Nimrod

The wind mounted again and John risked another step, guiding his boot through the fallen leaves with painstaking care.
He froze mid-step, as the wind slacked suddenly; a gulping breath.
Ten long seconds trickled down through the trees and he remained stationary, as effortlessly immobile as the young black locust beside him.
The spidery extremities of the locust suckers clutched at his woolen gators, and a low branch of the tree forked over his right shoulder. He leaned into it gently, gaining a measure of stability.
His grounded leg began to quiver, and he melted the tension of his flamingo pose.
Looking down slowly, he searched for a patch of moss and found one, but two feet away, just beyond his stride.
He eased his foot down, canting it on edge to minimize the noise.
Then the wind nudged again, and he skated ahead to the patch of moss.
Planting his right foot, a huge stride, he gained two more quick steps, his feet preceding the rest of his body in the gait of a barnyard fowl.
Breeze plunged through the treetops and slipped crackling across the forest floor.
He moved with it, plotting his steps, island hopping.
Ten more rooster struts brought him along side a modest cedar, and here he reconnoitered.
He reckoned his quarry to be 150 yards down the draw.
The periodic shuffling noise had drawn him over 200 yards and a half hour.
He had been on another course, intent on crossing the plateau above him to the next ridge over when he heard it.
It was intermittent, only enough louder than the scurrying of a squirrel as to suggest something larger at first. The noise ceased for a full two minutes while he debated his course.
Then a definitive crackle of deadwood sealed his decision.
He angled down the far side of the draw, judging the wind to be slightly crosswise to the gully, moving down the opposite side and flowing back up the flank that he now worked his way down.
The sound teased him, occurring only at every critical juncture of indecision. He would have forsaken his quest ten times, only to be lured on at the last by one more ambiguous rustle.
The pale yellow sun drew down far away across the next mountain into bubbling salmon cumulus and stringy orange cirrus, and the half-moon floated overhead, still outshone by the sinking sun like a flashlight beam in the daytime.
He took a knee incrementally, reverently.
His patella found a rock skulking beneath the forest carpet and his mouth twitched but he absorbed the impact into the tendon below his kneecap without flinching.
. . .kept looking ahead, taking in the big picture, searching for horizontal lines out of place, a betrayal not synchronized with the respiration of the wind.
He saw nothing.
He mapped out another twenty steps.
To his right, the angle of the hillside steepened sharply and the trees staggered up the thinning soil.
The earth atrophied in toward the spine of the ridge, and limestone vertebrae sloughed off the crumbling clay, studding the sharp crease with protruding teeth.
To his left, across the gully, the trees were thick and the undergrowth impenetrable.
His path was fraught with cedars, big, brushy swags that carpeted the ground underneath them with yielding compost and feathered the passing hunter silently.
The only detour lay around an ill-placed elderberry grouped close together with a low-sprouting cedar. To go around on the upside would grant him little cover, to find his way on the downside would crowd his prey too soon. He would have to belly crawl under the cedar.
He wanted the noise before he moved again, to zero in on his target.
He got it.
A dull thump, the sound of his boot on the bedroom floor when he shucked it off, preceded by a rustle, the sound of a baseball rolling through the fallen leaves in the front yard.
He waited for the next passing sigh.
The wind muffled his next ten steps, masked his slither underneath the cedar, and died on the other side.
He lay among dead brambles and pungent cedar and glassed the gully with his scope.
Suddenly starting at a fuzzy blur of white and buckskin appaloosa , he glared over the top and made out a peeling sycamore with a low, deformed offshoot running almost parallel to the ground.
He deepened his breathing, slowing his heart rate, barring the floodgates of endorphins, preempting sweat and lowered his head again.
With the falling temperature sucking the breeze harder down the ridge, now was no time for perspiration to dilute the carefully applied scent mask.
He lowered his head to his extended right arm, just listening.
He knew he could hear anything within 600 yards in the dead pause.
The trees, excepting the evergreen, were unseasonably naked, the green flexibility of branch and leaf drained and withered. Sound moved through the shivering trees unhindered.
On top of the plateau, perhaps a quarter mile behind him, a squirrel prattled.
Across the gully, a sapless branch only just bigger than a twig toppled and clung in a black walnut tree.
Twenty feet ahead, one remaining oak leaf died and rasped down through the harsh web to join the cycle of death and life and death.
Nothing moved silently in this brittle arbor.
-Except him.
There came a sound to the void that grew upon him, quintessential not only in its stealth, but also in its organicity. When at last it leaked from his sub consciousness to the more forward corridors of his mind, it irritated him that it had stolen upon him so unawares.
He stole a look upward, craning to locate the source.
Off to the left, a faint contrail enlarged and dissipated in the high sky.
Ahead, the offending aircraft caught as much of the waning sun as a flinging drop of water.
What irritated him as much the noise was the obtrusion of the passengers slouched in their respective rows.
Casting a jaundiced eye upon them, he saw in rear coach a pudgy, wobbly, self-satisfied man doffing his Longhorn’s cap over his fleeing hairline, fingering Sky magazine with oily fingertips. In front coach he saw a family of three, screaming and cajoling, the mother looking wistfully at a full-page travel advertisement of rippling bronze and silky russet swept round in elegant swimwear, of perpetual sunsets and frothy breakers. He saw the business traveler set apart from them by the veil, as highly symbolic as that shroud of concealment hung upon golden rings in Solomon’s temple, but sadly, not as thick. He saw the dashing lines on the Blackberry, the dancing fingers on the Mac.
Perhaps most infuriating was the sleeper two seats ahead, presumptuously arranged just so in a window seat with her coiffed hair salvaged by a tubular flight pillow tucked in the curve of her neck. The sun, not so dimmed by its proximity to earth’s atmosphere, slanted in the multi-paned Plexi-glass, firing up millions of invisible scars left by 700 mile-an-hour airborne sediment. Blinking daintily, she reaches groggily for the shutter, nails softly scrabbling, and shuts out all that does not pertain to her nap. (That scraping keratin set his teeth on edge at least as much as the screaming turbines.)
In the cockpit, the pilot and co-pilot discussed the recent emasculated mediation of their union and the voracious consumption of their retirement accounts.
Back on earth, a jaunty sow bug scaled a perpendicular twig eight inches from his face.
Slowly, he crooked his right arm back and tucked his forefinger behind his thumb.
Clenching teeth, he flicked so viciously it shook his shoulder and for a falling moment the roly poly paralleled the trajectory of that airborne vessel.
He fixated again upon the constellation of trees that contained his prey.
Short cedars clustered so tightly with scrub oaks that the evergreens appeared to sprout deciduous branches from their folds. From the midst of the gathering sprung a black walnut, so towering and so spreading even in its autumnal embarassment that it might’ve hatched from rotting hull when the hunter wore leather on his feet and fur on his head.
Beyond and obscured by that historical marker was the approximate ground upon which the potential trophy stood, perhaps even now suspecting that it was hunted.
A sudden, boyish smile, suppressed and crooked, creased his face beneath the mask.
He saw the upraised head, the molten gaze, the trembling, ungainly crown.
The thought converged energy and focus and he gladly waited longer.
With the onset of dusk, it would doubtless emerge on the uphill side of the grove. If he was any competent reader of sign, it had not passed this way, and was doubtless en route to better grazing on the plateau above.
He melded with the ground, a perfect predator.
The sling wound around his right forearm and his left hand cradled the barrel of the Ruger.
The day’s growth on his chin conceived an itch and he scraped the stubble against the synthetic stock, working his jaw in the manner of those aboard that disappearing jetliner with pressurized heads.
The breeze came again, slipping over the ridge and plunging downhill to find its level.
. . . Gusting.
He took advantage and wiggled his left ankle which was beginning to ache and flexed his right bicep which was beginning to cramp.
The wind ratcheted up and he strained to hear.
Leaves rattled. Acorns rained.
The smaller trees quailed.
A sudden dissonance in the wild song startled him, as did the sight of a scampering object, cylindrical and pinkish.
He seethed. The sun-bleached Coke can ambled over dried leaves and clattered over protruding stone, flushed from its hiding place by the wind. It spun and tumbled end over end in the gale, and the popped tab rolled about inside like the ball in a jingle bell.
It found its next home in a bramble bush, joyfully leaping into the tangle with a screeching din.
He grimly glassed the grove again and thought of the one who had let fall such an object in such a place.
A group of them, roaring through the glade on ATV’s or worse, dirt bikes. His blood curdled at the scream of two-stroke engines trampling upon the solitude, running wild like un-churched toddlers through the Sistine chapel. They had swarmed up the valley with the tranquility of a flock of swamp-boats, veered up the draw, then up the steepening grade because. . .it was there, and idled here, laughing at nothing.
One of them pulled a Coke from the back boot, and popped it open, swigging it down, guzzling carbonated caffeine, and artificial flavor, and caramel coloring.
Another pointed up the draw and revved his engine. Draining the last draw, the cretin held the can up high like a trophy, snapped the tab inside, crumpled it with a flourish, let it free-fall to the ground, and flung earth from his tires after the others.
He saw it all and wondered: If litter has lain so long that it has become as native as the youngest saplings and the decomposing deadfalls around it, does it become such a part of the composite that its raucous relocation becomes as mundane to the ears of wildlife as that of a dropping walnut or falling tree?
The thought, as helpful as it might be, pained him.
Would a trout in a mountain stream not dart away at the sight of cellophane wrapper, or did caribou really group around the Alaska pipeline?
He almost snarled. Would a city fright at the sight of a mounting Teton in the midst of its downtown grid, or would subway passengers yawn at a timber wolf rising from the floor?
The sun bled like a punctured yolk and pooled all over the boiling clouds and the osmotic chill probed up through the wool and the flannel.
It came again, the sound he waited for.
The wallop of a boot dropped on carpet, the crunch of a ball in the leaves, identical to the former sound.
Quickly, he ducked his head and glared through the glass at the magnified arboreal tangle. He thought he saw a branch nodding with the acknowledgement of some passing force.
If he were immobile before, he now became as inexorable as the eroding soil. His breath escaped from his lips as silently as the vapor dispersed.
His focus gained interminability. A glacier might have overtaken and buried him. Yet, his blood was quickened and warmed.
He felt the unforced keenness of feline intensity measure every movement.
His relaxation balanced unconcernedly on the edge of a knife
The term “buck fever” brought another blurting smile to his face.
The climax of the hunt brought him anything but uncertainty. Rather, it distilled all the forces of instinct and habitual skill he had acquired into an effortless concentration.
The utter joy of his ability surged in his flowing blood.
He had plenty of hunting buddies that dissolved into thumbs and nerves at ground zero.
Their passion undid them at the crucial moment.
He thought of that well-meaning enthusiast that had accompanied him two years ago on a guided elk-hunt in the Rockies. After two nearly successful kills, spoiled within inches by his clumsy friend, Roger, the guide had jokingly referred to him in the terms of an amorous adolescent boy. Whether it was the guides remark or his own amusement that he didn’t attempt to conceal, Roger had fallen uncharacteristically silent, and minutes later announced he was all in, and going back to the campsite.
Within an hour, they had made a kill.
“Hope I didn’t offend him.” the guide offered as they field dressed the elk.
To which he had responded with a cryptic chuckle. He knew his friend well, since high school, and knew that his fragile ego was no doubt completely disassembled and when they returned he would be well on his way to erasing his many thwarted attempts at hunting and adolescent exploits with the aid of Jim or Jack or any other of the empathetic spirits packed in the Igloo cooler. Tomorrow, he would awake with a splitting headache but his pride would have made a miraculous recovery, a triumph of medicinal whiskey.
In particular, Roger would be swilling away a memory of their high school prom night.
Eight years prior, a 3 a.m. conclave of giddy, freshly graduated eighteen year old boys lounging on tailgates and sprawling on hoods was surreptitiously joined by the stocky second-string lineman. John was sitting in his truck, nipping a bottle of Corona. Roger had found him quickly, and snatched a communal flask balanced on the top of his pickup. He choked on it, and began sobbing softly. Head tucked, he jumped into the cab of John’s truck. Ill-at-ease, John had asked nothing of his friend, just turned the music up a little louder. A half-hour later, with the glow of the dash lights on his face, Roger unloaded with the abject pathos of a penitent sinner in a dark confessional. When he related the conclusion of his failed conquest, “I . . .couldn’t.”, John asked, “Couldn’t what?”
Roger swore for a solid thirty seconds, claiming back some of his obliterated manhood, punctuating his outburst with a vicious punch at the dashboard. It was then that John had broken into a premeditated laughter, gulping hysterically, his beer shaking in his hand. Some of the other guys gathered in to share the fun, and Roger had quietly opened the passenger door, and stumbled for his car, taking the flask with him. Amidst demands for the joke, John protested mildly, snickering between sips, and then proceeded to let it be dragged from him. The punch line left several helpless boys lying gasping in the gravel, and several more sagging against the bed of his truck, pounding feebly on the rim of the bed.
He told himself the next day it was the liquor that had loosened his tongue, and when Roger had rejoined him two days later, mumbling that the girl had apparently “kissed and told,” he cussed her along right along with him.
Laughing, he told another friend about it later. “Only thing wrong with that is, there never was a kiss!”
He never drank anymore. He didn’t need alcohol. He didn’t need to forget anything.
It wouldn’t be long now. He stretched imperceptibly, thrusting his legs out behind him and slowly rotating both ankles. Then he swiveled his head, his eyes never leaving the grove in front of him.
The noise came again, more definitely this time, maybe closer. He never moved.
The sun had submerged into the roiling cloudbank, and blasted rays of purpling light up over the horizon.
The day was dying, and a confident knowledge of the habits and feeding patterns of large bucks rooted him to the spot.
Glancing up at the void sky where he’d last seen the west-bound jet-liner, he just made out floating puffs of exhaust, blotting the darkness with faint sponge-marks.
The wind was picking up even more, with slight pauses where the infrequent breezes had been an hour before.
He flicked his tongue out of the left corner of his mouth, moistening the skin next to his lips. Then the right side. The left daub dried quickly, the right took longer. The wind was still in his favor, if only slightly.
He waited patiently, only clenching his teeth occasionally to assuage the tightening sinus pressure across his cheeks and temples.
The last rays of the sun vanished, the swift shroud of a late fall evening drawing quickly over the overhead dome, sprouting dim stars in its advance.
He waited still, not particularly bothered at the prospect of an illegal kill, but as the last light hemorrhaged into the dusk, he weighed his narrowing time window against his night vision and began to consider the idea of stalking again, but on his hands and knees.
The idea grew on him as the night grew on the day.
Imperative as time was, the challenge it presented made a stronger argument. To enter that lair and steal upon his prey. Not to outwait, but to outwit.
Eagerness spread through him quickly and he blessed the wind as he rose to all fours.
It was an absolute Indian aspect he presented, a formless patch of charcoal in the gathering gloom that did not move, no, it seeped across the diminishing yardage of egg-shell leaves and ceramic twigs.
He entered the upside point of the cluster of trees ten minutes later, and melted further inward, slithering, all elbows and toes.
When the sound came again, it was so close it sounded as the thud of a hoof and he petrified, for fear the prey had caught wind of the predator and was bolting.
But nothing except a soft rustle trailed the impact.
He strained to see now, unwilling to go further until he had made out some aspect of his quarry.
At last, he made out an intermittent movement, a horizontal image stirring with the unconcern of a buck nipping at foliage.
Nerves he had now, not jumpy, nor of steel, but of spider silk! They only swayed in the heated blast of adrenaline, holding strong, but not taut.
He rose like a mist from the forest floor. He found no clear path through to the target, so in the absolute supremacy of the perfect predator, he stood majestically, all joints silent, even in this cold, head level, rifle butt growing up into his armpit.
At last, he leveled and looked through the sights underneath the scope. He could now make out the network of antlers, nodding and swaying.
He took the trigger breath; long, steady inhalation, brief hold, then longer, steadier, exhalation, finger pressing the trigger like a plunger, knowing the exact ounce of pressure that drove the firing pin into the awaiting primer, releasing the kinetic death that went where he sent it.
He paused. This moment contained the essence of life. It was in these seconds, when he weighed death in his hands, that he knew what he was made for.
He had always believed that every soul held the potential of a diamond. But few withstood the pressure to harden past coal.
He’d discovered the joy and realized the passion. The rest of his life worked well. Everything else fell into place.
Why would anyone be given such a proclivity? If there were a purpose for everything, a mission for every talent, what path might his inherent skill lead him down?
His eyes narrowed, smiling.
Encapsulated within his gift was one small counterweight to the balance of nature.
He was the yang to his prey’s yin.
If there was a time to kill, there were those gifted to kill.
Benevolence swelled his soul, gratitude toward all things living that contributed to the whole ordered universe.
The grass gave to the rain, and the rain to the grass.
But also the rabbit to the wolf, and the wolf to the rabbit.
He pulled the trigger.
The trees around him blanched and he barely heard the sound, never felt the recoil.
Before the last echo had escaped from the winding valley below, he had slipped the mini Mag Lite from his belt and flooded the grove with LED.
He stepped forward, and saw a young sapling bent almost parallel to the ground. At its end grew a curiously perpendicular network of branches. It was nodding slightly, like the ungainly antlers of a foraging buck.
Behind him, something bolted.
Swiveling in his tracks, he clapped the light alongside the raised rifle.
Thirty yards away, a huge buck scrambled up the draw, flaring white tail stark in the dusk.
Without thinking, he slid his right hand back to the trigger and planted his right foot.
Something large and round rolled under the sole of his boot, and he went down hard, light splashing off branches, deafening report resounding off the hills, nose scraping on the ground, cheekbone crunching into the abrasive forearm of his Ruger.
He heard the bounding escape receding up the grade.
In the shock of silence, one more hedge-apple fell from high above, crackling down through the dead leaves, striking him on the shoulder with the thud of a hunting boot falling on carpet, and rolling through the leaves like a baseball, coming to rest in the bluish glare of the LED Mag Lite.

Nothing Much

There is a weekly radio program on NPR that my wife is fond of.
Besides Car Talk, I mean.
"From The Top" is a procession of young musicians and occasional vocalists distinguished by their ability especially in light of their age. Some of these kids are 11 years old and can polish off pieces by Mozart that I can't begin to even understand, let alone follow, let alone play.
One Saturday evening as we sat listening to some flawless movement or other, I asked Devan if these kids ever got on her nerves.
These prodigies are often accomplished not only in their chosen music field, but in several other areas as well; academia, athletics, arts . . . and that's just the a's.
I admire people distinguished in one particular field. But when that genius undertakes another venture and succeeds brilliantly and yet another and another, I begin to become annoyed.
It has been my contention that you will excel in an area only because you care deeply about it, and I am puzzled as to how these wunderkinds can possibly care so deeply about so many different things.
What drives them?
. . . See? By framing the question in such a way I reveal an assumption that they are being propelled as opposed to being drawn after something. Because I simply cannot conceive of such ambition and I'm immediately suspicious of it.
What mad thirst for validation or fame drives these maniacs?
I cannot obsess about more than one thing.
If I'm walking, I'm walking. If I'm chewing gum, I'm chewing gum.
And, to my shame, having a forty-five to fifty hour work week seems to preclude any other serious endeavors.
On one hand, I'm philosophical. I don't envy most highly successful people because I know that success is proportionate to the amount of life poured into it.
The ubiquitous success icons of our culture, doctors, lawyers, and CEO's work constantly until they are sixty and by then have often lost all sense of priority and spend their twilight years repenting their lifelong pursuits.
On the other hand, when I'm not obsessing about something else, I feel a little guilty.
At least a hamster on a wheel has an excuse. He has no place else to go. Besides, he's getting in shape.
I know, Confucius say "Choose a job you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
But I can't help thinking we've been snookered on that quote.
I firmly believe some snake-oil self-help guru crammed those words into the late Asian philosopher's pudgy mouth and then pulled them back out again in some New York Times Best Seller.
After all, what was there to do when Confucius walked among us? Or sat among us.
There were few superfluous occupations back in 500 B.C. So, aside from the remote possibility that every one in China actually wanted to be either a fisherman or a farmer, or, if you were lucky, another corpulent philosopher, this ancient wisdom is about as helpful the modern admonition to "Don't Worry, Be Happy," or about as inspiring as those mass-produced scenery photos with one word captions such as "Dream," "Cooperation," or "Goals."


The above rambling is an attempt to push past a bad case of blogger's block.
This is what happens when you ignore road signs and forge ahead.

Decisons, Decisions

If you live in Kentucky, and you are a Republican, and you vote, you are to be forgiven if you are confused.
If you look to establishment endorsements from familiar GOP politicians or conservative activists for clues, you'll find new meaning in the term "mixed signals."
The interesting political microcosm stands so: Jim Bunning, former baseball star and current Kentucky GOP senator fell from fundraiser favor in the past two years. Bunning has been a standard party soldier but a substandard public figure. He is the Republican negative of Joe Biden, the human gaffe machine. His foot-in-mouth disease is likely the largest contributing factor to his decline in popularity. But you may also know Bunning from his most recent headlines foray as the lone opposition to the extension of unemployment benefits. Citing President Obama's pay-go philosophy, he insisted we pay for the extension rather than finance it. It was a Quixotic stand, something he no doubt was fully aware of, and you have to wonder if he would have been so principled were he planning on a reelection bid.
On Primary Day, May 18, the vacated seat could have been almost a coronation event for KY Secretary of State Trey Grayson, had it not been for an eye doctor from western KY with the same DNA and same hot, cross-voter, small government appeal as '08 presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Last time out, in an election environment largely unfavorable to Republicans, Grayson won reelection by 14%.
And, considering that Ron Paul was certainly no party loyalist, and considering that Rand Paul is certainly his father's son, if somewhat less libertarian, Grayson had every right to expect smooth sailing.
But Grayson is fighting hard for this seat, and looks ready to lose to Paul.
Guilt by association has been one of Grayson's campaign tactics against Paul.
He ties Rand to his father on issues of national security. Neither Paul is a dove, but both tend toward isolationism, and a decidedly anti-Bush approach to the "spread of democracy."
Grayson also makes hay out of the fact that some of Ron Paul's money goes to fund his son's campaign in an effort to portray Rand as beholden to out-of-state interests.
And in a largely conservative state, Grayson has loaded his gun with some teflon-coated ammunition and blasted away at Paul's pro-life credentials.
But a look at the endorsements garnered by both candidates tells an interesting story.
On a national level, Dick Cheney has endorsed Trey Grayson. So has Rudy Guliani. So far, not so good, socially conservatively speaking. But then throw in Rick Santorum, former congressman from PA, known for his pro-life advocacy.
On a state level, the GOP establishment has endorsed Grayson across the board. Mitch McConnell, eastern KY congressman Hal Rogers, and a whole raft of GOP state-level office holders. One notable, fascinating, and possibly telling exception has been the outgoing Bunning.
And Grayson no doubt blesses the day that the Kentucky Right To Life gave him their endorsement.
But the puzzle is well illustrated by the reversal of Dr. James Dosbon.
Not more than two weeks ago, my answering machine fielded a call from Dr. Dobson.
His recorded voice urged me to vote for Trey Grayson, the best choice for social conservatives.
Well, no doubt you've heard, but Dobson has since retracted that endorsement, citing bad intelligence from GOP contacts, and thrown in with Rand Paul.
And add Sarah Palin to Paul's growing and impressive list.
And Concerned Women for America, and Gun Owners of America, and Steve Forbes, and if you weren't conflicted enough already, the Northern Kentucky Right To Life chapter.
Gay marriage is practically a non-issue in KY. Same-sex marriage has as much likelihood of happening in Kentucky as a concealed-carry law in Massachusetts.
But Rand Paul has mixed his own signals on this issue. As of now, he talks like a true "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" kind of guy. But in the past he has advocated more of a state by state position on this issue, a position unlikely to curry favor with social conservatives, but since we're dealing with the past . . .
Sec. Grayson has his own checkered past. He used to be a Democrat. He was in fact, a Clinton delegate in 1992.
At this point I would like to bring up Santorum's endorsement. In '08, Santorum completely floored me by favoring Mitt Romney for president. Romney's pro-life credentials don't even deserve the label "suspect." They don't, in fact, exist. He changes them according to what office he's running for.
Grayson's conversion was not so recent and so obviously convenient as Romney's, but canvassing for Bill Clinton certainly doesn't add to his conservative luster.
Paul's opponents have also brought up the ubiquitous Israel issue.
No clear answers here, either.
Paul vehemently denies any anti-Israel position, voicing a desire for a recommitment to our ally, but his reticence to engage in affairs around the world could be construed, perhaps legitimately, as a signal to the nation of Israel that they are on their own. But is this stance anti-Israel, or "pro-get out of Israel's way? Is it anti-Israel to unleash Israel? This is a seriously contentious issue, but I do believe Israel has been hindered almost as much as it has been helped by the U.S. Time after time, we have held our allegiance over Israel's head as leverage to make them stand down in their difficulties with their enemies.
And, for what it's worth, in Dobson's endorsement, he takes care to mention this issue that he knows is near and dear to the evangelical heart, saying that Paul "supports Israel."
Another caveat to the Kentucky RTL's endorsement of Grayson.
Does anyone remember when National Right To Life endorsed Fred Thompson for president?
Fred Thompson, you'll remember is the man who has lobbied for abortion clinics, and when pressed about the discrepancy, compartmentalized his positions as "business" on the one hand and politics on the other.
I have to say I'm leaning toward Paul, but with some reservations.
Bunning's endorsement, oddly enough, may be the deciding factor. Bunning has nothing to lose, nothing owed to his former buddies in the Kentucky GOP.
Of course, his endorsement of Rand could be attributed to mere vindictiveness over being abandoned, but Bunning's last stand over the unemployment extension signal more of an agenda of principle than revenge.
If only he had spent more time standing on his own two feet as opposed to continually placing one or the other appendage in his mouth, maybe we wouldn't have to make this decision.

What Keeps Me Going

I love a good two-by-four upside the head.

Epiphanies grant a fresh start. The probably illusory effect of striking, profound realizations gives a feeling of enthusiasm to a tired person. Armed with this new knowledge, you feel you could go on indefinitely.
Now that I know this, now that I have learned this secret, I will not be so easily distracted from my purpose.
It is the feeling of a new diet or the purchase of a treadmill or a good pair of bright new running shoes and a brisk, fall day.
Of course, the diet will eventually turn into one more day of eating food you don't like, the treadmill becomes a wardrobe, the shoes get dingy and the brisk, fall day is a good excuse to light a fire in the fireplace and cook up a steaming pot of chili.
To take an analogy from the world of politics, an unwise move perhaps, remember the sad sack days of the GOP in the aftermath of the '08 election?
The GOP was the ninety-pound weakling on the beach getting sand kicked into his face by Charles Obama Atlas while the adoring American public looked on.
The Republican spun in a circle, looking for a new direction. Someone suggested they might try simply adhering to their core principles.
Admittedly, this lacked sparkle.
Imagine an an up-and-coming exercise guru being introduced on Oprah. After all the applause dies down and O! the oracle begins to ask the fitness expert what his philosophy is, the answer delivered to a breathless studio audience and millions of fat Americans watching at home is just this:

"I think we should eat healthy food in smaller portions and try to exercise more."

The studio audience wishes they had waited to get tickets until Tom Cruise was on again and the millions of fat Americans watching at home get discouraged with the idea of fitness altogether and switch over to the food channel.

Because this is old stuff. It's boring. Maybe it works, but it's boring.
Give me something new, something crazy, something that sounds like it would never work.
Give me As Seen On TV! gadgets and herbal laxatives.

Give me colon cleansers and diet pills.

Give me a Hollywood diet program with before and after photos with a time lapse of eight hours and clothes that won't fit any more and weight loss measured not in pounds, but inches.
I know it's a little prosaic to bring in the old spiritual parallel right here, but I didn't spend the last ten minutes just to end on a rant about an acai berry diet.
I'm always on the lookout for a new mindset. Some new revelation that will transform studying to show myself approved into a wealth of suddenly acquired, instantly recalled knowledge.
Something that will cast everything in my life in a glow of spirituality.
And there is plenty of gravy out there for me to sop my roll in.
So many "life-changing" books, DVD's, programs, mindsets, prayers and purposes.

It's safe to say that there is at least one revolutionary new concept to red bull my spiritual walk for every day of the year. And, to be fair, probably most of them contain some useful tenets.

(As sick as I am of purpose-driven everything, the opening salvo of Rick Warren's original work was, and is, jolting and refreshing. 'It's not about you.')
But there's always a post-discovery let-down.
Screwtape told Wormwood that God allows "this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing."
As much as I love stumbling onto an ice-cold spiritual energy drink on a long, hot, dry day, I know what really keeps me going.
Faith. Faith that sometimes feels so dry.
Faith that feels like its pulling me along so slow that the only logical explanation for moving mountains is that they simply crumbled into dust before I could get to them.
One foot in front of the other, fueled by a slow, time-released work of grace.
God knows what I need. And He gives it to me in "just-enough" portions every day.
And I am so . . . unspeakably grateful.

March Insanity

I have had a bad case of, well, I won't say writer's, but blogger's block.
But for those addicted to my blog (stranger addictions have enslaved people; sniffing paint, drinking Drano . . .) I have called in a pinch-hitter, a guest blogger who has been pestering me for years for their big break. It was getting a little pathetic, entreaties kept coming accompanied by ProFlowers, candygrams, and once, weirdly, a PajamaGram. I was feeling stalked, so I relented.
Really, I was surprised by this article because I was feeling a little like the only nut in a sane asylum, or whatever. I like college football, but . . .
Just consider this a plea for common sense from a person living in Kentucky where the whole town, already suffering from early onset March Madness, is on the edge of a sports driven mass hysteria. Just today, the Wildcats destroyed their arch-rival Tennessee, and if the jubilant blue-clad throngs weren't flooding the streets, they were by-George flooding the restaurants and retail outlets following the ill-timed midday game.







Sports Fanatics | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction


Comments, please. Especially, if you disagree.

Heaven

There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Iluvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad. But for a long while they sang only each alone, or but few together, while the rest hearkened; for each comprehended only that part of the mind of Iluvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony.
And it came to pass that Iluvatar called together all the Ainur and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed; and the glory of its beginning and the splendor of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Iluvatar and were silent.
Then Iluvatar said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.'
Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not Void. Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Iluvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Iluvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Iluvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Iluvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased. --J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Silmarillion.
In church, we've been discussing heaven. This opening chapter of Tolkien's posthumously published history of his fantasy creation always comes to my mind.
Tolkien said "I dislike Allegory- the conscious and intentional allegory-yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language."
Tolkien's mythical history of Arda, the Earth, is so analogous to the Creation Story it is impossible not to juxtapose the two when reading the opening chapters of The Silmarillion.
And his imaginative narrative of God and his angels before Creation is rich with meaning.
It gives me some idea or at least prods my imagination toward what we will be about in heaven.
And I can't tell you how exciting this is for me.
No death wish here, just a longing to know my true purpose in God's ultimate plan, and to know from which part of the mind of God I came.

Church Stuff

In church, I am outwardly the proverbial bump on the log. Since my younger days, my reticence extends to arguably obstinate eccentricity. I don't exactly feel comfortable not responding when the preacher says, "Everybody that's happy in the Lord, raise your hand.", but I prefer the discomfort to the manipulated feeling I would suffer if I complied.
It is nothing personal to the preacher. His urging may be an earnest attempt to engender a consensus of corporate worship, and not a deliberate contrivance for control. But I know myself, and I know what one step down that road of, "It can't hurt." can lead to.
When it comes to impressions from God, erring on the side of maybe is dangerous. One too many times, I responded to ambiguity, and so doing, followed the trail of crumbs just far enough. The door slammed shut and the lights went out and I suddenly had no idea where I was.
If looking in the mirror one too many times was a sign of vanity, which time was too many? Before long, it becomes vain to comb your hair, and your appearance degenerates into that of a very sanctified bohemian.
If you can never pray too much, what minute is just enough? After a time, you begin to dread morning devotions and every moment spent in any activity other than prayer or Bible reading carries with it potential guilt.
If fasting one meal a week is good, then why not one meal a day, or two? God will surely see to your health even if you cease eating altogether, and the protestations of common sense are marginalized and evicted and stand outside hammering on the door demanding to be let back in.
If music can be a vehicle of the devil, then not listening to it at all must be the safest route.
If the sight of a woman can arouse lust in your teenage hormones, then casting your eyes down in public will preclude any possibility of sinning with your eyes.
Before long, you are completely neutralized as an effective saint, miserable and hopeful only of death, and even here, doubt prowls. If I were to die, would I really go to heaven?
But, I digress. And digress. And digress.
So, how important is harmony in corporate worship?
Belonging to a very small congregation pastored by a man with which I'm completely comfortable (except when I'm used as an illustration) isolates me somewhat from the issue.
But I remember what it is like. And being so accustomed to sitting under the ministry of a pastor whose tastes and deportment are so oddly like my own, I squirm all the more when I'm in an unfamiliar church setting and the pastor or song leader (worship leader to you contemporary worship parishioners) asks for a show of hands on anything from loving the Lord to being happy in the Lord to being happy to be in church tonight, amen.
And the cheerful suggestion of a nice round of hand-shaking and one-arm hugging to the tune of "I'm So Glad I'm a Part of the Family of God," is enough to turn me into an absolute extension of the seat itself; a veritable pew ornament as wooden as the hymnal holders and as stuffy as the padding.
I feel manipulated, and I think it's corny. If I really wanted to go tell Bro. So-and-So how glad I am to see him and how much I appreciate him, I'd go tell him without any prompting from pulpit authorities and if Bro. So-and-So isn't a dim-bulb, he'll get a lot more out of the involuntary appreciation as opposed to the church-sanctioned variety.
Advocates will tell you it's just an opportunity for everyone to take a break from the ordered portion of the service to greet everyone and foster camaraderie.
I say, then what is all that jawing in the back thirty minutes prior to and following the service? Warm-up and after-glow, I guess.
And the "How many (insert platitude), raise your hand and say amen" thing is a complete mystery to me.
When did this start? And why?
Are they hoping the wet blankets will out themselves? Looking for lightning rods? Looking to bolster their own stage confidence?
How much of corporate worship is uninhibited burden sharing and accountability and how much of it is peer pressure?
I know there is a place for one and none for the other, but I'm beat if I know how to tell the difference. And don't we need to somehow distinguish the sometimes uncomfortable moments of one from the sometimes embarrassing fiascos of the other?
I know that in church you have people which can occasionally lead to messy, merely sentimental situations and not every moment in church can be deeply, quietly spiritual.
But I also feel that somewhere along the line we've allowed a lot of stuff to attach itself to our church practices and it has weighed us down, like those ads keep telling me that hamburger I ate two week ago is weighing down my colon.
So, anybody else out there?
Or, am I just being a stick-in-the-mud?

When Will These Things Come To Pass?

It may be presumptuous of me, but I expect most of you are interested, to varying degrees, in prophecy; particularly, prophecy dealing with the end of the age.
It is an easy assumption for me to make, considering you would have to be blind and deaf to Christian, especially evangelical, culture, not to have come across the subject almost as often as you have come upon the prayer that was Jabez', or the life that is driven by purpose.
Why the dramatic escalation of interest in the topic?
Is it the preoccupation of America with a terrorist element that threatens to bring war upon us, and more significantly, prophetically speaking, the nation of Israel?
Is it the unprecedented possibility of mass destruction, in the form of the proliferation of lost, orphaned nukes floating into the hands of madmen and giving new force to the concept of the heavens melting with fervent heat?
Is it a fad? Christian culture is not the only sub-culture fascinated with apocalyptic scenarios.
Some ancient Mayans laid the groundwork for quite a firestorm when they ended their calendar in the year 2012. Hollywood picks it up, and the rest is cinematic history.
You could even make the case that global warming alarmists are simply obsessed with global destruction.
Or, is it the dispassionate observation of events juxtaposed with Scripture?
The formation of that last question may give you the idea that I've already made up my mind.
Not entirely. I think all of the above-mentioned are factors.
The idea of the end of the world is certainly provocative and arresting, so fascination with the topic, given all the current global unrest, is to be expected.
I have tried to back off from my "feelings" regarding the subject many times precisely because I don't wish to be caught up in any faddish frenzy.
I have asked myself if the similarities between end-times prophecies and current events are not as easy to conjure up as the similarities between the words of Nostradamus and 9-11.
Are direct connections between Russian-Iranian alliances and Gog-Magog alliances as easy to construe as the death of Princess Diana written in between the lines of Scripture as postulated in the Bible Code?
There is undeniably a great deal of sensationalism connected with the topic, but it only obscures the issue.
I can't coherently discuss all aspects of prophecy because I'm not an authority on the subject, but in the interest of remaining objective, I have tried to research the camp that bills itself as the voice of reason.
The sheer seismic proportions of the topic have created an almost proportionate tsunami of skepticism. I mean to say, one fad has created another.
There are plenty of dissenting viewpoints on the imminence of the end of the world.
But, (and this is what I mean to point out in this blog) it is more than a little frustrating to set out looking for cool, rational opponents of "dispensationalism", and find nothing, (so far) except sneering, mocking, sarcastic evangelical haters.
Google dispensational millennialism and you quickly gain the idea that the very term "dispensational millennialist" is as much an epithet as a description.
The accusations of sensationalism, exploitation and abandonment of the lost fly thick and fast in conjunction with some highly suspect interpretations of Scripture.
For example, "The dispensational theory of premillennialism has gained great popularity mainly among modern evangelicals. The dispensational view of premillennialism, with its elaborate conspiracy theories, time tables, charts and graphic scenarios, is essentially a chiliast error. It has been most often accompanied by the false notion that the Second Coming is a predictable event with an identifiable time-table. This is despite Christ’s warning that “it is not for you to know the times or the seasons” (Acts 1:7)."
This comes from a fellow named Jay Rogers.
First you have the initial connection drawn between premillennialism and evangelicals, a connection every bit as damning as the one between aerosol cans and the big hole in the ozone layer. It is sufficient to say that if one is connected in any way to any idea that is held largely by an evangelical-minded segment of Christianity, he is not only immediately disregarded, he is immediately an accessory.
Hence the syllogism: All premillennial dispensationalists are evangelicals.
All evangelicals are ignorant, intolerant rubes.
Thus, all premillennial dispensationalists are ignorant, intolerant rubes.
Conspiracies? Time tables? Premillennialists often believe the Second Coming is a predictable event with an identifiable timetable? Who on earth has Mr. Rogers been reading after? I don't know of a single prominent premillennialist, excluding Whisenant, who has offered any such idea.
Mr. Rogers and his colleagues apparently expect all literalists to smile pretty for the camera while they photo shop in the straw man and smack the stuffing out of his 88 reasons for '88.
Further down into Mr. Rogers explanation of all that is wrong with dispensationalism, I found what appears to be a complete fabrication. He accuses Tim LaHaye of setting an exact date for the Second Coming in the Left Behind series. Aside from the fact that if Tim LaHaye is writing a novel, by definition, a work of fiction, he should be able to set all the dates he wishes without fear of conspiracy theorists like Mr. Rogers accusing him of setting literal timetables, there is the inconvenient truth that, after checking my copy of Tribulation Force, surprise, I find no dates.
(I hold Mr. Rogers personally culpable for the toe I stubbed running to locate my copy of Left Behind to find the date of the Rapture in the interest of maxing out all my credit cards.)
But further down still, I find a telling remark. In Matthew 24, Jesus gives the disciples an evanescent glimpse of the future: "And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory."
I had a glimpse into what makes Mr. Rogers tick when I read this phrase regarding the above passage. "The highly figurative language used here-"
It is extremely difficult to have a productive debate on anything Biblical when any given passage is subject to the "figurative" dodge.
What it is about Jesus' statement here or anything in the previous verses that gives Mr. Rogers the impression Jesus is employing poetic license?
The previous verse mentions the sun being darkened, the moon giving no light, and the stars falling from the sky. Rogers doesn't interpret that for us, but I'm certain there is some highly figurative explanation for that as well.
Rogers apparently subscribes to full preterism and reconstructionist postmillennialism, the respective views that end times prophecy was fulfilled in the first century A.D. and that the church itself will usher in the millennial reign, setting up a 1000 yr. (possibly figurative again) theocracy.
Again, he states, "Matthew 24:35 through the end of chapter 25 do not refer to 'all the evil things we see happening today,' but to judgment progressively falling on the wicked to remove them from the world as the kingdom of God advances."
I never felt that eschatology should necessarily be a contentious issue, but perhaps I'm being a little naive.
It isn't simply a matter of a time difference.
The fact is, you believe what you believe about the end-times because your view of Scripture in general informs it.

Happy New Year (but let's not get carried away)

Once upon a Sunday School contest, the teacher, in a shocking display of positive reinforcement, promised a prize to the industrious student who logged a certain amount of Scripture reading in a given week.
I don't remember the prize. (Actually, I don't remember the teacher.)
What I do remember is going on a Bible binge. . . . for a couple of weeks.
It was not to last. Not even the prospect of a prize could perpetuate the motivation.
Are you ready for this? I got bored with it.
I also remember the steady discipline of my friend Darren. He consistently polished off a reasonable number of chapters every week and received the prize and effusive praise from the teacher whose name continues to elude me.
(Darren, if you're out there, was it the benefits of the reading or was it the prize?)
Since then, I have made many resolutions and I contend it is not so much the lack of will that sees so many of my plans end in partial completion.
It is more a matter of my having an inherent dislike of redundancy.
Before you judge me immature, let me say I have managed to develop a few constructive habits over my life.
I have fallen into eating, almost every day, quite naturally.
I sleep almost every night without fail.
I have also managed to develop a habit of kissing my wife quite regularly.
I usually go to work throughout the week.
On the flip side, I often lament my dislike for repetition when it comes to brown bagging.
Trying to think of something, anything, from week to week that sounds appetizing is a challenge, and I do wish I were the type that could exist contentedly on a pb&j every lunch from now till retirement, but my taste buds won't cooperate.
I once drank only Dr. Pepper, until one day I hated it, then I switched to Coke. For a time, then . .
I listen to classical for a time until my brain grows suddenly weary of trying to interpret the sometimes obscure artistic inspiration.
And then after a stint of more modern fare, I begin to feel like I've eaten at Wendy's five days in a row.
I resolve to read all the classics; Dickens, Defoe, Dostoevsky. After a period of this, I read some theology and philosophy; John Calvin & Thomas Hobbes.
Then I read some modern fiction and usually remember why I was reading classics.
What I'm trying to say is,
No, I'm not making any New Year's resolutions.

The Darkest Night of the Year

There are plenty of people around who will be happy to tell you the celebration of Christmas is a farce, rooted in pagan rituals and bedecked with all sorts of trappings of non-Christian customs; Christmas tree, evergreen wreaths, Santa Claus.
FYI, the Christmas tree custom is said to have been derived from pagan tree worship. I wasn't surprised to learn this because ever since I was a little tyke, I have felt an irresistible urge to genuflect every time I passed the lighted tree.
The evergreen wreaths and boughs have a similar origin, and Santa Claus, well, now he's something else altogether.
Old Saint Nick, we call him.
Well, of course you know that "Old Nick" is another name for Satan.
There you go.
Christmas is a big tree-hugging orgy culminating in a midnight visit from the devil himself, who breaks character by giving things rather than taking them and inexplicably drops down the chimney instead of rising from the frozen ninth circle of hell.
(Wait, the frozen ninth circle . . . . cold, North Pole, I've found another connection! And you have the striking, eerie similarity between "ninth" and "north." In fact, you only need interchange two letters to reach the same spelling.)
And the crowning glory of the 25th of December haters is the very date itself.
December 21st marks the winter solstice, a day that has held such significance for so many non-Christian cultures that I couldn't possibly name all the different rites and feasts. Essentially, it has to do with Dec. 21 or 22 being the shortest day of the year, and the turning point for lengthening days. Stonehenge, Sun gods and some ancient Greek festival dubbed "Festival of the Wild Women," all figure in, among many, many other pagan icons.
So, I say, what a glorious wonderful day to celebrate the earth-bound birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior.
In the midst of all the secular and even satanic ritualistic high days, December 25th sets a holy fire burning, raining light down like a certain mysterious "conjunction of planets" over 2000 years ago.
Beset like the oppressed Jews under Roman rule, we struggle here in the darkest night, the longest eclipse we can remember, longing for the coming of our Redeemer.
And in the middle of the darkness a spark is struck, and suddenly, the darkness is only a foil for that beautiful, blinding fire that grows and pulsates and will one day consume the whole new earth with it's brilliance.
"-and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last." said nephew Fred "So, a Merry Christmas, Uncle!"
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.
"And a Happy New Year!"

A Subject Too Deep For Me

Psalm 55:4 My heart is in anguish within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me.

I said, Oh, that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and be at rest.

Psalm 69:3 I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched.

My eyes fail while I wait for my God.

Psalm 88:3 For my soul has had enough troubles, and my life has drawn near to Sheol. I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength, forsaken among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave.

Psalm 88:14 O Lord, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me?

I recently read an article in World on a book entitled Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America and its author, Barbara Ehrenriech.Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer. However, the disease proved less of an irritant to Barbara than the support group tripe. Inundated with sappy platitudes, pink ribbons and teddy bears, and worse, pressure to be positive, she rebelled and fired off the afore-mentioned polemic. She is an accomplished author, with titles to her credit such as Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and Bait and Switch: the (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream.She obviously was no bright-eyed optimist before this recent crisis in her life, but now apparently she has discovered the reason for many of America's problems: we feel driven to feel happy.
There is some plain common sense displayed here. Nothing is bound to make you more wide awake than knowing you have to get some sleep, humor is irrepressible when you must not laugh, humor deflates when you are expected to laugh, knowing you must relax is stressful and so on.
But of course you can agree with her syllogistic conclusion only if you agree with her premise.So, do we feel driven to feel happy?
I think the expectation of happiness is arguably the most accepted gospel in America.
If you are ever sad, you are expected to get over it, and fast.
Why be sad, when you can be happy?
I, who have sat under very imaginative and creative judgemental ministers, have never felt so preached at (or more nauseated) as when a co-worker or some passing stranger will say something like "Well, it's just a beautiful day to be alive, isn't it."
And the preacher said, "Everyone who is happy in the Lord, turn to your neighbor and say, 'You look like you've been praising the Lord.'"
Don't misunderstand me. Every day is a beautiful day to live because of the grace of God, but more often the obligation to feel happy is based on the pleasant weather, or some other pathetic excuse to force yourself to be happy.
Without God, really the day is pretty crummy when you consider all the sadness just under that veneer.
Once a co-worker prompted my dad by saying, "It's a wonderful day to be alive, isn't it?"After thinking a moment, my dad responded honestly and cheerfully enough , "It is, but I'd rather be dead."
This is what is known as a conversation-stopper.
Paul said basically the same thing in Philippians 1:23 and again in II Corinthians 5:8, but it raises eyebrows in a culture gorged on Oprah, Dr. Phil and any number of motivational gurus out there that you care to listen to.
As Americans, we certainly are expected to be happy, and yet the reasons we're given are no reasons at all. In a nutshell, we are told we are to be happy because it's the right thing to do.
There is the equivalent of a moral obligation to be happy, to be thankful that you're alive, never mind that we're left no One to thank, or, if we are, He has been so stripped of His omnipotence that He is not capable of doing anything for which we could thank Him.
But Christians aren't off the hook, either. We are just as caught up in the happy culture (as opposed to joyous).

I would like to blame it on Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, or maybe Zig Ziglar, but I think the infestation predates them.
How many tearful Wednesday night testimonies have you heard that tell of a struggle that lasted a week, or two or any given period of time, provided it has a beginning and, most importantly, an end? Victory is claimed. Battle over. So thankful we don't have to deal with that anymore.
I don't think there is any deliberate attempt to delude ourselves, but we suffer so under the impression that we are under strict orders to be happy, that much of the time I think we feel pressured to claim victory, to plaster on a smile and move on.
It is true enough that no one likes a constant complainer, or someone that "enjoys poor health," but such adherence to the happy doctrine leads to, if not dishonesty, then delusion.
We're uncomfortable with the subject of suffering, because we instinctively feel it reflects badly on God. Trials are to be expected, sure, but the emphasis is most definitely on how God will bring you or did bring you out of that trial. If He does not, we go looking for meaning in the struggle with a certain desperation. If we can pin down what we feel is a legitimately feasible purpose for our troubles, we are saved the trouble of having God's name besmirched.
Recurring prayer requests are common enough, but the request is often offered with yet another dose of positive thinking: "This time God will end it for good and all."
Therefore some who have requested prayer time and again for the same problem will at last begin to feel embarrassed and just place their expectations on "someday, God will-" and try, at least, to put aside their feeling of urgency about the problem.
Oswald Chambers wrote the most startling book on Job I've ever read, in which he said, " The cosmic force makes God appear indifferent and cruel and remote, and if you become a special pleader of any particular creed (in which category Chambers places Job's friends) you have to shut your eyes to facts. The only revelation which gives a line of explanation is that there is something wrong at the basis of things, hence the refraction. The apostle Paul says that creation is all out of gear and twisted; it is 'waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.' In the meantime, the problem remains."

Another stock answer to Christian suffering has to do with perspective. And it certainly has Scriptural basis. Paul also said that the sufferings of this present time were not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. And there is nothing to which we hold tighter. But, the expectation is that this hope and belief should never allow us to be discouraged.
Buck up, it'll be over.
Absolutely.
But if an eternal perspective is supposed to give us perpetual buoyancy, then why was Jesus so fearful in the Garden of Gethsemane?
The thing I wish to get across is honesty.
Be honest with God. Be plaintive. Tell Him how you feel. Job did.
Chambers makes a great point of Job's honesty: "Job stuck steadily to facts, not to consistency to his creed. Over and over again a man is said to be a disbeliever when he is simply outgrowing his creed. It is a most painful thing for a man to find that his stated views of God are not adequate. Never tell a lie for the honour of God; it is an easy thing to do."
In saying that Job stuck to the facts, Chambers is pointing out that Job refused to sugarcoat anything, refused to shoulder some mantle of Stoicism. Job insisted, "Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of Thine hand. Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet Thou dost destroy me." Job 10:7,8
Job's friends recoiled at such irreverence and retreated to their dogged creeds and respective defenses of God.
I have been cautiously listening to a recently released album by Steven Curtis Chapman. If you don't know, on May 21st, 2008, Chapman's youngest daughter was accidentally struck and killed by an SUV driven by another of Chapman's children.
I listen cautiously because I don't particularly wish to be ambushed by the pain that I know lurks in the depths of Chapman's heart. I won't say that the tone of the album is heart-breaking, because that would be putting it lightly. A World on the Web contributor actually criticized the album for being too painful.
Among all the other songs about which I could write for hours, there is a particularly gut-wrenching, muted declaration in which Chapman literally sounds as if he can barely muster the will to utter the words.
When you think you've hit the bottom, and the bottom gives way,
And you fall into a darkness no words can explain
You don't know how you make it out alive,
Jesus will meet you there
When the doctor says, 'I'm sorry, we don't know what else to do',
And you're looking at you family, wondering how they'll make it through,
Whatever road this life takes you down,
Jesus will meet you there
He knows the way to wherever you are,
He knows the way to the depths of your heart
He knows the way, 'cause He's already been where you're going
Jesus will meet you there.
When the jury says 'Guilty', and the prison doors close
When the one you love says nothing, but just packs up and goes
Sunlight comes and your worlds still dark,
Jesus will meet you there
When you've failed again and all your second chances have been used
And the heavy weight of guilt and shame is crushing down on you
And all you have is one last cry for help
Jesus will meet you there
When you realize dreams you've had for your child won't come true
When the phone rings in the middle of the night with tragic news
Whatever valley you must walk through
Jesus will meet you there.

Control

I went in to the Toyota dealership a week ago to "look around."
I was interested in trading my Corolla in on a new one, and, given the interest rates they had been running, thought it might be a good time to see what they could do.
I found what I wanted, undisturbed by salespeople for a good ten minutes. Apparently, their surveillance cameras weren't on yet. Finally, I walked toward the salesroom to place my question.
I hadn't quite made it to the door when it swung open and disgorged a stocky, middle-aged blond salesman.

He wanted to know how he could help me. This was the first in a long line of disingenuous statements he made to me over the next couple of hours. His opening salvo would've been more accurately rendered in the reverse, i..e., how could I help him?

But I stood on convention and neglected to correct him.

I told him which car I was looking at, what I would be trading in, and what monthly payment limit I had.

Car salesmen never take your ballpark monthly payment figure at face value. They figure, he's here, he wants a new car. This may be what he would like to pay, but what is he willing to pay?

I told him what I owed on my current car, "negative equity", I believe he called it.

Its difficult, he parried, to promise a comparable monthly payment on a new car when you have negative equity. But, his optimistic tone suggested that "comparable" was a small measurement, and we could doubtless work something out.

He proceeded with a credit application and appraisal of my old car. And there is something a little raw about having a car dealership appraise your car. You immediately get defensive.

After some paperwork, he offers me a refreshment which I refuse.

Then, he wants me to drive it. I consider this mostly unnecessary. I know what I'm getting. And I'm not exactly buying a Corolla for it's cushioned ride or cornering ability.

It's about dependability and, to a lesser extent, fuel economy.

But, apparently the credit app and appraisal take some time, so unless I want to sit in his cubicle chatting for the next thirty minutes, we'll take the test drive. Not being big on chatting, I take the test drive. Couple of miles later I know. Yep. It's a Corolla.

But I get a little better understanding of what the test drive is about. It is the transitional period in which the salesman begins dropping references to not if you buy the car, but when, you will want to think about gap insurance, an upholstery warranty, etc. If he can work this ownership feeling upon you successfully, you will swallow the bad news easier.

Upon returning, I sit in his cubicle again while he goes to collect the appraisal amount and credit ap results.

He comes back all smiles, with a monthly payment figure roughly eighty or ninety dollars higher than will fit down my gullet.

Let me say, I hate haggling. I hate it with a passion. The only one who hates it worse than I do is Devan, who stayed home.

But, I know what I can pay. And there is no new car fever that can induce me to exceed that amount. Mostly because I already walk around under a guilt complex, and there is no way that I'm going to let some pushy salesman in a golf pullover add to the load.

I can't do that, I told him. Too much.

What figure are you thinking, he asked.

I told him.

He leaves to speak to the sales manager.

I look around his cubicle for some incriminating paperwork.

He returns all smiles again.

Good news, he says. We can get your payment fifteen dollars under your limit with this nice lease option here.

Don't want to lease, I told him.

Ah. Well, let me go talk to the sales manager again.

Do.

Honestly I forget the next figure he comes back with. It was still too high.

He pushes the lease again. You know, he explains, people say you don't own a car when you lease it, but that's really not true. You do own it for the term of the lease. And then you bring it back and- you get to own another one for the next term, I finish mentally.

I need to go to the restroom. Not so much a nature call as a mirror check. I didn't think I looked stupider than usual when I left the house, but-

This figure you want is not really a realistic monthly payment. Nobody pays that small a payment any more.

That may well be, and if it is, I'll have to wait. No lease, and I can't pay what you're asking, so-

This wasn't a ploy. I was really ready to leave. I saw no future in this conversation because the distance between where he was and where I needed him to be was about the same as the distance between east and west.

But salesman are a clingy lot.

He toddles off again to this for-all-I-know fictitious sales manager. He could just as easily be going back to his laptop to hack my Facebook account (if I had one).

He comes back resigned. I win. There's the desired figure on this handwritten sheet of paper with a line next to it for my signature so we can get the ball rolling.

I take the pen.

Wait, what's this figure "eighty-four" next to the monthly payment? I ask aloud, so he'll know why I'm not signing the paper. That's the term, right?

Yes, that's the term, that's the only way we could get that monthly payment down where you wanted it.

I thought briefly about telling him I wanted to pay it off five dollars a month for the next 250 years.

But, instead, I say, I can't do that.
Somewhere in here, he tries again with the refreshments. You sure you don't want a drink?
Sure. It gave me a few minutes to think.
Reading a fascinating article written by a reporter for Edmund.com who went undercover and hired on as a salesman for a new car dealership, I discovered that the drink thing is another control measure. Having sprung for a drink, the salesman tries to convert this nicety into a small debt. After reading that, I wished I had refused again. Besides, it was Pepsi.

I thought we had a deal, he says.

Of course, I can't help what he thought, but I reply that I understand, but that is too long a term.

I've already given you everything I can give you here, he says.

That's okay, I say. I'll just pay my old car off before I trade in.

Well, I can't let you leave, he says.
All manner of retorts run through my mind.Well, he says again in agony, let me go talk to my sales manager again. But if we can get this payment at that figure at the term you want, can we deal?

One more condition. I want an extended warranty for that figure.
He quits the cubicle in much the same way as a condemned man leaves his cell for the electric chair.

He comes back a beaten man, sales manager in tow in bodily form. He's real after all.
There's the handshake. That's a study in itself. I have read that they teach salespeople how to shake hands. For example, sometimes they suggest pulling the victim toward you slightly with the handshake, as a measure of establishing control.
We're trying to get more money for your trade-in, and if they give us what we ask, we'll have a deal.
What is this "we" and "they" stuff? Classic good cop, bad cop.
The sales manager leaves and I'm left alone again with my friend the salesman.
Yeah, we'll make this happen, man. We want to keep you as a customer. Of course, I'm not making any money on this, but-
Oh, you don't work on commission?
Well, yeah, but I won't make anything on this deal. But that's alright. We kept you as a customer, and . . . I'll get the next guy that comes in here.
Carefully, I reply, Well, that's good. Telling Devan about it later, we both feel sure that he couldn't detect the sarcasm in my voice. I'm pretty good at hiding it.
He leaves for some other errand.
I call Devan. Looks like we've got it.
She sounds hesitant, not exactly skeptical, but . . .eventually supportive.
Be sure you get everything out of the car.
This was an interesting experience for me. I've always been fascinated by the psychological aspects of how all manner of people seek to establish the upper hand in a personal exchange or a business deal.
Ted Kennedy related an experience in which he dropped by the Oval Office to discuss a contentious matter with Lyndon Johnson.
First thing, LBJ earnestly asks Kennedy and his aide if they would like something to drink.
Both Kennedy and his aide decline.
You sure? prompts LBJ.

No, thank you.
LBJ summons the butler. I want a Fresca, he says. These guys don't want anything to drink but I want a Fresca.
Then LBJ looks sternly at them again and says, Are you sure you don't want a drink?
I'm sure you've all had the experience with a boss or some sort of superior who places his or her hand on your shoulder when attempting to snow you.
For me, the control factor even comes into play when I hear an advertisement for business X that tells me that business X is so concerned for my welfare that they are going to go the extra mile and give me this great deal.
Would it be so off-putting if they just said. "We want to make money. We know you like to save money. So, in order to get your business we are lowering our prices so that you will do business with us instead of someone else."?

Hobby Lobby

Just got back from a trip to Hobby Lobby.
Yeah, I went in, too.
I thought the plan was I would drop Devan at the entrance and go park and eat my Arby's and read my library book.
To be polite, I asked if she wanted me to go in.
I thought she understood the purely symbolic intent behind the gesture.
She nodded. Affirmatively.
"Someone might look at me."
She has the mistaken idea that I'm the jealous type.
"Could you wear a bag?" I suggested.
No.
"Someone might cut in front of me in the checkout line."
I considered this unlikely. The patrons of Hobby Lobby tend to be fairly passive.
That is, the only people actually shopping in the store are women. There are a few men, but they usually have a sedated air about them. Okay, drugged. And they push the carts.
The point is, estrogen doesn't usually spawn aggression, with a few very notable exceptions, and I doubted the likelihood of a Christmas X-Box style rush over pastel glue and assorted glitter.
Although I do know of a few women that tend to be a little fanatical about crafts and such. I have a cousin and a sister that share a disturbing obsession for knitting.
But I didn't say this.
What I did say was, "If my brain is numb when we come out, will you drive home?"
"It won't be. You can drive home."
"Okay."
I was feeling sedated already.
If you've never been in a Hobby Lobby, it's a surreal experience.
I can relate it to a childhood shopping trip to an industrial kitchen supply store for proper tamale paper.
The sheer volume of stuff I don't care about is something that stuck with me all these years.
There are entire aisles of scrapbook paper.
There is a wall of fake greenery sixteen feet high.
There is a display area roughly the size of my acreage (including the house) that exhibits fabric.
It was about the time when I was helping Devan look for oregano paper, (I think the reason I didn't spot it first was because I was assuming it would be green. Apparently they dye it different colors.) that I became aware of the intercom music.
Hobby Lobby is obviously owned by a Christian. There is no Halloween merchandise and they sell Testamints at the checkout. Eating Scripture makes your breath smell sweeter.
I like Christian music. And, even though I'm not sure how spiritual a shopping experience can be, I don't even have a problem with a retail outlet playing it over the intercom.
But, standing looking at the various sizes and colors of pom poms, I gradually became aware that taste is not a universal Christian virtue.
I know this because I was listening to a Muzak version of "I Will Be Here."
I suppose it would depend on Steven Curtis Chapman's level of security and confidence as an artist whether knowing that you had finally been given a generic brand would offend your artistic sensibilities or just make you feel really smug.
I was definitely feeling offended and unable to shake the sensation of being in a giant religious elevator. Had I been reading a copy of Guidepost and drinking Ezekiel 4:29 coffee from a Purpose-Driven-Life coffee mug the experience could not have been more unsettling.
I excused myself and went over to the children's hobby and science project section in hopes they sold tin foil hats to protect my brain from any dangerous rays.
Not having any such luck, I rejoined Devan who, in all fairness, was in fact shopping for materials to make Japanese gift boxes to fill with treats as Christmas gifts for nursing home inmates.
Thinking on that, I decided to suck it up and be a brave little cart pusher.
After all, if I were in there much longer, I, too might be grateful for a cookie-filled Japanese gift box as I sat drooling in a wheelchair.
"I wonder," murmured Devan, as she browsed through the fake poinsettias, of which there were an alarming variety, "if they have little tiny poinsettias that I could glue on top."
I answered that if they didn't, I surely could not imagine that they could be found anywhere else.
She either missed the sarcasm, or chose to ignore it.
I suspect the latter. There is something about being surrounded by several acres of crafts that makes a woman extremely placid. It makes a man placid, too. It is a combination of Stockholm syndrome and the estrogen they circulate through the heating and cooling ducts.
As it turned out, they did have little tiny poinsettias. It was over in the section with the little tiny pine cones and the little tiny stars and the little tiny stocking caps and the little tiny snowflakes and the little tiny penguins and the little tiny stables and the little tiny shepherds and the little tiny Marys and the little tiny Josephs and the little tiny Santa Clauses (apparently they didn't get the memo about that evil old man) and the little tiny elves and the little tiny candy canes and the little tiny Christmas trees. (they didn't get that memo, either.)
On the way out to the car, Devan groaned.
"Oh no. This pack of card stock only has 25 sheets. I need 50."
I grunted. The fresh air was clearing my head and the testosterone was returning.

The Shack

My mother recently asked me what I thought of The Shack.
The Christian novel by William P. Young has sold over 5 million copies and spent 35 weeks at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
I related a few second-hand criticisms and then told her I hadn't read it. The popularity of the book was enough to disparage it in my estimation.
But, on second thought, I decided to read it. I was prepared to come away with a laundry list of what is wrong with the reading public.

But, although I take some definite issue with the man's theology, I think the book's popularity says more about the pain that is out there than it does the lack of depth that is out there.
Perhaps it was exactly my expectations that served to give me a better look at the book.
If I honestly believed that Michael W. Smith (very talented musician and composer), Kathie Lee Gifford, and Wynona Judd were credible blurbers, I would have been bitterly disappointed.
But having also been forewarned by critics of his violent misuse of theology, I found a few pages in between the awful ones that were surprisingly profound, startlingly frank and even deep.
Let's deal with some of the awful ones; his depiction of the Holy Trinity.

God the Father is a large black woman named Papa. God the Son is a Jewish man in a plaid shirt and jeans. Perhaps even more cringe-inducing is his attempt to incarnate the Holy Spirit; a female Asian gardener.

To be fair, Young is not saying that God is female. He is saying that He is not male, in the very mortal sense. Young is not saying that God is black, Jewish or Asian. He is saying that He is not white.
But, why people keep insisting on correcting the idea that God is a white man, I don't know.
Because I don't know of anyone who thinks that God is a white man.
More awful; the ill-advised attempt to parlay the relationship between the members of the Trinity into a happy, funny multicultural laugh fest.
Unfunny.

Apparently, some of us are still hung up on religious stereotypes, because Young spends an inordinate amount of time getting us unhooked from those arcane delusions.
The author obviously also has trouble keeping the lid on his dislike of organized religion.
Considering all there is to dislike about the book, it is even more disconcerting to stumble into a few two or three page long chasms, where there is only the problem of pain and the fact of God and no positive thinking rickety rope bridges to offer you a chance to escape plumbing the depths of the question.
It is in these pages where Young shines.
Like the page where Mack finally erupts and spews the volcanic bitterness that has been boiling in his soul since the disappearance of his daughter.
Why couldn't you take care of my daughter?
God's answer?
Mack, you don't have the right to demand that I allow no harm to befall your family.
There is communicated the idea that we have set up in our minds what we feel we should be entitled to, such as a world without severe pain or a world where little girls are not kidnapped and assaulted.
And the anger that builds at God, the Divine Interloper, the hunting Hound of Heaven is simply the result of viewing our lives within these measures of fairness that we have established.
It is a brutal answer, but in the end the only one that satisfies.
Obviously, entirely within the limitations of our own minds, we would never be able to completely reconcile the pain of a child or the pain of anyone with an all-seeing, all-powerful, fiercely protective God.
But in the end, it seems that Young may remember what God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, that we are finite, that He is infinite, and that our only option is to latch on to what we know of God; His love, boundless and bottomless, and hold on for the ride.
I can't really recommend the book, based on his metaphorical and analogous nonsense, which might be what Chuck Colson was referring to when he criticized Young's "low view of Scripture", his attempt to flesh out the Holy Trinity, which, believe it or not, Mark Driscoll calls "graven imagery" and his occasional outright irreverence, which R. Albert Mohler calls "undiluted heresy."
But, having read it, I can see the appeal of a few select passages in the book. And there is an honesty in those few pages that I suspect God, (not Papa) smiles upon.

Shrinking

Getting older has been somewhat of a disappointment to my ego.
Not only because I am over 30 and have turned out not to be such a big, screaming deal but also, actually more so, because I have come to realize that I must sacrifice even the desire to be a big, screaming deal,
It seems that I spend a good portion of my life attempting to feed a pet that has none of the attributes of a faithful companion and all the attributes of a parasitic host.
So many times a day I am prompted by pomposity to cast myself in a good light.
I forget where I read it, but recently I stumbled across something that I stumbled over.
In effect, it said that even an apology can have an element of self-justification to it, essentially because implicit in the apology is the idea that, even though I goofed, I realized it, and I am now making it right.
It embarrassed me to think of how many times I have apologized for something not simply because I had done something wrong and needed to set it right, but because I realized that by apologizing I would look better. Worse, how many times have I apologized for something that I was not even sorry about, (and had no reason to be) because I desired the perception of reason and maturity it would give me?
The tendency to paint myself in a favorable light is probably the most insidious temptation I battle.
The reason my ego has been let down is because I see more and more that the fruits God would have me develop are anything but flashy.
Steadfastness, for example. And, yes, I am painfully reminded of the elder brother of the prodigal. How is it right that someone who makes one small step in the right general direction be given more recognition than someone who has plodding down that right road for years?
Well, yes. All right, I'll acknowledge that he needs to be encouraged for his repentance, and yes, I remember that I am not doing the right thing for recognition.
So, I carry on, my ego soothed with the knowledge that I am the better person for not surrendering to jealousy . . . .and you can see where that takes you.
There is an old metaphor about Christian growth.
The common perception of growth is that as you mature, you will grow taller and taller and all the deep and great and wonderful things of God, which are placed on higher and higher shelves, will become accessible to you as you grow.
The reality is, those deep and wonderful things of God are placed on shelves that fall lower and lower and are only reached as the self in the Christian becomes smaller and smaller.

Anyway, I really hope you like this blog and I hope it makes you realize what a wise person I really am.

I Need Thee

I might've saved myself the energy.
I used to privately question the motive for my Christianity.
It might help to explain that I am not, by nature, a grateful person. I dislike indebtedness to the extent that at times I prefer not to receive anything to save myself the bother of exhibiting gratitude. This reticence served to make me a little dubious about my sincerity toward God.
I didn't feel as if I was serving God out of love or gratitude. Honestly, 95% of the time, it seemed as if I were a Christian because I didn't know what else to be.
And I also speculated about the level of comfort and interest I held in Christianity.
Atheism, as a matter of personal taste, strikes me as insufferably boring.
Considering this, and further considering my lifelong fascination with the supernatural, my literary tastes and my thirst for meaning, and having come some fourteen years since my conversion, I had begun to call my motives into question.
Why was I calling myself a Christian?
Why was I praying? Why was I reading the Bible? Aside from a broad cyclical interest in what I was reading, and less occasionally, what I was discussing with God, when I placed my finger on my spiritual pulse, I wondered for what my heart was beating.
Contributing to this hypochondria was a fairly agreeable general state of affairs.
With life running smoothly, I permitted myself the luxury of the hypothetical, and reasoned that with nothing better to do, might have even Martin Luther considered the question of flies and holy water?
Meanwhile, when the sons of God came to present themselves, the conversation might have gone something like this,
"Have you considered my servant Nathan?"
(Accepting the huge assumption that I had, in fact, distinguished myself sufficiently in the Lord's service to have attracted the albeit unwelcome attention of the Adversary, we might then postulate Satan's reply,)
"I have. He really enjoys his Christianity. He appreciates the legacy of the age-old story, he finds comfort in apologetics, he loves to quote Chesterton and Lewis, if not your Son, and he also enjoys the lack of heartache that his Christian upbringing and marriage afford him."
"Of course," the serpent continues, "his affinity is fairly prosaic and the reason for his servitude is fairly obvious. He has yet to encounter anything subsequent to his conversion that would belie his sentimental attachment to a seventeen-year-old emotional experience."
And so on and so forth might the devil have unwittingly become complicit once again in a series of events inspired by the Almighty to drive one of his blustering children straight into His arms.
Devan became sick. Over a period of three months she degenerated to such a worrisome degree that some of the greater medical obscenities began to suggest themselves to our minds.
Despite my reassurances, which I did believe, (with no small effort) that this was the convergence of a physical super storm resulting from exhaustion, and other things, the duration of the illness and the severity of the relapses were beginning to steal my confidence.
At long last, I found myself doing something truly drastic.
I prayed, not just for her benefit, not just as the motion required of a Christian spouse, but finally, desperately and incredibly, at the end of myself.
You see, it isn't as if I'm all that self-reliant, or have aspirations of being the Rock of Gibraltar, it's that I refuse to face the point at which I have absolutely no other option than trusting in God. But I keep forgetting what a subjective term perseverance can be. I have noticed that I have a tendency to believe that I can only go as far as I am asked to go. If I'm carrying a one-hundred fifty pound load from point A to B, distance being twenty yards, I will invariably deposit the load at point B with the distinct impression that I could not have borne it any further. And yet, were the distance thirty yards, I would have reached that point, with the same conviction.

God alone knows our limits.

Past a certain point in our limited perspective of pain, that is the strongest hope to which we can cling.

What does sufficient grace mean to you?

I know what it once meant to me. It meant enough grace to keep me from feeling over-extended. It now means so much more, because I over-extended.

And I found out that He is out there, over the edge of the cliff.

He is not what saves us from pain, He is the One who is there at the end of all pain, and, in hindsight, was there though all the pain, and allowed us, after all, to see only the tip of the iceberg. Because of His tender mercy.

But there is a moment of terror that I must endure before I acknowledge that I can't handle this. More than a convulsive ingestion of pride, it is also a deep fear of being denied; of laying my burden in indifferent hands that will let it slide off into the dirt.

I usually excuse this reluctance by labeling it a lack of faith in faith. (Mindful that this constitutes another entire thread, I'll step carefully over it.)
But, believe it or not, I have not forgotten my initial statement about saving myself the energy expended by questioning my motive for my relationship with the Lord.
It would seem, as I hashed it out over these last three months, I serve God because I need Him.
I don't need Him just as an insurance policy when I check out. I need Him hourly, desperately.
And so does Devan.