Excessive Preaching, or Glitter by the Bushel

  In my "spare time", whatever that finally proves to be, I have taken on a part-time job. I am working nights, at the local public schools, as a "custodian", which is a mild (and face saving) way of saying "janitor"! I will not tell you here which schools exactly we work nights at, but being the observant chap that I am, I do notice things after only one week on the job. I am not certain as to how best to go about mentioning it, since this is (clearly) a touchy subject, which is to say; women are involved. So, just be prepared (in advance) to be possibly offended by my profound "insensitivity"!
   Okay then, let us begin. Uhm, since when did classrooms become "eating stations"? Why am I finding pizza (?) boxes? Why is there popcorn on the floor in here? Is lunch time just too too far removed in time and space for these little rascals to "endure" hunger, without pounding down a few hundred calories, every hour or so? When was it exactly, between 1976 and the present; that the cafeteria and the classroom became interchangeably places to eat? I would also like to know, is all this grub being bought on the taxpayer's dime? Am I the one buying the pizza? Can I have some? Such constant eating, in order to "maintain one's strength", strikes me as "odd", at the very minimum. Is the big idea here to have the little rascals putting on some serious poundage? Who wins there? Teachers, who are nearly all female, actually believe that in order to lose weight it is "important" to keep-eating...have you noticed?
   For the past four months, I have been losing some weight, about forty pounds thus far. The shocking reality of the phenomenon is that; in order to do so, (1). I quit eating so much, and (2). I consistently work off more fuel than I eat. Uniformly, when presented with the fait accompli of such loss, not a single fem-bod which I have encountered..."approves"! Each one of them (in their own way), proposes the; "But, you've 'got to' eat!" theory. According to this view, the way to lose weight, is to continue to eat?...go figure. Women are (I think) generally opposed to the idea of quitting eating (it, as a kind of "anti-life" type of thing?), and in fact believe that such behavior is "dangerous". Dangerous to whom precisely, or just what said "danger" is, we are not normally informed of by our fem-experts. And as coincidence would have it, the vast screaming majority of government school's employees are fems, and well; you see the connection I am making then? It is a little bit like the last ten years, and it's weird-pants craze of water bottles. Just when was it (date-wise I mean), that it became "wise" to always and everywhere be taking tiny sips from a water bottle? I mean, just how "serious" is the dehydration "issue", when we consider that we discuss an air-conditioned, indoor space? Okay, so if a guy were out breaking rocks with a hammer in the sun for ten hours, without a drink, that (possibly) could present some hydration problems, but in the cool air?, sitting down in a classroom?, never once breaking a rock, nor even lifting (much less swinging!), a hammer? Please...Men and women really do differ, and at minimum, we really do disagree on just how to view "nutrition". Let's just start there! So, any other "custodial" insights you'd care to note then; Mr. Zany Misogynist Pants? Sure, how about that whole glitter thing?
   The politically correct view of "substances" is that some of them should be "controlled", and/or suitably "banned". I am quite sure that you (clearly) recall that portion of the constitution, in which authorization is granted to the the federal "gubmint" to regulate which chemicals you may lawfully pour into various orifices of your body? It is in the "controlled substances" part! You know, the whole "War on Drugs"(?), which has been such a rip-roaring success! So, as a "custodian", I am finding the true list of substances which the feds intended us to (by the founders) prohibit (for our own good of course!). Item number one on my "custodial" list of controlled substances to be banned by law from government schools, is...glitter? Not to be an insensitive boor at this juncture, but aren't we herein discussing "high schools"? This is not third graders we are talking about. No sir, these are the very-nearly "college ready", we yap about here? So, what's up with all this miserable glitter being used anyhow? In these toxic amounts, such represents; in this environ (such that it is stuck into practically every carpeted surface?), a true eco-hazard! Doesn't all this reflectivity also contribute to global warming? Talk about "scary"! Did we (the taxpayers); get a really, REALLY good deal on the junk, if we would but simply order the crud by the bushel, or something? Why are 17 year olds playing with glitter and glue anyhow? And if the goal of "education" is to make shiny (ugly) "posters" after all, rather than to master grammar, history, or logic couldn't we just do without the final five to eight years of state indoctrination? Couldn't ten year olds manufacture equally "pretty posters", just as well as our eighteeners? And it is this oafish chauvinism of mine, which brings us to my actual "custodial" gripe, the one I have (so far) only alluded to! Back when I attended the misery which is "high school", there was not nearly so much excessive preaching going on!
  The constant and nattering harangue, this self-righteous badgering, from the position of the moralist's "superiority complex", does not "belong" in our schools! Isn't this bellyache of mine here, just almost exactly what the schools themselves level against Christianity? Think for a moment of the yearly battles over manger scenes, or the moronic arguments about whether it is "legal" for a Bible study to meet, voluntarily on school grounds. Recall the outrage, the "danger" of preaching on school grounds by the "open minded, and educated professionals". Isn't such "danger" a bit like that of, in the classroom, just not "enough eating"? That is; this kind of "danger", exists mainly between your ears! What about those legal fights over whether a kid can have a picture of Jesus on his tee shirt, or "intolerantly" pass out candy with scripture verses attached? Aren't we always and everywhere warned about the "dangers of crossing that constitutional line"? Well guess what, as a part-time "custodian", I am deeply offended by the incessant, and narrow preaching going on at taxpayer expense, inside our schools! Do you doubt me?
   Enter one of our "schools" and just peer intently for about four seconds, at the walls. I swear; producing these propaganda posters must take the lion's share of our "student's" time! The glitter alone, weighing in at pounds, not ounces, (at least that portion of the stuff that stuck, and didn't end up in the carpet), is there in front of you, forming "important messages". I (for one), find the words to be disturbing. "End bullying at X-high now!", or how about "Excellence begins here!"? The sign proposing that "4 out of 5 Rap Songs Feature Drug Use", certainly makes one wonder. Is this an endorsement of drug use, or a pitch for the "federally mandated War on Drugs", it's "opposite"? It is hard to say for certain. In either case, glitter by the kilo; certainly catches one's eye. And recall that you are the one paying for this narrow-minded puritanism sir! Where, I ask, is the much vaunted "inclusion" for those drug-using, rap music addicted; deeply un-excellent bullies among us? Aren't they, (also) "our precious children"(!), being thus ostracised, by religious bigotry, and a hypocritical, intolerant fundamentalism here? If they can use that hammer, why can't we? The religion may be called marxism, but utterly religious it remains!
   To be clear here, I just hope you understand in this, that the preaching of righteousness, is itself a covenantal activity. Say it this way. When Mom said to you, in her threatening (yet endearing!) manner; "You better straighten up young man!", you instinctively grasped that such a thing was indeed, both desirable, and do-able! In short, the contractual aspect of the preaching of righteousness, supposes a kind of estate where-in the terms are either met, or meet-able. Are we on the same page here? Well then; that being said, the terms of true righteousness, that of meeting the expectation-demands of the Most High, are not, and cannot be met, nor are they meetable, by us. The standard remains "perfection", regardless of any "ability" on our part to ratify same. For this reason, and for this alone, the "world" hates and rejects faith. How "narrow", how "intolerant" is that? Just because a thing is impossible, they reject it? Likewise, for this reason, and for this alone, Christianity, (not Islam!) is seen as "narrow". And I am not eager to bring this up here, but this is the same thing we have been looking at all along (in this C.P.E. at least). This type of thinking, is (fundamentally) "feminine".
   The fem-bot view is essentially that it would be (by definition), "unfair" (therefore unjust?), to expect and demand terms of an agreement which one side could not, nor would not (supposing ability), ever, ever fulfill. And it is this feminine "righteousness" itself which we are observing here as janitor commentators. You "can" (indeed) "end bullying here at school X" supposing of course, that you are the one defining the theory and practice of same. You are (in fact), able to "strive for excellence", supposing you cared for a moment to do so. This would be true also, if that said "excellence" defined, meant mainly gluing on improbable amounts of glitter to propaganda posters... Sure, you could do so, but where is the hope in that?
   If hope turns out to be built upon the crappy, shallow foundation of my "inherent goodness", or my shabby "ability", then even I am unable to care! No sir. True preaching says two things at once. The standard-acceptable is perfection (and perfection alone), and this be true forever so! This formats point one. The second is that, the agreement, the contract (covenant really) is struck between the Father and the Son. It was never between "god and man". That kind of lousy half-wit agreement, is all about "Trying harder, to be a more loving, caring individual", you know? It is all that idiotic guck, and goo about "positivity", and "Trying your very-very best"? Melancholy molasses, maudlin sentiment we find here. In the end, it is just the flip-side to you blowing your (stupid) brains out. It is the "up-side" in "sui-cide"...hooray for that? What "hope" there is in it, is precisely what kills the heart, because the fem-hope is that maybe with enough make-up, lies, and wheedling I can skid across the finish line, on mere charm alone?
   Here is the covenant. Sampson (my personal hero!), alone, sad and beaten is chained to the posts in his foe's house. He calls to YAH, "One more time, give me strength!". He pulls with all there is in him. It is not, nor could it ever be; "good enough". With a shout, and in the Spirit, he proceeds to pull down, with a strength not his own, the house! He kills more in that one day than in all his other mighty exploits... This guy, you gotta love! Meanwhile, the "true Sampson", with one Almighty heave, pulls down...reality itself? All his foes, ALL of His enemies, are crushed. There are no survivors.
   Well, that is not quite true. The true Sampson, after wrecking the "Is", Himself emerges alive from that awesome catastrophe. But wait! There are others! Ah, I see it now, all them that were "hidden under (and with, Him)" in that crash, they too survived! That "tiny flock" made it, by hiding under Him! That is covenant, that is the real. Start there, and lose the glitter already!
   He says to Abe, "Yo Abe, get me a head-count on the stars will ya?". Then Abe will know the number of his descendants, the size of the tiny flock! "Hey Abe-ster, sit down at the beach, I need a count on the grains of sand, so that you can know the throng which is found hidden in His, the true Sampson's side!". The reality of hope is that you shall stand again, not by your power, not because you deserve it, not for your renown. The reality of hope is that you are loved, you really are! But was for "Another's" sake, all along, there never was "another option". The snake lied! The fact of hope is; you are welcomed, (you really are!) but it was always because He-first, was and is welcomed. Start there, and ditch the glitter will ya?

Gone Too Far...Not!

  The Beatles, on You Tube; feature music that I recall from about fourth and fifth grade. As a ten year-old, micro hippie, I thought the Beatles were "really cool" (which is an ancient form of praise).
Back in Mrs. Ryder's fifth grade class (as dinosaurs continued to roam the Earth), I had little or no appreciation for how these "cool cats" were, at that time; being influenced by hallucinogens. Go back and compare the sounds from 1963, to 1967. In four years, we go from "I wanna hold your hand, yeah, yeah, yeah,"; to "Nothing is real, let me take you down, cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields, nothing to get hung about..." The before and after photos of these guys is also a fairly spooky proposition, they go from these "fresh-faced youngsters", to these rejects from the "hair university"? From bouncy to bearded-wizened, we travel, and most importantly; we end up jaded! The question of whether they "went too far" in their "evolution", was (I think) addressed by my elders, back then. The resultant conclusion was a loose type of defining, a "non-judgemental" rule of thumb. It went something like this: "Rock and Roll music is one thing, we all loved "Johnny B. Goode" after all, but that "heavy metal" music is just going too far (for my tastes)".
  Now, this sort of drawing of lines in sand was (I now think) a form of code. Any "translation effort" at this stage by me, would be necessarily "loose", in that I am not now certain that I was at that time hearing the "undertones" of the discussion-then correctly. All that junk aside, the rule of thumb, in English might run, "This isn't about 'my tastes', let's just start there. What it is about is; look at what dope has done to those young musicians, and I don't mean reefer either. I am talking heroin, L.S.D., and that kind of thing. It has wrecked them, they have gone too far! And the way I can make this assertion, is right there in the music, just listen to it!" "A Day in the Life" just isn't in the same class as "Help!". So then, the "heavy metal" sound became a type of badge for some to wear, as an "officially unacceptable" type of marker to self-designate by. A replacement for leather jackets, as a "bad-boy" badge, is our goal here? We keep generating our "opposites"...
  To change the topic some, I go out with a church group, to the local state prison for a "chapel service" on Sunday afternoons. The burning issue, the idea which we keep returning to, out there with those guys; is whether they "have gone too far". Have I sinned "the unforgivable sin"? And as far as I can detect, the very asking of the question, proposes a "negative" as response, but that will hardly do. The problem with our consciences isn't that they condemn us, it is that they rightly do so! The flaky, lightweight smurf-love approach of much of the church just falls flat, and it does so, right about "here". When an inmate, (or me!) really wants an answer, to; "Have I gone too far?", it is not "the loving thing" to say things like, "Oh, you aren't so bad," or "You shouldn't be so hard on yourself," or Don't be so negative". Horse wonkus! The whole issue of the conscience is that it is I who damn me, and I am right to do so! For you to undermine that right, and thus, so to advance a general field of squishy acceptance, based upon a type of code, denoting merely a new, and easily kept "heavy metal" type of exclusion clause, for any proposed future "failure"; creates that very failure itself!
  Have I lost you there? Let's reboot the discussion then. The unforgivable sin against the Spirit is almost universally misrepresented. Let's just start our word train there. This has just about nothing to do with what most evangelicals blather on about, namely a rejection of the Son, and in an orderly and serial fashion; so to do. To qualify His word in this fashion, says in brief, that unrepentance itself is unforgivable! That is clearly insane. If that were the case, there would be no hope for us, in that we failing to repent, must succeed at it! The actual issue was that the exorcisms being done in ancient Israel, were fairly elaborate affairs. They might have included prayer, incense(?), scripture readings, fasting, and importantly; these actions were taken on only by paid professionals! This was definitely not an impromptu affair, done by amateurs who just go around yelling at devils...
  The Nazarene comes along, and with a word, (okay, maybe with a pointed finger too?) He boldly speaks directly to the spirit, and demands, "You,... out, NOW!". The Lord of the Covenant was doing legal evictions! And the blasted thing left, just like that! The drawn out affair, the official rigamarole of the pros was now being done by non-union scabs! This was the "problem" for the professionally religious. They could not equal, nor duplicate His deeds and so; their retort was to the effect: "Well, the only reason He can do that, is that He is one of them! He casts out the devil, by the devil's own power!". This type of brain failure on the part of the "spiritual giants" present at the time, is what brings out, in effect; "You cannot be that stupid, I say so! Say anything you like about the Son, it's all forgivable, but when you begin that nonsense with the Spirit, then you have gone too far! Such idiocy is just too much, not in this nor the next world, is such darkened "thinking" allowed. Even you blockheads cannot be that dense, so to "miss" that the crippled now stand up whole, the blind are now seeing, the dead rise, and the demon-possessed are now clothed, and in their right mind." To "blame" this wholesome work on the devil is to purposely "miss" the entire reality of the only escape hatch available, from the sinking submarine (of existence itself!) as being showcased by the Son-come (and coming!), as ratified by the Spirit, and by Him-only (until you join in at least). The "deal", the covenant, is always, always, always (are you "getting" this?), between two contracting parties, ratified, and "observed" by a third, and impartial party. Such is the shape of the real. You cannot "take it, or leave it". Beyond "it", there is nothing "there". The "deal" (the real one), is thus between the Father and the Son...isn't it obvious? Oops, I can see that glazed look again creeping across your mug. In our ambition to achieve clarity, let us re-re-boot!
  Think with me of the future. Is there a type of unforgivability out there in future land for we, the religiously devout rocket scientists to avoid? Of course there is! Rev 14: 9-11 is a ghastly affair. This business of; "Drinking the wine of the wrath, mixed in full strength of His rage, so to be tormented with fire and brimstone", is a fairly strengthy assertion I should note. It contains zero loopholes, and sure looks "unforgivable" to me! The smoke of the torment goes up ever, and ever; so just what is the egregious, and unforgivable sin in question here? Well basically, it is the idiotic attempt, to (by "law"); muscle the Spirit out of position. We blockheads thereby assert that He is incompetent to witness any further contractual obligations?...Huh?
  Think small with me here. So you want me to come over and mow your lawn? You offer me ten bucks, and I object that the amount is wrong, plus my schedule won't allow, yadda yadda. Finally, we haggle, and come up with a "binding" agreement. What is "bound"? My conscience is being bound mainly, and if things get ugly, it also could descend into a matter of "law", but such is not necessary! The heart and soul of compacts is dealing with your brother in good faith, did you miss that? Do you see? I, as a son of Adam, and you as one also, are indeed competent to negotiate our friendly contracts, but there is always, always, and always, a "silent third party". He Is the One who ratifies, validates, and regularizes all contractual (read as; "covenantal") agreements, and He must not (and really can not in any case) be spurned, or ignored. If any contract to do anything, for any one,... ever (are you "getting" this?), is not witnessed by the Spirit of Truth, then there is no way left open for us to define the word "lie"! Minus this Witness, there remains no way to discuss the phrases "in earnest", or "in good faith". So then, to "take the mark" in your body, is to say (in essence); that the government of this world (the "authority-below"), is not only competent to witness compacts, but actually "replaces" the Most High? Wonkus of equine! You cannot be that stupid! He says so. Violation of the covenant authority, is to say two things at once, both of them unacceptable, both of them untrue, and finally and ever certainly so!
  You "go too far" not in listening to "heavy metal", or "joining a gang"; you do so when you say that the powerful deliverance FROM devils, is done BY devils. Or to rephrase, you go too far when you say that contracts and agreements can only ever be sealed by the "gubmint", and that we as private individuals (sons of Adam), "Have no right to do so"! Your promise to me to pay me the ten bucks we agreed upon, in my successful mowing of grass, is "really" between "just us", and it is Really Testified To, and Ratified by, Him-Most-High. It is both, or else our consciences are completely out to lunch! Without Him as Witness, there remains no way to judge the truth of anything! In such a case, we would not be able to tell the difference between demonic oppression, from that of Spirit guided goodness. Without Him, there is no "standard" by which to do so, and He, in any case; would never agree to that type of thing. If you don't know that about Him, you know nothing about Him. Are we really that blind? And without His "meddling" in our affairs, the answer must be a vigorous "Yes!". Our conscience is only a "guide" insofar as it has been taught. But it is best (and only truly) taught by Him, the Spirit of Truth. In brief, "going too far", means trying (seriously?) to educate our sense of right and wrong away-from, and outside Him-Forever-Right? Such is the contraband our parents imported from Eden. It proves to be poison and at very best, outrageous nonsense! The smuggled goods numb us, but not even we are allowed to be so stupid, as to "dismiss" the testimony of the Spirit!
  The entire mission of the Son into this crazy rat-hole of a world, was to deliver the deluded sons of Adam (pssst, this is where you come in); prior to the coming violent overthrow from on high. Our "problem" is Him, and His unstoppable justice! As merely (or only); sons of Adam, there was no hope remaining for us. However, as Sons of God, which would be another class of creature (since the Incarnation at minimum), there was a new way (one precisely, to be exact) out of here. It is Easter! The Real Contract, the Actual Covenant (of grace!), isn't some deluded mess between "God and mankind", that generic mass, proposing "blessing" upon some vague fulfillment of "goodness" by us. We've got none! Rather, the Real Deal is betwixt the Father and the Son. In that compact, the Son "vouches" for, and undertakes to ratify all righteousness for His own, and succeeds marvelously! The Father Almighty "overlooks" our base treason, and insane rebellion against "Is", and her Maker, and declares us lawfully dead, and so we are!
  The Mighty One retains the right to recall the dead (for purely legal purposes you see?), and does so in the case of the Covenant Lord Himself, since He has been found innocent of all charges leveled against Him. He then, (that same Lord) "insists" that we be raised-with Him, as joint heirs? Eden thus is forever closed to us, but a better-higher, a cleaner-gladder "new land" beckons! The Spirit Himself, as the "disinterested, and third party" testifies! To kill off this testimony is to murder hope itself, and He will not allow that level of stupidity. Even we cannot be that dumb, and He says so. He the Guarantor, He the Executor, He the Executed! Who is "equal" to all this? That-a-way we find hope, life, and sanity. It's Easter I tell ya! He is risen indeed, so to never die again...pssst, this is where you come in!

Potato Chips From Mars

  This really ought not bother me as much as it, in fact; does. Does anyone even recall when all of this began? You know what we are talking about here, it is those darned stories about Mars, and (is it more than one?) the ridiculous meteorite(s) "found".
  I want to say that it was back in the eighties, or nineties when we first heard that (now get this), down in Antarctica, a sliver of rock was "found". It was "proven to" have come from Mars. Was it because of some lichens or moss found on it? Do you recall this? The thing was supposedly launched, not only into orbit, but with enough boost to leave Martian orbit? Furthermore, the rascal then found it's way into earth's gravitation and next, "chose to" land on a land mass, amid a world in which the majority is surfaced with water? Upon that land mass, it next volunteered to bury itself; not in miles thick ice, where you might expect it to, but just kinda ends up bouncing down on a beach? Then it had the remarkable savvy to find that very very small section of the frozen continent in which people do live (all 14 of them!). "Fortunately", someone (of the 14?) reached down and picked her up! And just to make this bizarre summary truly stupid, we are to infer from the droll, and matter of fact manner of the "scientists", that there is nothing at all unusual in the entire mess!
   Would anyone have objected if instead of a rock, it was a bag of potato chips which had so very marvelously made the long journey?
  Back in the 1950's (I think) there was some talk that an "atomic cannon" might potentially be able to launch (ala' Jules Verne), satellites; thus by-passing the need for rockets. That idea failed. The highest anything could be shot upward was in  the neighborhood of 60 miles, and then the stinker would invariably proceed to obey Mr. Newton. So, a rifled round, with an a-bomb behind it, could not even orbit the world, but meanwhile, a "volcano" on Mars ejecting rock out of a very unrifled caldera, not only achieves orbit, but boosts beyond escape velocity! Makes tons of sense to me.
   The series of flukes required to have the thing end up, unshattered by the explosion on Mars, uncooked by the re-entry into our atmosphere, unshattered (again) upon impact, to be found (why not buried?) upon a tiny spit of land, which itself rings a continent of ice, which in turn, sits amid oceans of water; is far-fetched at the very best. But, most disturbing of all, is that in the very narrative itself, we are not free to question even a word of this fairy tale, for one huge reason; and that reason is very unreasonable indeed! Simply said, it is the religious issue of the origin of life.
   If the science guys can make it convincingly appear that life as life, is not limited to this world, and further, that the "spontaneous" appearance of same, is the norm, then their whole religion of order automatically appearing out of chaos is given a big apologetics type assist. The "Martian rock" is not about Mars, nor rocks. It is the desperate attempt of some, to stifle, and silence the voices of others. This is where you come in. It is the end of discussion, and the imposition of dogma, by those deeming themselves "more equal".
   Modern cosmology, and the life sciences are fully committed to an anti-God premise. In this polluted stream of thought, the mere act of "being against", is thought itself to be "scientific". And if some poor sap is silly enough to question this "orthodoxy", he is simply institutionally dumped. A guy can get some serious unemployment numbers racked up, right here! It is "unlawful" (verboten!) to believe that life was created, it "must have" simply occurred, otherwise everything we scientists have asserted is junk...and we can't have that! This is what the Martian bag of potato chips is really all about. Now, we all know this, but what of it? Why even discuss such?
  And I think it is this: We are never going to "convince", but we ourselves are convinced. We are not going to alter, but we have been altered. We ourselves, are the "absolutely unlikely", and we consistently talk as if there were nothing at all unusual about us? The "probability" at absurdly low levels, that we would "be" here, so to be making, or reading this blog entry; is to just be taken "at face value"! So, from our example then, the "bag of potato chips" blown out of a volcano on another world, so to go floating for thousands (or millions?) of years in space, thus to be being pulled down by the Earth, correctly finding that abysmally small section of a world to land upon, cleverly avoiding incineration upon re-entry, thus to be "accidentally found"; and surviving all this, in order to show the intact moss and lichen marks of authenticity,...is us!
   Easter is upon us. The great-good God looking down the corridor of history,...saw you! What precisely are the "odds" that you would "be"? I mean, what if Mom had had a headache that night? What if there had been an argument that evening, and Dad was sleeping on the couch?  What if Mom had not herself been born, because her mother miscarried? The series of flukes, luck, and strange intersections of chance required for your very existence to "be", make potato chips from outer space seem pretty darned reasonable! The enormously impossible "odds" of interplanetary potato chip deliveries, are about in the same arena as yours, maybe even better? Then take further, the "odds" that you would love and or trust Him? Please, stop the madness! If "science" has ever "proven" anything at all, it is that we humans, without serious motivation, cannot and will never admit for one moment, His Person, work, or truth. So, even if you were somehow born into this world, even if you did amazingly survive, the "odds" are running in negative numbers that you would ever acknowledge, (much less, love!) Him!
   We are both unwilling and unable. We are both pointed the wrong direction, and confused about the correct goal. We are doubly disqualified, and yet we find our own hearts and minds to indeed have been altered. The dignity of man is founded upon the shocking truth that he has no business existing, and honestly does not "belong" here in the first place...and yet he does, and he does! He cannot "explain himself". The freakishly small chances of chips from Mars, speak of an origin far from here, by a mind we have only guessed at, directed unerringly to an improbable sliver of reality. A sparrow landing upon a phone line in a gale force wind, is far far more likely than potato chips from Mars. And they, (the chips) are more likely than you! She, our sparrow friend, also does not "belong", and yet, there she sits; singing her little heart out! Your unlikely nature, your diminishingly small odds of being here to read this, is a message, a sign!
   He likes you! Do you see? He intends you, He awaits that final barbecue-dip, dash of flavor on these highly improbable chips, called "you". And that is why they, (the science folk I mean) are not to be mocked, nor sneered at. They are trying as hard ever as they can, to "remember", to recall their own deeply improbable dignity, to find their own highly unlikely place at His table. We say to them as he said to us, "Drop your weapons, come out with your hands up, and be seated, dinner is served!". His command to surrender, coupled with the invitation to dinner, He Himself, the Supreme Unlikely, He, in Person, the Friend Unguessed. From Him we find a new strength to welcome those hating us. For they despise us much for  the same kinds of reasons that we (wrongly) hated Him.
   The King has turned his foes into brothers, His haters into His friends. We are the deeply, the profoundly...unlikely. For this we give thanks, He is risen indeed!

Of Suds and Spankings

  We take for granted, it appears to me, that when you see suds, you've got "clean". There is an entire industry out there in consumer-land, which is based (apparently) upon maximizing and enhancing the sudsing component to detergents. What "sells" is, "lots and lots of bubbles" which (very importantly!) "last". As such, we can get a kind of glimpse into the soul; and it's pretty vile, the soul I mean.
  The concepts of "dirt" and "germs" are often linked, and (I think) wrongly so. There is a paranoid feature to much of the thing, and it is not too clear where facts leave off, and superstition jumps in. The outright fear of "germs" is often linked, (or so it is said) to "disease", at least this would be true in the minds of "germaphobes". And weirdly, the very fact of having "touched" a "germy" surface; while it was yet "dirty", is thought to (somehow) be "dangerous". It is almost as-if the skin was imagined here; to be a permeable membrane, specially designed to let microbial invaders in (!), a kind of one-way door, built to allow traffic "in" only? How weird is that? Furthermore, the bizarre connection drawn between "dangerous germs", and regular old grime, honest old dirt, is assumed to be "an issue", but has (as far as I can tell) no validity at all. Dirt per se, isn't "dirty"!
  The ideal of "scrubbed clean" as opposed to "filthy dirty" is proposing for us then; a whacked out vision of reality. The key concepts here (I think) are "safe, healthy and clean". Clearly an idiotic grouping in any case, and in order to see why I say this; just think for a moment of little kids. Do we: A. Let the little scooters zoom around, "be kids", and get dirty? or do we, B. Place them in a "safe bubble" and keep them always and ever clean? (so to promote "health" you see...). The entire idea of "bubbles" (suds actually) is a defensive posture, a hauling back from the "danger" of germs, and the fear of "sickness". Uh, such is (not only) an impossible "goal", but not to put too fine a point on it; crazy as a loon!
  Now see here young man! You; as a budding two year old, have two pathways before you. You may, ahem, either reside in a "safe" space, utterly cut-off from "germs", and so be "safe and healthy", or contrariwise, you may swing in trees, hoot like an ape, and have tons of fun. Howsome-ever, if you choose the latter option little man, you will (inevitably) "get sick", (I hate to break it to you this way). Now before you choose which you prefer, just recall that the "upside" to "getting sick", is that your immune system will be always getting stronger, savvier, and generally more able to fight off future invasions of "germs". Meanwhile, the (miserable) "upside" to living inside a sud, is that you won't have to touch anything "icky"... So then; which shall it be, short dude? Would you care to live in a "safe" bubble, or a "dangerous" real world?
  Now, nobody that I have met, actually enjoys getting sick; yet likewise, on the other side of sickness, when you emerge, again feeling better, nobody would, at that time; reject the better, stronger immune resistance thus built-up within the body. Perhaps a bit like lifting weights here, we note that no one appears to (much) enjoy the work of lifting, while most desire the look and feel of a fit body. We would like (very much!) the results without having to pay the price involved. Likewise, nobody likes getting spanked, but almost everyone enjoys the resultant "feeling able" to control ourselves.
  The LORD chastens, disciplines (spanks) them He receives as sons. The book of Hebrews goes further, and informs that if he does not "spank", it's because you have not (yet?) been received as a son! If you are not being disciplined, it's because you have not been adopted in the first place. Oops, and here I thought (all along) that it was because I didn't need it...
   There is a kind of "flip" involved in suds and spanks. We (of ourselves), choose badly. We choose to be "safe" from "germs", which is about the most dangerous thing we could do, and likewise; we choose to avoid (like the plague) correction, which is a deeply incorrect choice... When we think of a "flip", we ordinarily might think of those champs at diving. Off of a seven or ten meter board (or so), they twist around, rotate, swivel, and then enter the water leaving barely a ripple. And that could prove to be be a fairly decent mental image here. What appears to us as "graceful", or "natural" is the result of years of grueling training, coaching, and work. We want the final product without doing the work in the mid-section, thanks just the same. So, using our diver as a model, let's investigate somewhat, over here.
  Turn number one: You must "buy", you must accept within you; that getting "a love tap", or encountering a "germ", is for your long range good, and not for your destruction. In brief, quit taking everything so blasted "personally"! Not every comment in the free world is intended as an insult directed at your oh so fragile self image. Lighten up already, and grow a spine in your free time will ya? In brief, the universe is not out to "get you", nor is correction meant to crush your heart. Moreover getting a case of the sniffles is not a mortal blow, but you kinda already knew that, didn't you? Our diver has gone through move number one.
   In turn two, we note that the higher the diving platform, the more crucial it becomes for you to enter the water with no splash. Shall I translate for you then? If you do not actually want, I mean inside your soul, if you do not WANT to be friendly with the "low", then you will have no true friends at all! Deal with it. This is what spanking is all about. Be nice to your sister! Share your toys! If the "stuff" of life is more important to you than the people who exist inside the real reality, then you will be alone, ever alone...in your damnably "safe" sud! And turn three builds off of this base.
   The third turn to our super diver's performance is the dizzy looking head-over-heels gig. How can he even tell which way is up with all that spin? To value people ahead of "stuff", is something we must learn by painful, repetitive lessons. If you are blessed enough in this sad cold world to have a few real friends, people who love you with your warts and all the lessor charming features of the "magic" called "you", then you are dimly aware that the more "success" you experience, the faster and furious-er you must give! Yes, I am afraid to mention it, but you might even be in position to give "correction" (God forbid!), and yell at a loved one, or even spread (horrors!) a cold, (or flu) to your own family! To refuse categorically, to "give" (germs and yelling in this case), is to die. It's about that complex. This brings us to the hard part of the dive...
   Do you get this? There are no "good options" down here. You either take the "high probable" or the "high risk", but recall that in the end, both choices suck. We all die, and promptly give an account to the High King. Or to rephrase somewhat here; bad option number one is to do the loafer drill. Just don't try! After all, failure is "all there is"; and everybody knows that "the deck was stacked against you", plus you had a "really bad childhood", and other such-like drivel, til I puke in my sock over here. Bad option number two, is to do the "on time, hard working sucker" drill. You know this one all too well, as I do, you work your ass off for forty years, and what you get is...sore! As you muddle through; for "your forty", each day you are aware that your "best" ain't really all that hot. You just "do your best", and just kind of perpetually "wish" that things could be better? So much for the "high probable". The "high risk" appears even worse! Bad option three here, is to "Try really really hard", have some "good breaks", and shine! Excel at what you do. Here, the risk is tremendous, it's a regular minefield! Your very soul is in the offing.
   Did you catch that diver's twist? To grow "great" you become a mere "user" of others, and thus have no true friends at all, only perpetually to look "down" on others. Sheer toxin for the soul, and so, somehow we desire to remain "a regular guy", and also simultaneously become "a tycoon"? So, if we could find some way to combine bad options one and three, we would find a millionaire philanthropist, who in his spare time was a janitor? Further, his co-workers and neighbors would never know of his "true identity"? Short of this miracle of duplicity, we could just sit around and read old Superman comic books maybe? But seriously, having the "ultimate dead-end job" would be the only "safe place" for us! Wealth will ruin you, it makes you "forget" way too much! The "sud" must live amid "dirt", or it becomes downright unhealthy! The germ must be encountered and battled, prior to you becoming "strong". Our proposed "secret millionaire janitor" would (doubtless) run a charitable foundation, in which the goal was to bail faster than the vessel is sinking.  Excess money is deeply unwholesome for your soul, and as it floods the boat of your life, you must rid yourself of it, or go down with the vessel. Newsflash, this just in: The "goal" of life is giving, not receiving, and to "miss" this twist in the dive; is to belly flop from 40 feet. Painful and embarrassing at minimum, fatal perhaps?
   There is nothing "worse" for you than "success", likewise, there is nothing "unhealthier" than to live inside a "clean" sud. There is no real love from the father, if he always refuses to correct the son. So then, if you find that you are unable to be generous to the poor, it is because you are no longer "one of them", and that is a truly awful place to be! If you find that you "just cannot" be generous to the needy, who then can you be generous to? Further, if there be no generosity within you, your heart is well nigh dead...and is that what you really wanted in life?
  Those little love taps, those nasty viruses teach us, they remind us...to right here, and right now, (today) while I feel like crap, to thank! We thank the good LORD God Almighty for His indescribable gift to us sad, sick filthy wretches. Spanks and germs are those little reminders which we require, in this lonesome pilgrimage. He has heard my cry for help, yet even now, today; I cannot, I dare not, trust mine own heart. If it, my heart I mean, finally turns from You Sir, if I finally value "the stuff" above You; "the stuff-Builder", put me out of Your misery I pray! I cannot, I refuse to live without You at the center. And if I love my own "cleanness, safeness, and wealth" more than I do You, then please (!), would YOU pound me into the soil? I just can't live that way! And how precisely do I know this? He spanked me, and I began to learn the gospel; by heart!

Death of an Ambition Salesman

   Those unwholesome fellows, the ambition salesmen, I tell you, they are over-running our landscape! These guys may appear to be "wholesome", (to some observers) but in my opinion; they are at best, overly wholesome. For instance, would it seem wholesome (to you), for me to begin talking about my "one great ambition in life"? Just how sharp are your listening skills anyhow? Not trying especially to sound harsh over here, but aren't you (be truthful) not too awfully interested in my version of that particular discourse? These excessively wholesome chaps, these ambition salesmen (mere motivational speakers!) are giving off a false aroma, and that smell, like that of excessive righteousness, is something we can do nicely without. This fixation of theirs upon "dreams and ambition" are things recommended for you, but not for me! It is lopsided; it is one-legged, in that your ambition is supposed to be a thing for you to cultivate, while simultaneously, that very thing, (your ambition) is a thing for me to ignore, as you blather on about it! The premise then, of those "ambition salesmen" out there, is that your (mine actually) "one ambition in life", your "dream for the future", is a thing to cherish, to fuss over, to guard! These sales folk teach that we are to focus upon, to recall, to fix our attention, and if you didn't get any of that, to PAY ATTENTION!...to our "dream", a.k.a. our "one ambition". Failure to heed their warnings could well lead to (horrors!) unhappiness, or even worse (if that is even possible) unfulfillment! Is there a problem here? Well, for one thing, and I don't mean to sound rude, but if it is just a matter of you, talking about your one ambition, I (for one) would make a very poor listener; for the simple reason, that I don't care! And not to purposely attempt to sound harsh over here, but I suspect that it is much the same for you. You might for instance, like to discuss your dream, and you (perhaps) might also care to ruminate upon your central life ambition, but for me to have to listen to that stuff is a serious yawner. I can barely stay awake when you start in on that junk. Further, my guess is that for you (likewise), listening to me is hard sledding indeed, and you can barely tolerate hearing mine. So why are we doing we do this to each other anyhow?

   Ambition salesmen aside for the moment, it becomes clear right away, that there are "blocks" in us, and we are naturally or generally, hesitant and reluctant to deal with ambition and dream. We have to be "sold" on it, or else we ourselves will damp down, or even prohibit such talk. Further, the dreadfully careful-care and management of "dream" (itself) is to take a large chunk of your brain space, in that you are "supposed" to focus your attention upon these internal things. Otherwise, you might have been directed outwardly, into your natural interests in life? So, besides being hard to listen to, it is a tax upon your own energy, and you must (must?) repeatedly reapply yourself to it? "Must", or else what? What exactly is the "threat" here? Worst possible scenario of all, if we mock and deride the ambition sales force, and ignore their excited, and enthused demands; our dream...could very well die!

   So, let's go about this backward eh? Why not just begin this topic with a description, and an endorsement of the death of my one ambition in life, shall we? Them Baptists are on a roll, and are often in the habit of singing songs to the effect; "All on the altar I lay". Unseemly Newsflash, this just in! "Things found on altars, are dead". So then, we propose in this C.P.E., the death of ambition, the demise of dream, so to hereby leave off of my fascination with that unattainable "happy, fulfilled, prosperity" in any case. Our Baptist friends, in "laying down their all", for Jesus' sake, are laying it down, as the new reality. We would do well to study, and copy a play or two out of their book.

   The ambition sellers constantly talk about ambition as if it were a good thing, to have it loafing around the house, drinking beer, and eating leftovers. The marketers in question would even go so far to help you feel bad about not having this loudmouth on the couch, making his "demands and priorities". The fat old slob of my ambition, although he does not work, does frequently issue orders. And though he requires constant maintenance, and is always asking for loans that he will repay "someday", I am somehow "required" by ambition salesmen to keep this creep in my life? So says experts.

   Ambition is that thing you are pointing at, with your life energy, and yet never openly discuss. In this sense then, it is a vacuum of some sort, a variety of infinite longing. Basically then, within us, we have (or are?) a large hole, and it is one which by definition, cannot be satisfied. There ain't enough junk in the sidereal universe to "fill us up". Why not just admit it? Unspoken ambition was to have been your "ticket out". Out of what precisely, does it so deliver? Boredom perhaps(?), or poverty was it(?), maybe in your case it is mediocrity(?), the "dream" was to cure? You tell me. On second thought, don't! We have already decided I didn't want to hear that jazz. How about we just kill it? In any case, your ambition was the thing which was designed to "set you (not me!) apart". As such, it is a little bit like holiness, except upside down.

   This wanting in you was to be the one fix, that one thing which was to cure you, and it was going to reorganize every aspect of your life. Troubles are (ostensibly) over, you on easy street! The tiny little glitch, the one baby sized hiccup here, is that the ambition cannot make itself come into being. Secondarily, every single time that we attempt to make the thing exist, this wild (officially "unexpected") blow-back appears. All sorts unpredicted side effects, accidents, and weird flukes begin to manifest. Words like "unforeseen and unfortunate" are heard all too often. The harder and more diligently you apply yourself to "dream", to "ambition", the more singlemindedly we ambit, the weirder and "unluckier" things seem to get. Ambition-dream is just "there" in our lives, like a noisy vagrant. We cannot "make it happen" (that dream I mean) and the higher our diligence in trying to switch this thing on, the more bizarre and unwelcome the manifestations which just keep "showing up" in our lives.

   We infer here that the human heart, as a plumbing schematic, is a "replacement flow" type design. What we require is a new heart, not a reversal of direction of blood flow! We must replace what we love, not with an "unlove", but a better and cleaner delight. We love "dream" because it vaguely reminds us of "something". It hints at a loftiness, a grandeur and dignity that we barely recall. Or is it correct to say "recall" in the first place? Would "anticipate" serve us better here? But, at any rate, the sheer inaccessibility, the unreachable nature of ambition should be taken as "the real". Try as ever hard as you may (and can!), and the lesson remaining is that; we are to die! So we willingly reorient so to die-to our goals, and dreams.

   One poor wretched Man, alone on a miserable hilltop. He dies to all the claims, charms and attractions that exist. On the other side of that colossal failure, He is brought back alive! Now the Inheritor of all, the Governor General of "Is", is He! He, of all who "could have" done so, did not "hang onto the dream". He died to it, and with it.

   Our one ambition gets "subsumed and gathered" under the realm of King Jesus the Resurrected. That naked miserable suffering Man becomes (for us) a far far greater treasure than all the junk that the fat slob of our worldly desire could ever hope to equal. We ordinarily do not speak of our ambition. After all, what if we end up sounding silly? We might embarrass ourselves, or others. So, silently then, and out of the darkness it (our "dream" I mean); directs. An agent in (and of?) the dark, it guides, persistently unwilling to reveal it's face. We die to our faceless ambition, turning away; not from heart at center, but from instead that old-heart which was at center.

   That bloody battered Hillbilly, that deeply sad lonesome Man, it is He whom we love. With new hearts we love better, stonger and higher we could have ever loved the slob, "ambition". This One's face too is hidden, but not because He dwells in darkness. Rather, it is hidden amid the glare, the intolerably bright brilliance proceeding from Him. He too bold, too great ever for us (unaided) to view, and it is just this failure in us...He is busy amending as we speak! His ambition for me is better than my ambition for me. The rule of faith is that we say "yes-Sir" in the midst of our shame and loss. Not "at the top" do we meet Him, but at our lowest, there we find Him waiting!

   

Scamocracy, A Walk On The Dark Side

  The web is two things at once, it appears to me. The level of business growth through directed advertising is down right scary. Find a demographic group you would care to "reach", denote a region, and then, stand back and watch the the laws of large numbers kick in! The likes of Google, Facebook, and Amazon are increasing at increasing rates. Perhaps an explosion would better illustrate here? Words like "exponential, roiling, and dynamic" come to mind. As business qua busy, there has never been the equal.
   The modern big-businesses, the Rockefellars, Morgans, and Carnegies of today; are these odd looking consortiums, these rafts, these committees of bundled entities. Intertwined, and co-operating in web presence, this new generation of giants; in a collaborative kind of "mutualism" (if that is a word) is altering everything you ever thought you knew about "business". It would be a bit like this; if you desired to reach a market of left handed, female, red headed, golfers, and them only...you could, and easily! This entangled platform of compound effort is awesome, powerful, and more than a bit shady.
   Micro-targeting of demographics is only going to grow, and whether we discuss dogfood sales, or the marketing of presidential candidates, the finding of the audience, and the successful targeting of them, is the new norm. And whether one loves or hates this constant gathering of data on you (so to market-at you), this kind of thing, it is one half of the apple, it is the "apple to come", and also is already here! We would ( I guess) prefer to think in terms of "pro and con", or of "on this hand, versus the other", and such like stuff. The problem here is, if that type of opposition analysis is correct in the first place, then we do not, in fact; get a "light versus dark". Instead, here; a kind of twilight, as opposed to a total black-out is what crops up. If such intrusive and nosy market analyses exist (and they do!), so as to predict nearly all of your purchasing patterns, your voting tendencies, and only God knows what else, then we have only little light left. Rather, it turns out to be a kind of dusk, versus pitch black! What we get then, as a dusky cyber progress theme, is a poorly lit and shady nosiness; and this from the legit half! There remains another half to our apple.

   The "other side" of the web is much darker than any merely questionable, and nosy intrusive corporate snooping. I am speaking of a the lie. How else to describe here? One radio show host I know of, calls the monster in question, a "scamocracy". The host may have coined the word, I wouldn't know. But it is a clever term you must admit, so I shall proceed to borrow it. The weird come-ons, the rip-offs, and the massive fraud occurring, all exist, loosely under the umbrella of the explosive growth of the legit business empires. The chronic scamming, frauds and outright thievery all exist as "just-part" of the "explosive growth" (of legitimate businesses), so allowing (mainly unchallenged) for a kind of P.T. Barnum style "a sucker is born every minute" grifter ethic to flourish. So with "legitimate" explosive growth, we also find it's ugly twin sister, that other half of the apple; which is an explosive growth of shameful misrepresentation, and criminal fraud. If the "honest half" is a dusk and twilight world, in which we deeply distrust the snooping and meddling of today's robber barons, then the pitch black half is downright loathsome. I argue in this, that we need not merely "accept this, as just a part" of the (more-so) desirable changes around us. To think otherwise is to purposely fool our own selves.
   So, let's get this correct for once, shall we? In a "dusk" or twilight world, we keep making the same types of errors. In this world (the one we live in), it has never been a choice between a light versus dark, or black versus white. It is precisely the lack of light that we are commenting upon, or it's low level at minimum. That black and white sort of consideration is ahead of us (in time) and that would be when the Son arrives. Then, in that hour, things become truly polar, and opposites are separated forever. Instead, we deal with a foggy dimness (in which you can barely even recognize friends!), versus a blackness impenetrable. Therefore, our idea that things are a matter of right and wrong, is itself wrong! In this world of shades of grey, and chronic fog, it is wrong to be wrong, and we know that. Further, it is also wrong to be right, and comparatively stated, it is wronger to be right, than it was to be wrong! Almost always, almost all of us are consistently fooled right here. For this reason alone, the grifter ethic flourishes.
   We all want the same things. We desire "greatness", to "go-up" to ascend the ladder, to quit being a working stiff, and become a philanthropist! We desire to become "generous souls", but not just yet. First, we must "ascend" and only afterwards, we, at that time personally having plenty, then; (then!) we will have something to give. Such crap as this, in our heads, is what generates and guarantees the grifter ethic.
   The grift works this way. To be a "failure" in our world is a bad thing, and so to repair or modify ourselves, so to make ourselves "good enough", we just go out and succeed. How hard was that to figure out? The problem with success, is that it works! My humble goal of "me, not being dependent", means that (face it), that when that succeeding happens I no longer need you! And the more I succeed, the harder, meaner and more self involved I become. Think back to the big shots you know. How many of them do you actually like? Men often say; "You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't". They temporize with: "A guy just can't win!". They are correct. It is bad for us to fail, and worse (for us at least) to succeed! The truth of the grift is that in the end, you will not alter the system it will alter you, and we know that, going in! It ain't much, but at least the "failure" has a few friends left. It is out of darkness that our desires arise.
   The thing generates itself! Who does not want to be loved, to be respected in the community? Who does not want to provide "the nice things" for his own? We wish to join the high to the low, the great to the small, in ourselves. Thus we want tons of money, and also to remain "a regular guy". The little fact, the tiny truth, that (News Flash!) regular guys, by definition, don't have great wealth; consistently "eludes" us. More realistically, we are hiding from the heart within us. By "loved" don't we actually mean "loved like those other wealthy guys"? The desire to be that "helper" of the weak, that "benefactor" for the poor, isn't it more realistically true that; we are saying; "Unlike those other rich bastards, I remember my roots!" The grift is arriving into the dusk, passing through our hearts, and coming from the dark.
   The Christian faith has been taken captive right about here. We are "trying our best" and almost always "mean well". In reality we do not express our shame because we have no words in our vocabulary of motive to speak it. We are "taken in" by the scamocracy, and do not report it, because we were wrong to want to be "right". Having ingested the desire to "go-up", having "believed in progress", we are thereby forced by our own inner logic to make the error.
   We "buy" the grift because we ourselves have been previously "bought". The "right" ambition in our heads and hearts seems "somehow" to always go wrong. Meanwhile, we think it wrong to "think too much" about the error. The "aheader" we get, the narrower and harsher we ourselves become. We know this about ourselves, but out of the darkness comes the lies, into our personal twilight. I (personally) "shall not be so", is how those lies all begin. Unable then to believe that others may be "greater yet, than me", we lose vision in the top half of our view. We are prohibited from looking "up", because we are it! Next, we "cannot be pestered" by those petty fools around us. So then we start noting that the blinders also are blocking the  left and right view. Soon, we see but one thing. Alas, it is a delusion.
   That Nobody, Hillbilly Carpenter comes along, rightly declaring the situation. He propounds that: in order to go up, you must go down. The first is last. True "greatness" stands the world upon it's head, and loves the poor. This upside-down feature to the King's words could mean either that He or we (choose one) is upside wrong. I have placed my bet on which it is, have you? Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement! Prayer was designed for us to grow up believing the true. But what is true is that we are wrong. Similarly, it is wrong of us to be wrong. It is true also that (for us) it is wronger-yet to be merely "right"! You, (of yourself) simply "cannot ever win" at this game. Further, we know this to be true, and steadily refuse to say so.
   Friend, reality was designed to break your heart. We thought it was a good thing to have a strong-healthy heart, didn't we? And besides that (after all), isn't it painful to have a broken one?...He is saying that if we do not "allow" breakage now, we have only a grim forecast of a future-breaking to come, of what will be by then, an overly large, overly hardened man, in "that great and terrible day". And the collapse of that house will be a dreadful thing to watch.
   It is bad to be broken, and worse to not be. This alone, with Him as friend, let's in enough light to keep the grift at bay.

Alice In Valhalla-land

   There is mild, and then there is mild! We all know soft spoken souls, those good-hearts whom we describe with; "She wouldn't hurt a fly", and when we say this, we mean it as a high compliment indeed! An older lady I know, who recently passed away; would be my favorite nominee for the "mild medallion" (that imaginary award which I just now invented). I wonder if she wants it?
   Alice was (and is?) a mild soul, at alarming levels. If (perhaps) a bumblebee landed upon Alice's demure nose, she might have (maybe) brushed it off, but my guess is that she would have been "concerned" about whether she had been rude to the bug! I mean, what if giving "Mr. bug-ster" the brush-off, hurt his little insect sized feelings? The meek inherit, whereas; (think we) the bold, the fierce conquer! This type of distinction, which we love to make about people, bends us toward favoring the bold, and discounting the gentle. But that's just because we are blockheads.
   We will (generally speaking) be "nice" to gentle souls, but we reserve "respect" for the fierce! Further, we have been collectively brainwashed upon the topic, in my humbly-ferocious opinion. There is; you must admit, an uncanny streak, an unexplainable aspect to gentleness. People like Alice are wildly, extravagantly, and "dangerously" self composed and sweet! We keep on pretending as if the two ends of the spectrum were disentangled, such that meek is meek, and fierce is fierce, and n'er the twain shall meet. It's just bunk, and not even a little bit convincing. The motor, the very engine of reality is all about connecting these types of "opposites". Meanwhile we (stupidly) insist upon seperating the twins, upon the shabby grounds that: "The kids don't look alike (to me)"! Fire and water "can't be" related, for the excellent reason (think we) that they have no family resemblance(!)...or so we say. This; in part, is what prayer is all about.
   Recall with me that our friend Alice died not too long ago. She is a "newcomer" to that high clean land. The mountain of the LORD is one almighty fresh, gladsome, bright and green place indeed! There (I assure you), one finds the desire of the heart, in fact; one finds the desire of the ages Himself! Nothing is "illegal" in that fine mountain air, no "disappointments" break hearts in that brilliant land. Ah...it is so very good! So anyhow, Alice made that leap; and dwells in a kind of Valhalla, a kind of "hall of the slain" for the mild! In that vast hall, at a grand wooden table, sits Alice! With a great big wooden drinking cup (mysteriously, always filled!), full of hearty mead, we find her. Seated with her friends, the Viking lords, she (naturally) not wishing to offend, is dressed like them, in a priceless polar bear robe. Wearing only the finest Viking hat, (of course) equipped with whopper-doodle horns, she produces her one foot long, fierce looking dagger, she slamming the butt of the handle on the table, roars "All Hail the King"! As she bellows, and the warrior champions of that mighty congregation of the glad; roar in unison with her, we wonder if this is the same Alice! Are you tracking with me here?
   Recall then the words of our plea..."kingdom (Thine) come, will (Thine) be done, here as there!". We are in prayer; connecting the opposites. Heaven up-high is the genuine article, and  Earth down-low, the copy. Make our world more like Yours (Sir)! The slender bridge betwixt the realms is one person wide. Across that bridge, the fiercely loyal, the fiery and implacable One has come down, to invade the low realm (this is where you come in), so to "convert", to rebuild, reboot and start life all over again. He is beginning from the inside out. Our plea then, for Him to unite the realm (His realm), is to unify all rule under the True King. For us to sponsor (in our bodies) and participate in, that shocking transformation, (that "will being done" jazz); this is seen in the uniting of Alice, with Eric the Red as team mates! Those friends of The High King who have made the leap (let me tell ya), they are stoked to the gills, all doubts "behind them"; they are fired-up, bright-eyed, and ready for action! The "will-jazz" then, is that; in us being rebooted from the ground up, in a life unbreakable, a vigor unshakable, we just walk away from fears, doubts and the failure which "is (was actually) us". Our friend, Alice in Valhalla land, is today a volcano of zeal, a regular torrent of stoked to the gills, "ain't backing down-ness"! The mild and the fierce have become one.
   So in prayer; we approach the new reality. Not only do we discuss a "potential" but the actual, the King has come! Therefore that golden age which we await, is also begun! King Jesus says; "Take my yoke upon you, for my burden is light". We kinda got some issues here Sir... Remember that big ox that Paul Bunyan used to run around with? Was it named "Ox-zilla"? No, we believe it was "Babe". In any case, Lord Christ is the whopper "Ox", to end all oxen. He pulls so hard, so as to move worlds? So, as He says that we are to join him in yoke, we see then an animal nine feet high at the shoulder, six and a half feet wide. The original powerhouse in Person! Paired with Him, we see... Bambi? How weird is that? The fierce, the strong the bold Captain "joined" to... Thumper? And do you know how He fixes the problem with the yoking? He shrinks! Highest of high, the Guy whom Angelic generals salute, He becomes so "low" that even Bambi looks pretty stout beside Him? This is the part where you come in!...
   Have I lost you already? What happened at Eden was that our necks got stiff, and we could no longer look upward. Everything (including heaven and her King) was "below" us, "beneath" our vision (which is but another way of saying that we are standing upon our noggins), in this; Adam's innovation. God bless the King! He was willing to go so low that even we could see Him! He appeared (for a time) weaker than Thumper, so as to let Thumper (you, we mean here) see Him, for the miscreant could only view things downward! "Looking down" on others is normally an insult to them, so it's a good thing that He refused to "take it Personally"!
   In the coming age, in that golden realm (and Alice testifies too!), our energies and His are united. We are "in yoke"; pulling on the same side, and (for once) in the same direction. To enter this friendship we trust Him. He has sworn himself to the task of building a new thing, a new kind of creature. Something called "the many-man", a sort of "compound individual", if you will. And this new "man" ("wild throng" really!) is being called right back out of death. "He", in Person stood up again, this time clothed in immortality, gladness, power and unkillable joy, so too the "many-man" shall be. It is already begun, and no authority CAN halt it! It is life to death, and back again to life. It is the engine of sanctity. He himself our hope, He Himself our light. All is, as it ought be!
   We hear from others more than enough about prayer, worship, and the call upon us. The talk and words aspect of life in Him are everywhere! Enough with the words already. Moreover we observe that the actions aspect, the  "going with" the words part, must be a kind of participation, a "partnership" of sorts. Alice knows. So then, the "missing element" here is the Sabbath "rest".
   The remarkable thing about swiss cheese is that it is mainly "not there". I sold you a piece of cheese, and the stuff is largely "holes"? Death, that ultimate passivity, the veriest quietude, we gladly roar into! We "die actively", we perish aggressively, and victoriously. He is the One joining these, our "opposites", and is Himself calling us into this very thing!
   As Babe the blue Ox shrunk to be a "match" for much smaller, frightened creatures, He makes them thus to grow, to "fill out", until they themselves become scary indeed! Viking lords with skulls hanging from their belts, singing praise to the precious Lamb of God! Just ask Alice, she'll tell ya true.