Walk Right In, Sit Right Down

I was thinking how it would be kind of cool to be a political consultant. There is an obvious need for one or two with a little common sense. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I might be good at it, but I wouldn't enjoy it. It's not my calling. I'd much rather be a poetry consultant. Now anyone who knows me or has read anything I've written knows I am not a poet, but that's all right. As a political consultant is not a politician, so a poetry consultant is anything but a poet. I'm not a musician either but I can tell you what sounds good to me. While in the world we have a plethora of the political, there is not nearly enough poetry. Perhaps there never has been, but there seems a particular dearth these days.

I'd like to set up a walk-in poetry clinic, open 24 hours a day. If you are a practicing poet we'll fix you up on a monthly pre-pay plan with poetry insurance, so you just walk in, pay a nominal fee and get full service. We'll be a general practice clinic, fixing broken meters and taking care of geriatric metaphors, sick similes and sprained rhymes. If you need meaning, we'll have to send you to a specialist.

As best I can tell, having 45 million mostly healthy people without health insurance is much less of a problem than having two or three times that number who don't know Jack Kerouac from Jack Sprat, Robert Penn Warren from Robert Louis Stevenson, or Sylvia Plath from Sylvia's Mother. Perhaps if our coins and folding money featured pictures of Poe, Longfellow, Whitman, Frost and Eliot, we would take more notice of the poetic. As it is we are seriously and satirically anemic, getting all our poetic nourishment from popular music, which is like living on Pop Tarts.

Individual Dependence

If you maintain your individuality in a relationship and the other person can too, the relationship will be a beautiful thing that will last forever, or 50,000 miles, whichever comes first. -- Billy Joe Shaver


I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask what you whatever you want and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples. -- John 15:5-8

To be in Christ and yet to be myself, this is what we are called to. I lose my will, yet I can have whatever I want. Does that really make sense? Is it "whatever you want" if it is no longer you that wants it? It's like Henry Ford saying people could have a Model T in whatever color they wanted as long as it was black. It's like Microsoft ... no, nothing's like Microsoft.

Faust sold his soul to the devil, not for higher purposes but because he wanted gold, guns and girls. (Strange, that thought came to me after I mentioned Microsoft.) Jesus, on the one hand, seems to say that Faust could have had what he wanted by being in Christ. Yet, I am certain that he could not have had unlimited power to fulfill his lusts as the devil promised him. Is that a contradiction? Could Faust have stayed who he was while being a mere branch?

Notice what Jesus says here about the branch that does not remain in the vine. It is thrown away. It's dead. It withers, is gathered up and burned. The fires of hell are not for the bad but for the dead.

"The just shall live by faith."

We are alive in Christ, or we are dead. The dead seem to think that because they are "independent" of the vine, they can be a vine unto themselves. They carry on the appearances of life, yet it all ends in corruption and loss.

This relates to the difference between ordinary human misery and suffering in Christ. As a branch, the Christian is pruned or purged in order to keep life flowing in a single channel. All our trials and difficulties can be seen as means of removing anything that hinders the flow. In this we became all the more "individual" and purposeful. The more we reflect the life of the vine in the cosmos the more we are uniquely ourselves.

Where I am and what I see and experience is unique to me. I am the only one who can fulfill my purpose, and I can do that only in Christ.

You only have to listen to one Billy Joe Shaver CD, maybe even one song, to realize he's not Billy Graham. Yet I am fairly certain Billy Joe is a Christian as surely as is Dr. Graham or the Pope. Each is a branch -- a mere branch -- yet a branch without which the Vine can produce nothing. As we are dependent on Christ, so He has chosen to be dependent upon us -- not as little helpless clones but as real living branches with scars and bumps and flaws. Each of us, to the extent we are surrendered to Christ, brings Him into our world in our way.

I have to get some work done, but I may come back to this.

Prodigals

He also said: "A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.' So he distributed the assets to them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living. ... When he came to his senses [came to himself, KJV], he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger! I'll get up, go to my father ...'" -- Luke 15:11-18

We are all strangers in a strange land, though many do not recognize it and try to be at home. In a sense we are all prodigal sons. We all need to "come to ourselves".

The pig pen is not a physical situation but a spiritual one. The materialists and the nominally religious may live in nice houses and eat the finest foods, but it is no more than the filth of the sty and the empty, unsatisfying husks to the real life that awaits them. In the end, it is not where you are or what you have that counts, but the relationship with the father. The elder brother was as much a "husk-eater" as the prodigal.

Did you ever look up "prodigal" in the dictionary? Luke 15:11-32 is one of those things that everyone has heard about, whether or not they have actually read the story. It is a powerful and moving tale, beautifully and succinctly told. It has been such an influence on Western civilization that the term used to describe the wandering younger son has taken on a different meaning. We often use the word to mean someone who lives wildly and recklessly. After all, the elder brother accused the returning son of wasting the father's money on -- as we might say -- sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Prodigal can refer to be excessively or recklessly wasteful, or a spendthrift. But it also means exceedingly generous, or lavish.

In a way, the father was rather prodigal. The son asked for his share, and the father unhesitatingly handed it over to him. When he had wasted his inheritance and returned, again the father eagerly and enthusiastically showered him with gifts and a renewed status. He drew from his bounty to lavish good things upon his son. The younger boy was much more his father's son than the elder. They shared the desire to express their love through generosity. The son was wrong only in his youthful lack of wisdom.

The elder brothers are so much wiser, so they think. They would never have given the boy a bagful of money to blow senselessly. They certainly would never have been taken in when he came crawling back -- and he would have crawled if the elder brother had been in charge. He might have been given a chance to prove himself worthy of returning; he would never have been trusted again. He would have been the lowest of servants. The elder would have recouped his losses eventually, while bitterly grinding the younger's soul.

Yet it takes little thought to see who would have been the more devoted son thereafter. Would the prodigal have gone a day without somehow expressing his gratitude to his generous father? Would he have been less lavish with his thanks, his praise or his efforts to please than he had been with his money? Would the younger son have missed any opportunity to do his father's will and thus express his love?

Did the elder brother ever "come to himself" and go home?

Bad Image Crash and Recovery

Friday night my laptop refused to boot up because of an image problem. Today, we tried recovering, but had to settle for a re-image. All of my source code for various projects is backed up on the network -- no problem there. I probably lost a few personal mp3's and maybe a few documents. The worst are the apps. The image disk had some of our standard apps on it, but I have probably a dozen oddball things that I use everyday which I'll have to find and install again. Not to mention bookmarks.

No fun.

Sarah Palin Sighting

No pictures, but Sarah Palin made a stop in Springfield, Missouri today. Initially the venue was supposed to be MacDonald Arena on the Missouri State campus, but the tickets were soon gone and people were wanting more. They moved to the parking lot of Bass Pro. She was supposed to show up at noon. People were standing -- no seats available -- standing outside Bass Pro at 6:00am. Anecdotes had folks parking a mile away and walking to see her.

We're talking plentiful platform pulchritude as Naomi Judd did a nice job opening for Governor Palin, slamming the media and the pundits for their smear tactics. Palin was welcomed enthusiastically -- once they got her out of Bass Pro -- as she said, "What a cool place." Her stump speech was pretty good and got lots of positive response.

The greater metro area of Springfield and Greene County has a population of about 300,000 or so. The estimate by AP for the crowd was 20,000. Twenty thousand people standing in a parking lot on a gloomy, chilly day.

Springfield is the heart of Republican territory in Missouri. We are the base. And the base is going all out for Palin, yeah, and whathisname that's running with her, too.

I haven't checked the polls today, but I can tell you if the pollsters are not including the broken-glass Republican base in their calculations, they are in for a surprise. I watched Gergen and some other guys on Anderson Cooper 360 last night, and came to the conclusion that the Republican elites hate Palin and us (the base) almost as much as the Democrats do. Too bad. If McCain wins, it will be because of us, the lowly and the despised. This may be the year of the "angry white male".

I am Joe.

Godzilla versus Bambi

Joe Biden’s mouth is more dangerous to his friends than Dick Cheney’s shotgun. As everyone now knows, Biden has guaranteed a disaster of biblical proportions in the event Barack Obama is elected on November 4. In response to being shot in the foot by his running mate, Obama suggested in a BBC story yesterday that Uncle Joe “sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes”, and other times is he’s just smoking crack. In the same article, the Junior Senator from Daleyville warns that John McCain will “endanger” U.S. security. In related news Leonardo DiCaprio suggests that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is too effeminate to for action hero roles.

Does anyone really think that weakness is a formula for peace? My experience has always been that the guy who has a reputation for toughness or who looks intimidating is less likely to be involved in a fight. Remember, the attack on 9/11/2001 was not even the first attack on the WTC. For eight years, Bill Clinton had done nothing except throw a few cruise missiles around in response to one attack after another. The USS Cole was bombed and nothing was done -- an attack on United States Navy ship, and it brought no response. The enemy was emboldened. They made the mistake of thinking they could do Bush the same way.

Three thousand innocent people had to die. What will it take next time? What will it be when Iran has nukes? What will the enemy think when we flee from Iraq and Afghanistan?

Who is it again that's going to get us in trouble? The old fighter pilot who survived everything the Commies could throw at him, or the metrosexual community organizer? Who will be more intimidating to our enemies?

The Islamic fascists know that McCain will not back down. They have nothing to gain by killing our troops. They are certain that Obama will back down if they can perpetrate a few more suicide missions and IED attacks. Whether the enemy's belief is true or not, more American soldiers and Marines will die needlessly if Obama is elected.

You don't tug on Superman's cape,
You don't spit into the wind,
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger,
And you don't mess around with Jim.

Deception, Demons, and Details

"Get away from that wheelbarrow, James Louis! You know you don't know nothin' 'bout ma-CHIN-ery!" -- Brother Dave Gardner

The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan’s working, with all kinds of false miracles, signs, and wonders, and with every unrighteous deception among those who are perishing. They perish because they did not accept the love of truth in order to be saved. For this reason, God sends a strong delusion so that they will believe what is false, so that all will be condemned – those who did not believe the truth but enjoyed unrighteousness. – 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

I think I can handle too much. My most common error in life is the failure to see every battle as a spiritual battle, from the most trivial to the most profound. Let me see if I explain well enough not to sound like a complete flake.

The other day my straight-shaft Stihl Pro trimmer didn’t want to run. This thing is the Mercedes-Benz of trimmers. It has run for years. I was in a hurry and trying to get stuff cleaned up (when am I not in a hurry?), and it just quit. My very first inclination was to grab the end and smash it against a corner post. I do not like things that thwart my will, especially inanimate objects that are supposed to make my life easier.

For once, perhaps because of the influence of the coonosphere: QP, Ben, Julie, Robin, Rick, River, Walt, et al, it dawned on me that this was a spiritual battle. I wasn’t dealing with a demon-possessed trimmer, but a demon-oppressed thought process. I put the machine aside and picked up the pathetic little Ryobi to get as much done as I could. Of course, it picked just that moment for the throttle cable to stick. With no third string trimmer (forgive me, for I have punned), I took a deep breath and, through gritted teeth, explained to my wife that I had no choice except to fix the Ryobi. I sat down and opened the housing, got things loosened up, then correctly reattached and re-assembled. An hour or so later, I had it going again.

When I had time, I went back to the Stihl and pondered its behavior for a few minutes. I decided it was the plug and started looking for a socket to fit it. All the ones I have are either the wrong size or not deep enough. I could feel the frustration rising so I set it down and stepped back again. It actually made me smile because I realized that I was hunting for something I didn’t need. Like chainsaws, the Stihl come with its own specialty combination tool. It changes the plug as well as fitting the nut for the brush-cutter head, and had a star-driver head at the other end – everything you need in one place. I got the plug out. There was a tiny round bit of something closing the gap – no possibility of a good spark. Once I cleared that out, the Stihl started up with a couple of pulls and has been running just fine.

Were it not for Christ, I would be a sucker for the lawless one. He isn’t (necessarily) a politician. I know the lawless one very well. He will tell me that every minor inconvenience is a catastrophe. He insists that a mechanical failure is a malicious act. He doesn’t even mind if I think it is a demon that’s taken over the device. He might go so far as to encourage such thinking. He lives by the false and the deceptive. He enjoys bouts of foolish, pointless rage and acts of destruction. I am ashamed to admit some of the things he has told me that I have accepted and acted upon.

I’m not worried too much about the antichrists on the outside. The one that troubles me is the one that doesn’t even have to whisper in my ear to make his subtle voice heard.