i'm trying to only pick on one heresy a day. Besides that, we were in a Bible Study with almost twenty guys, i wanted to see what, if anything, someone else might say in response.

Here at home though and all day at work, the man's words and my anger have been bouncing around...bouncing around, sparring, jabbing, testing defenses and poking each other in tentative ways. It was just a feeling at first but the punches got harder and sharper, faster and more wicked until just a few minutes ago when the ground beneath my anger suddenly crystalized into perfect, fiery, resonating clarity...

Jesus. Was. God!

That statement should echo in your head with white, hot thunder!

He was not a nice teacher, a guru, a life coach, an energy force, a flying spaghetti monster or your homey. He was GOD, YHWH! The Creator of Everything! Not the Ultimate Power in the Universe! He made the Universe! On a whim!! To say that God came, as a peasant; a pimply, pathetic, Jewish peasant; did what we could never do and did it perfectly and in perfect humility, died FOR US and then said, "Finished. No one has to do anything more now to be right with God. Just believe i did this." To say all that might be true but it's just one way of many for us to achieve Heaven or Nirvana or whatever you want to call it, is to walk right up to YHWH and open hand slap him in the face! You have dissed God! You mock his deed. You mock his love. You mock his compassion. You mock his mercy. You mock his grace. You mock GOD! How dare you!!

The more clear this thought became to me the angrier i got! The more i envisioned people, casting judgment on GOD for being so narrow minded as to say He is the only Way, (How intolerant. How exclusive. How dare he! How dare He? He's GOD!! That's how dare He!) the more furious i became. The more furious i became, the more i thought about how my anger must have paled next to the angels' and the Father Himself as Jews and Gentiles alike did just that to Jesus moments before the cross finished God's most amazingly loving, transforming, totally selfless work. The more i thought about this Jesus stopping all of Heaven from wreaking perfect justice on the earth at one insult, one more spit in the face after another, after another, after another, the more i fell in love with this Jesus! He didn't retaliate. He didn't even speak. He just took it. God let's us insult Him. God let's us bitchslap him! All in the hope that someday, somehow, we may realize what we've been doing and beg his forgiveness. How can you not love this God?? How can we not warn them??

Why i'm excited that i went bald: Part One

Two punks switching the spark plug wires of a '79 Suzuki GS 550 as a prank.

Jesus telling the rich young ruler to go home, sell all he owns and give it to the poor.

Going bald.

What do these things have in common?

Love.

The point was made to me that our fears are fundamentally linked to our idols. i fear confrontation, i fear pain, i fear failure because my god is comfort, security and people thinking well of me. When i perform, it is not just for someone else's benefit. i can't even lead worship without serving the god of praise for myself. That's how sick i am, how entwined with the temple prostitutes i have been. i want people to be wowed by me. i want to be significant. i want people to think i'm special. It's why i have to prove i'm right when i argue and it's why, when i argue, i try and use humor to keep it friendly. i learned to be moral because the people i respected valued that and it kept me out of trouble with my folks and a righteous God who demanded it. Heck, it's why i blog.

Well, that's only partially true. i would do this even if no one read it. But that's a different issue. But it's why i check it every day to see if someone left a comment.

When i was a kid, i was not cool. i'm still not cool but i'm a middle aged, white guy going to seed, and a lot of that pressure is off. But back when being cool was cool, i was not. Nor was i able to figure out what made one cool. When i tried to be cool, i failed miserably and actually became more of a laughing stock. Eventually i moved and thought this would help, no one would know my past, i could reinvent myself. It might have, a little, but nature shows through, a dweeb by any other name still reeks of fail. By stroke of grace, i was taken as a disciple of the Keith. The Keith was cool, you could tell because he had to be bussed to a different school much further away because he'd already been kicked out of ours. The Keith didn't care what people thought of him. This, i learned, was the epitome of cool. i began to stop caring what people thought of me too. i grew my hair long. i got an earring. Cuz that's what us guys that didn't care what you thought of us did.

If your irony sensors are going off it's cuz you are well versed in Greek Tragedy. Yes, i cultivated an entire personality around the disdain for what the world held dear and celebrated my freedom from society and what "they" thought. Only, i did care. i cared what the Keith thought and i cultivated an aura of apathy carefully because i realized i gained a certain amount of respect from it. On senior day, when other sophs were being called out of class to be tormented and hazed, i stalked by, bored scowl, pony tail, knee high moccasins and trenchcoat, unmolested. i was not loved, but i was left alone. It was a runners up prize i would accept because secretly i feared i was not lovable anyhow. Not by those i wanted to be loved by. Many other folk who weren't as cool as they wished thought i was kinda cool. My idol devalued the love i of friends i truly did have and caused me to focus on those who would never accept me as one of theirs so i learned to devalue them. i was worthless, my idol made my own friends worthless and my hurt made everyone else worthless.

Cynicism runs strong in my family.

After i graduated i discovered motorcycles. i became obsessed with the idea of becoming not just a motorcyclist, one who rode a bike, but a biker. It had to be a lifestyle, a personality. The black leather, the two foot long mohawk, saddlebags and a horizon became my dream and i wasted days, months, years on it. Really, i have the sketches to prove it.

i used to have an expression, "God likes to kick out crutches." i formed this idea around the concept that God want's me to lean on Him alone. A crutch is anything that i use instead of Him. While essentially accurate, i think, it is a false portrayal of Him and His motives. When Jesus kicked a crutch, the person walked, not fell down. The ten commandments mention pretty early on that God is a jealous God. He won't tolerate that which is rightfully His being given to another. We often portray this as petty. God is this angry guy who gets tic'd off at being dissed. Or he's some kind of megalomaniac who thinks that it's all about Him. What does He think He is? God? i know, right?

But what if He's a husband who isn't too keen on sharing His wife with her abusive lovers? What if He's a father who doesn't sit idle as his kid takes up a violently destructive and dehumanizing drug habit?

The first thing that had to go was the motorcycles. My first one was sabotaged. After that, i could never spend enough to keep it running for long. My second stayed running just long enough for my brother-in-arms Wayward to earn the right to kick off society's training wheels and then it died too. My third bike is another post altogether. Every time i tried to take step one in fulfilling my dream, they died and i became the dangerous image of a two year old's tantrum in a one hundred and sixty pound monkey frame. Eventually i got the message and one by one they all disappeared from my yard.

Around this time i started noting that my once enviously luxurious mane was becoming a partially shucked corn cob. There weren't enough vines clinging to the pumpkin to merit a rake anymore and eventually i did what every self respecting man ought to do at that point, i got out the clippers and finished the job. It felt weird, it felt naked. i was exposed for what i was: a pencil necked dweeb.

When Jesus told the rich young ruler to go home and sell all his possessions, we are told that he went away sorrowful, for he had many possessions. i had given up what God told me to give up, my freedom, my dream, my identity, both metaphorically in getting married, and physically in getting rid of the bikes. i was obeying, and yet, i went away bitter. i wonder, did any of the disciples follow Jesus around with a bad attitude half the time? One that had given up everything to follow Jesus and was feeling like he'd gotten the short end of the deal?

Probably one, Judas. Fortunately for me, God wasn't done with me yet...

The following are excerpts from the Official Debriefing of the Great Pumpkin Blackout

Saturday, Oct 29, 2011, 0900 hours *: It begins snowing.

1200 hrs: the power goes out in Elwood Station. Several attempts to alert Peco are made between now and 1400 hrs. Most result in curse-laden, one-sided conversations with automated answering system.

1400 hrs: an oak tree with ants in its pants gives up its tenuous grip on life and falls on power lines across the street. Peco is alerted.

1900 hrs: neighbor Brian asks to borrow cell phone to call wife because his house has become an indiscriminate conductor of electricity. Scruffy goes to investigate.

1915 hrs: Observing Poltergeist-like effects of rampant electricity Scruffy dials 911.

1917 hrs: Scruffy evacuates Elwood Station. Fire department arrives for the first time. Peco is alerted that situation may be somewhat more serious than a power outage and if they could find the time, there presence at the scene would be appreciated.

2000 hrs: Nala the Pitbull is evacuated from Elwood Station. All three cottages are believed to be empty. Between now and 2200 coffee is drank, jokes are told, firefighters wander back and forth under downed tree and smoking wires and remark at Peco's lack of presence.

22oo hrs: Peco scout pick-up truck arrives on scene to assess situation. Peco realizes that situation may be somewhat more serious than a power outage and if they could find the time, a bucket truck and larger crew's presence would be appreciated. Fire department gets bored cuz nothing is actually on fire yet and goes home.

2300 hrs: Barely buried Verizon cable in yard in front of neighbor Brian's house begins to arc in dramatic, Chinese New Year sort of way. Witnesses stand around and prepare to leap into postures of helplessness if something catches fire. Two fire departments show up to aid in helpless bystanding. It is realized at this time that neighbor Mike is in a somnolent state in the third cottage and probably had to douse an oven fire sometime earlier in the day. He is evacuated.

2310 hrs: Verizon wire realizes that no one really appreciates it's efforts and gives up fireworks display. Firemen resume postures of boredom and tell anecdotes of how close they were to going to bed before this call went out.

0100 Sunday October 30th: Peco bucket truck arrives on scene.

0110 hrs: Peco has wires isolated and shutdown. Crisis is averted six hours after nick of time. Fire department departs again.

0115 hrs: Peco removes electric meter from Elwood Station

0116 hrs: Scruffy Mynxbane is asleep.

2000 hrs: Eagles play Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football. Elwood station settles in to watch dramatic fiasco under generator power.

2100 hrs: Peco arrives to fix wires.

2300 hrs: Eagles surprise everyone by winning. Peco surprises everyone by finishing wires and leaving without restoring meter to Elwood Station.

1300 hrs Monday, October 31st: Peco's automated answering system is alerted that Elwood Station is still without power.

1400 hrs: Asplundh tree company comes and removes remains of tree from phone lines.

1200 hrs Tuesday, November 1st: after several less than satisfying conversations with automated answering system, Scruffy attempts to install meter his own dang self.

1201 hrs: Scruffy realizes power is turned off at street.

1700 hrs: Peco Sub-contractor comes to restore power, discovers lock on transformer. Contact is finally made with real, flesh and blood human being at Peco. Real, flesh and blood human notifies the sub-contractor that they will restore power when they receive permission from Fire Marshall. Sub-contractor wishes Frickens luck and leaves.

1730 hrs: Scruffy leaves voicemail for County Fire Marshall since it is after hours.

0800 hrs Wednesday, November 2nd: Beth at County Fire Marshall's office notifies Scruffy that their office knows not of what Peco speaketh. They have nothing to do with Frickens' fire or Frickens' power. Suggests perhaps local code enforcer was party Peco meant.

0801 hrs: Scruffy calls Township Code Enforcer's office and learns that Code Enforcer has been on vacation for last week. Code Enforcer's office wishes Scruffy luck and suggests trying Police department.

0802 hrs: Scruffy calls Hugelberg Police non-emergency line. Learns that local police know not of what Peco speaketh. Police suggest local fire chief. They wish Scruffy luck and give Scruffy cell phone number of Chief Jim.

0803 hrs: Scruffy leaves message for Chief Jim.

0900 hrs: Chief Jim returns Scruffy's call and notifies him that he knows not of what Peco speaketh. Suggests it may have been under chief on scene. Volunteers to make some calls and call back.

1700 hrs: Scruffy gets bored of waiting and calls Chief Jim, leaves message.

2000 hrs: Chief Jim calls Scruffy back and suggests that he get an independent electrician to check wires and call Peco.

2100 hrs: Scruffy secures Dr. Steve and the Electric Mayhem to inspect his wiring following morning at 0800 hrs.

0715 hrs Thursday, November 3rd: Dr. Steve and Electric Mayhem come and inspect wiring. Call in independent Independent Underwriter.

1130 hrs: Independent Underwriter arrives and quickly okays all wiring. Notifies Scruffy that once he turns in work ticket, Peco should get it in mail twenty-four to forty-eight hours from tomorrow. Scruffy expresses sarcastic elation. Independent Underwriter leaves copy of ticket, wishes Scruffy luck and suggests calling Peco again.

1200 hrs: Scruffy calls Peco and is put on hold.

1230 hrs: Scruffy makes contact with what is initially thought to be real, live person at Peco, explains measures taken to enforce safety, explains efforts made to contact Fire Marshall, explains that Fire Marshall has no jurisdiction in situation. Supposed real, live person at Peco mechanically reads note that says they will restore power when they receive call from Fire Marshall and wishes Scruffy good day.

1240 hrs: Alone in Zeke the pick-up truck, Scruffy marvels at madness of modern society.

1241 hrs: Scruffy calls Beth at Fire Marshall's office again. She suggests that Hugelberg must have local Fire Marshall and forwards Scruffy's call.

1242 hrs: Scruffy is put through to Hugelberg Township building, asks for fire marshall and has call forwarded again.

1243 hrs: Beth at County Fire Marshall answers forwarded call. Scruffy and Beth together marvel at madness of modern society. Beth forwards Scruffy to Fire Marshall Nick.

1244 hrs: Fire Marshall Nick patiently explains to Scruffy in terms and pace designed to educate turnip that he has no jurisdiction in case, that Hugelberg has no fire marshall and suggests Scruffy call local chief, begins looking for chief's number. Scruffy supplies number of Chief Jim. Scruffy thanks Fire Marshall Nick for his time to which Fire Marshall Nick says, "well, I didn't want to just wish you luck and hang up." "Why not?" i ask, "everyone else does."

1250 hrs: Scruffy calls Chief Jim again. Explains whole sad saga in four part harmony and things like that. Chief Jim offers to try and call Peco, possibly just to get rid of Scruffy.

1345 hrs: Bubba, who is out by road in front yard cutting up what's left of original offending oak tree's carcass, calls Scruffy inside house to say that there's a Peco truck out front.

1345...still: Scruffy hunts down Peco guy in neighbor Mike's front yard. Peco guy begins to explain that he cannot turn power on without a call from...without formalities or niceties Scruffy displays work ticket from Independent Underwriter. Peco guy examines ticket and says he'll make some calls.

1400 hrs Thursday, November 2nd, 122 hours after losing power: Power is restored to Elwood Station. There is much rejoicing.

More than i ever wanted to know about how my coffee pot works.

The electrical distribution system is not a river. Power doesn't just flow one direction along a line and terminate in your Mr. Coffee with the built in clock as a perfectly heated cup of joe. It is a grid. Power can flow any direction on it from any plant that is producing it to any house tapped into the distribution lines. When the lines in front of your house get severed by a seventy-five year old oak with ants in its pants that decides it can't take it anymore one night in a snowstorm, the power doesn't just stop, it finds ways around the break and keeps on flowing through power lines on the next street over trying to get to your Mr. Coffee with the built in clock. If however those severed distribution lines somehow come in contact with something else that will take the power flowing in them, like say...oh, a ground wire that services three little cottages hidden back off the road, the electricity will say, "this way guys! i found a way out!"

You know ground wires, if you've ever wired an outlet or an overhead lamp or installed a ceiling fan, they're the naked wires next to the black and white ones. They have no insulation so they can catch any rascally stray electricity that has escaped your Mr. Coffee with the built-in clock and before it can do something nasty like cause a fire, the ground wire gives it a better place to go. Specifically an eight foot rod staked into the ground just outside your house. Hence, "grounding" wires.

So let's review. Distribution wires. Severed by oak tree with ants in its pants. Naked ground wires and the last little fun fact of electrical distribution... at any time those wires outside your house have 4000 to 46000 Volts of electricity racing through them. In case you don't know, your house was made to have 240 Volts flow into it. None of which, if things are going well, should be in the ground wires.

i and a score of firemen stood in my driveway two Saturdays ago watching as 4000 to 46000 Volts poured into our little neighborhood through the very wires that were supposed to protect it. Whenever i got too close to the middle house, the one on the shortest wire and therefore taking the brunt of the assault my hands would begin to tingle and hurt. There was so much electricity coursing through the ground itself and the four inches of snow piling up on it that it ran up the metal downspout and lit the Christmas lights on my neighbor's gutter. There was nothing to do. You can't pour water on an electrical fire, unless you want to know what the inside of a lightbulb feels like. You can't just cut the wires because the power has to go somewhere and it's more than happy to go into the ground through you. Peco (the power company) had been called but i guess they were busy on this night of falling trees and skidding cars. At one point around eleven o'clock a buried cable in my neighbor's yard had finally had enough and let go in a geyser of sparks that fused the mud around it into glass. i thought it was the beginning of the end and yet it was quite pretty for all that. It eventually quieted back down and darkness reigned again. My eyes played tricks on me as i strained for the tell-tale glimmer and flicker of the first tongues of a flame. How much more could these highly flammable bundles of sticks take?

Around one in the morning, the Cavalry came in their orange rubber overalls and medieval hardhats and queer amish style beards. i can still say "queer" without meaning "gay" right? Well, i will 'cause it's the right word. They assessed the situation, drove back down to the end of the street and within fifteen minutes, the youngest member of their three man team walked along the street, methodically touching the wires with a long fiberglass pole with a thing-a-ma-bob on the end. Obviously doing the new guy job of "here, take this stick and go touch the wires and tell me if they're dead." He didn't light up or fall down dead so i led a team of the firemen back up the driveway and into the house where they didn't take their boots off at the carpet, shined lights on everything and sniffed in a meaningful way and declared everything "okay." i thanked them profusely and when they were gone, i started getting ready for bed... a task only minutes before i thought i may never do in this house again. The last thing i saw before welcoming the sleep of the exhausted was a man in orange rubbers, a medieval hardhat and a queer little beard taking the electric meter off of my house. "Just a precaution," he assured me. That night, he could have said it was because he was a lab mouse bent on world domination and i would have wished him luck and dropped off before clicking the "k."

The significance of that act would become much more clear over the next five days.

A fricken guide to crisis management: Snowstorms, Tree-falls, Blackouts, Back-feeds and Pit-bulls.

My neighbor had his christmas lights on two days before Halloween. There's a lot of ways one could react to that, disgust, delight, denial. We chose to run around like frickens with our heads cut off and call 911.

It was also snowing that day. Two days before Halloween. You might not like that sort of thing. You might feel it's just wrong. It's far too early for snow. Turns out you would be in good company if you hold that opinion. The Ents don't much care for it either. Y'see, in October, a good many trees still have their leaves. Thick canopies of big, shovel shaped leaves, perfect for catching and holding a sticky, wet snow. As anyone who's ever shoveled early and late snows can attest, that stuff is heavy. There were more disarticulated limbs and trunks scattered around this county last weekend than after a gas explosion at a manikin factory. i actually heard a dead tree snickering at a live one, "welcome to my world, sucker."

One tree that didn't fair too well was a great, red oak at the edge of the road right out in front of Elwood Station. It went down between one and two on Saturday, scythed through the power lines and was caught and held by the phone, tv and internet cables underneath; its body forming a low arch over our road. Side note: apparently our the entertainment industry is far more concerned with you receiving their product than the power companies. We had already lost power an hour or two before and so didn't think much of it other than to remark how dumb the motorists that still drove under it were.

Supposing this outage to be a protracted one, i went and got my folk's generator which i wired directly into my power panel to give us a few lights and keep the fridges and freezer running. Heat was coming from the woodstove on Bubba's side of the station. Dinner came from Vinnie's II pizzeria and we were just settling in for a long winter's evening when there came a frantic knocking at the door.

"Dude,canIborrowaphone,mine'sdeadandIgotasmokesituationinmyhouse,sparksshootingoutofevery outletandmyfrontdoorshockedme!" It was Brian, my next door neighbor. Normally a rather logy fellow. It seemed odd that he would jump the ditch and fight the thorn bushes i'd allowed to grow up between our houses to come see us but that night he seemed particularly energized and when he realized he didn't know his wife's work number he thanked me and ran home. i thought it odd that if a man thought his house was on fire that the first person he wanted to call was his wife so i put some boots on and battled the thorn bushes and hopped the ditch to see what kind of fire wives handle better than fire departments.

That's when i saw the christmas lights. Did i mention our power had been out since midday? It bears repeating, our power had been out since midday. This was seven o'clock at night but there were the christmas lights, glowing faintly on the gutter like something out of Poltergeist. While my neighbor put his kids in his car and started shuttling Rottweiler puppies to them and full grown Rotties yelped and shot out the door like, forgive me, scalded dogs, i followed the sizzling noises to the side of his house where the grounding rod from his power panel was glowing, arcing and smoking. That's when i pushed the panic button.

It might be the second or third time i've called 911. Next time, i gotta remember to take a deep breath first, get the facts in an orderly array in my head and THEN call. Yeah, gotta keep that in mind.

At some point it occurred to me that our two houses were fed off the same pole. So i hopped the ditch and fought the thorn bushes back to Elwood Station. i could hear the hissing-sizzling before i even turned the corner and saw the glow from my own grounding rod. Having already hit my own panic button, hitting it again didn't really do anything satisfactory. So i killed and unplugged the generator, ran upstairs, totally forgetting to take my shoes off before the carpet, and hit my family's panic buttons for them. "GrabsomethingwarmandgetoutofthehouseNOW!!" Totally cool under pressure, that's me.

About this time i remembered Nala. For those who don't know, Elwood Station is a twin so to speak. We live in the new addition and Bubba and the Bubbakins live in the old, original cottage. The Bubbakins were at their mother's. Bubba had gone to help a friend with a tree limb and torso problem so that just left one scared and freaked out pit-bull in the house. Normally she's as sweet and fun loving as the next seventy pound puppy but it was dark, there were men running around her house and pounding on doors and who knows if her senses could pick up the electricity coursing through the ground that night. Have you ever opened up the door to a completely darkened house where you know there's a freaked out pit-bull? i stopped reading Cujo as a kid somewhere in the first chapter, cuz i knew i didn't want to know what that would be like. But there i was, doing just that. With visions of white, shiny teeth and torn flesh i ventured in but she only retreated, growling just enough to let me know not to get too close. She was so scared, i couldn't even coax her out with pizza. Extra sausage and bacon! i know, right? i made several attempts but it was no use. Resolving to just throw wide the doors and let her escape into the night at the first sign of fire, i gave up.

The family was evacuated to the house of friends. Brian had finished de-dogging his own house. Bubba was on his way back to get Nala. Sirens wailed in the night from every direction and a long disused and unhooked dog fence sent plumes of sizzling steam into the snowy night. All that i knew to do had been done. So i stood in my driveway and watched to see if the houses would burn...

Extreme makeover, soul edition

If you've read this or this or even that... on second thought, don't read that. That's depressing as Christmas in Tehran. But if you were already one of the six or seven saps who subjected their sorry psyches to that or this or this then you don't only deserve, desire and demand indemnity but the theme of this thank-you is gonna thump you in the thalamus like a theatric thaumaturge. So buckle up space cadets it's time to go plaid! For everyone else, i am endeavoring to make these posts more than just a quick and quickly forgotten laugh. In all seriousness, you should receive something for your investment of time and so i promise to impart what wisdom has been imparted to me. So buckle up space cadets it's time to go plaid!

i thank God that he sent me here to the Pickyernose mountains to work on this ramshackle shack.

We will pause a moment to allow the saps time to say, "Whut?" and then we'll pause for a moment longer so they may say, "Did he just say what I thought he said??" Everyone caught up? We will continue.

Yes, i said it. i even wrote it. Cuz it's true. i have been brought to the place where i can finally say, this has been a good thing. How can this be? How did this happen? The answer to that cannot be told with anything less than a six pack of Guinness, a campfire and an entire evening but i shall endeavor to sum it up like this...

Renovation. Whilst i was isolated and alone, trying and mostly failing to make something beautiful and new of this poor, dilapidated, neglected, excuse of a house here in the Pennslobovian Northeast, God has been quietly making something beautiful and new of my poor, dilapidated, neglected, excuse of a life. He lifted me up and set me level again where i had gone askew. He has been peeling back the siding and exposing the rot and rodents. He has been pulling out the broken, useless plumbing and fitting me with a working faith that taps into the Living Water and quickly confesses out the crap. He has replaced the dingy paneling with His white righteousness so that i look around my soul now and see Him reflecting off of every surface in the glorious light of His new fixtures.

What can i give you dear reader other than a pick-up truck load of colorful metaphors, amorous analogies and starry eyed similes? The Truth. The main thing that changed, the central focus of all this renovation has been direct, constant and total immersion in His Word. In my case, having no form of entertainment or distraction outside of an ipod and a laptop, i have filled my life with sermons and from them, i have been broken, exposed, healed and learned to start praying more, read the Word more and even to keep a journal. i've come from attacking the Word to get answers to my life and my questions, from study for selfish purposes and to learn about me and my plight, to a place where i study to learn about Him! To my surprise, the more i learn, the more i want to learn! The slaking of my thirst for God has only produced more thirst! i now know the temptation of the monastery. To set oneself apart from the world and live only to study and meditate on the Truth and beauty of the Gospel is an intoxicating drug. But to do that would be to totally betray and ignore everything i'm learning. This joy was meant to be shared. Just as the Old Testament was symbol and story to point to Jesus, the church, Christ's body is here on earth now to be symbol and story pointing not only back to Him and what He's done but ahead to what He's going to do!

And that's where the trial now lays. The roles of refuge and furnace have reversed. Where once i came here in spite and with one foot aimed towards home, i now turn towards my home and my joy is tempered with fear. Fear that i won't measure up, that i'll fall back into my old patterns, that i'll be tempted to give up, that it will be too hard to bring this simple faith to a world so entrenched in rebellion that it calls the Creator a pretender. How will i keep this fragile candle lit in a world that loves darkness?

Turns out you can find the answer to that question in the Word too.

Pennslobovian Prophet Pulls Plug on Post

Thornhurst, Pa- Few people read it, fewer still will remember it but in the waning days of last summer, a blog written by the unremarkable hack known to some as Scruffy Mynxbane and to at least two pitiable children as "dad," promised special revelation. Indeed, in a post on prophecy that has proven to be less than prophetic, the writer threatened to reveal "What God is Still Telling Us?" As if his temerity was not subject to the safety belts of common sense nor even the DOT approved cranial protection of a good crash helmet, he even went so far as to hint, some say, declare, that the message to the world at large and at present was this, "Not much." Since that time fractions of fearful followers have sat at their computers with bated breath awaiting the promised revelation.

One month.

Another couple of weeks.

Is this some kind of sick joke? Did Scruffy Mynxbane think the world would move on and forget his bold prediction? Did something horrible befall the pathetic prophet? Secretly hoping for the latter, we came to this ramshackle hovel in the woods of eastern Pennslobovia to get the truth, straight from the horse's ass.

We arrived in late evening and after peeking in several windows, let ourselves in. The shower was running and having had that lawsuit before, we took a look around while we waited for a more appropriate time to do the interview. There were tools everywhere. A radio was playing a preacher from Chicago and there was an open laptop computer at a makeshift desk in the kitchen. Since it was already open, our lawyers assured us it wouldn't be illegal to peruse the open windows. As luck would have it, it was open to a new post that apparently Mr. Mynxbane had been writing before we arrived. There was a title and nothing else. The title read, "What God is still telling us?"

Exiting the bathroom in a stolen Motel 6 towel and some wool socks, the dripping blogger appeared surprised and indignant. After explaining our presence and snapping some incriminating photos he reluctantly agreed to answer some questions.

Knot Gnews: How long have you been blogging?

Wet guy in towel: Do i really have to do this?

KG: We'll ask the questions if you please. What makes you an authority on religion?

Wet g.i.t.: Who said i was an authority on anything?

KG: Who's interviewing who here, Mr. Mynxbane?

Wet g.i.t.: Well, i guess you are.

KG: That was rhetorical. Do you claim to have prophetic gifts?

Wet g.i.t.: No.

KG: Does God talk to you?

Wet g.i.t.: Well, sort o...

KG: Does He use words?

Wet g.i.t.: No.

KG: Have you ever done hallucinatory drugs?

Wet g.i.t.: i don't see how that...

KG: What's the capitol of Assyria?

Wet g.i.t.: Ninevah.

KG: Will Andy Reid still have a job this time next year?

Wet g.i.t.: Golly, i hope not.

KG: So you admit you wish ill on weight challenged football coaches?

Wet g.i.t.: Well, that's not really what i...

KG: How do you feel about Mitt Romney's acidic remarks in the recent Republican debate?

Wet g.i.t.: i dunno, what'd he say?

KG: Please stick to easily manipulated soundbites, Mr. Mynxbane. How many times a day do you brush your teeth?

Wet g.i.t.: Once.

KG: Are you aware that nine out of ten dentists suggest brushing after every meal?

Wet g.i.t.: Yes.

KG: Yet you still persist in this wantonly self destructive behavior?

Wet g.i.t.: I wouldn't say it's...

KG: Why haven't you written the blogpost entitled "What God is still telling us?" Mr. Mynxbane?

Wet g.i.t.: Oh, um, well, it's kind of embarrassing.

KG: We were hoping so.

Wet g.i.t.: Well, you see, i never actually wrote down the idea i had other than the title and um, i seem to have forgotten what i was going to write about.

KG: mmhmm.

Wet g.i.t.: yep.

KG: That's it?

Wet g.i.t.: Fraid so.

KG: Are you at this time or at any time in the near future considering a scandalous relationship with Monica Belucci?

Wet g.i.t.: Wow. i hadn't really considered it... um, i guess not. No, not really.

So there it is. The whole sad story in black and white. What was God trying to tell us? Was He trying to tell us anything or was it all in the head of a balding, hallucinating, self loathing, half-wit with a seething hatred of obese professional football coaches? The world may never know. But one thing's for certain: after waging words with this erratic oracle, we need to brush the taste out our mouths.

Know for Certain

“Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

These are words God told Abraham way back in Genesis 15. When one looks backwards at prophecy fulfilled there's not a lot of awe. Our natural reaction is somewhere along the lines of, "duh. I saw the Ten Commandments and/or Prince of Egypt. Who doesn't know that?" What we forget is that, Abraham hadn't seen those movies. He was a little behind with Netflix. He was talking to God and God was telling him what was going to happen in the next four hundred years. Wow. That had to be mind blowing. Too bad God doesn't tell us what's going to happen now, huh? Right?

Only he does. God's always telling us what's going to happen. It's one of the ways He proves He is God, in control and immutable. God never saw something happen and said, "Oh myself! I totally didn't see that coming!" Quite the opposite. He warns us all the time what's coming so that we can be faithful and confident in Him and His power. Setting aside even the prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled, we'll deal with them later, let's go back and look at His words to Abe.

"Why?" you may ask. "This prophecy was fulfilled. There's nothing here for us apart from a bit of history and an object lesson. What can five thousand year old words tell us today?"

1. First, they tell us that it's pretty freakin' amazing that we have a recorded conversation that occurred five thousand years ago! That's not really my point, it just now hit me how wild that is. Sorry.
2. This conversation is between God and man. God took some time out of His day to talk to his created child. Don't lose the awe of that! That right there should tell you something vital about His nature. He wants us to know some things. He doesn't want us kept in ignorance. He wants us to know Him and so He talks with us. And what does He say?
3. "Know for certain..." See, don't wonder, KNOW. I'm gonna tell you.
4. "...for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there." He knows our plight. Not only that, but He's allowing it...for a while. For you see...
5. "But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves," He's keeping records and nobody's getting away with anything. You are His and while it may not feel like He's protecting you, He doesn't take lightly anything done to you. Our best guess as to when the Exodus happened was right after Pepi II's reign. A guy named Merenre II, believed to be his son took power for only one year. Archeologists have no idea what happened to him (cause they're not looking on the bottom of the Red Sea) but they know that his reign began something called the First Intermediate Period. A one hundred and fifty year Dark Ages for Egypt that kicked off with famine, plague, looting, chaos, an end of international trade, art and building and civil war. Just the kind of thing you may think would happen after: the Nile turns to blood; having enough of blood, the frogs abandon the Nile for the people's homes; dust becomes gnats all over everyone's faces; God ups the ante and adds flies to the gnats (i'm picturing those freakin greenhead ones that bite you in the center of your back and even draw blood); a disease strikes the Egyptian livestock; boils cover the Egyptians; a hailstorm kills everyone outside; locusts finish off the Egyptian crops; God sends darkness upon the Egyptians, darkness that can be felt (i have no idea what that is but it sounds creepy); all the firstborn who are not protected by the blood of an unspotted, innocent lamb die in one night (remember what i was saying about God telling the same story over and over again?)
6. "...afterward they will come out with great possessions." God compensates his. That generation, who had known nothing but slavery, oppression and poverty, in one day was free and rich beyond they're dreams.
7. "You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age." A lot of times, when God really digs you, He spares you from coming tragedy altogether. (Enosh, Noah, Abe, Lot, Elijah, Daniel, the Rapture)
8. "In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." God's got a plan and a limit. He's merciful. He tolerated the Amorites nonsense for four hundred years until their sin just got so putrid He'd had enough and He wasn't going to let them pollute the rest of the world with it any longer. Many like to paint this as a portrait of God's genocidal nature. Few see it as mercy and justice. What was the final straw for God. How do you know when you've finally pushed Him too far? Seems like a good thing to know right? What is the last recorded act of Pepi II in the Bible? The slaughtering of the Israelite children. What religious rites were the Canaanite's known for? Temple harlotry and child sacrifice. "But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of Israel." (2 Kings 16) "Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?" (Ezek 16) Is it really psychopathic genocide to wipe out a people who kill their own kids? Would you want to live next door to them? Go to school with them? Have them serve on your town council?

As sexual promiscuity and perversion become the norm and abortion statistics become more staggering and sad, one (one being me) wonders how much more of US will God take?

Next post: What is God still telling us? or How the answer to the last post is probably, "Not Much."

Aren't we Archers?

³ Children are a heritage from the LORD,
offspring a reward from him.
⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their opponents in court.

(Psalm 127)

If this is true, and that's a rhetorical question, if children are arrows in our hands, then doesn't this mean that it is our responsibility to aim and fire them?