My pastor stopped by yesterday.

And he said, “I have some terrible news.”

Turns out someone we knew from our church, whom I admired and respected very much, passed away unexpectedly.

Suicide.

And I can’t take this anymore.

Last week, I went to Wal-Mart to get some dog food for Louie.  Of course, I always get the big bag because that kid has quite an appetite. So I hefted all 50 pounds of dog food up onto the cart, but…

THE BAG BROKE AND ALL FIFTY POUNDS OF DOG FOOD RAINED DOWN ON THE FLOOR!!!

I just stood there, dumbfounded.

Then, I noticed a sweet little old lady staring at me at the end of the aisle.  She motioned for someone to come over and before long, there was a small crowd staring at me staring at the dog food pouring out of the bag.

I still just stood there, dumbfounded.

And when the was bag completely empty, I couldn’t even see my feet; they were buried in dog food.  But I smiled and waved to the crowd, removed the old bag, got a full bag, and c a r e f u l l y set it on top of the cart.

Then, I got out of there as fast as I could.

My stomach still hurts from laughing so hard.

I think I’m going to do it again next time.  I really needed a laugh like that.  And besides, it’s fun to make a mess every once in a while that you don’t have to clean up.

I’ve got to go offline for a bit.  Few days at least.  Got some furniture to rearrange.  Including my computer and my desk.  And my printer.  I’m not wireless.  Obviously.  But don’t worry.  I’ll be back.  Soon as I can.  Promise.

For those who already have the password, I have added a few things to The Visible Spectrum.

In other news:  Got your message.  Everything you said is true.  I just don’t know where to go from here.  Quite the mystery that.

It is always sunny in Philadelphia.
  And oh, how I have wanted to return!
To feel her warm welcome once more,
  To breathe her sweet city air again,
To walk her streets at midnight–
  Hearts racing in the still embrace,
Our minds settled in the moment.

She was my one great love, that city.
  At times, I still visit her in my thoughts–
And I return to the place I once knew,
  Where I cherished and was cherished,
Where the dreams became the realities
  Far beyond what most people know
In a lifetime–Settled in the moment.

And yet, in the most clandestine way,
  She has called my name once more.
When she whispered, I heard her scream.
  My heart stopped at the sight of her words,
As I wondered if I might go home again.
  But how much has that great city changed?
Would she even recognize the man I am today?

I have been through hell, but I kept going
  That I might see the sunrise of a new day.
I have survived a dark and stormy night,
  But never let the lights go out, nor lost power.
I have been struck by a lightning bolt;
  Though the shock is gone, the light remains.
I have endured all of this, and more, and lived.

But the pills she took have poisoned me, too,
  And the carbon monoxide that killed my cousin
Still chokes me in the middle of the night.
  My eyes still flood, my heart still burns, and
The beast of my grief still rears its ugly head.
  Yet, I see the world without my old blindness,
With a faith that amounts to faint whisper.

My precious city, do not die unless your time has come;
  For I have had enough–enough!–of that for one lifetime.
Yet you gave me 99 words that changed the world,
  But are you still Search-ing?  Do you know…
Do you know how much I have wanted to return
  To the lifetime we knew?  To feel your warm welcome,
To breathe your sweet city air, to walk your streets…

But have you signed the Declaration of Independence?
  Are you divorced from tyranny?  And oppression?
Can you ring the Liberty Bell without adding a crack?
  Or have you settled, and passed into the seasonless world?
If so, let yesterday rest in peace.  For what I have done once
  I cannot do again.  The price was too high.  But if not,
Then all of our our yesterdays can be our tomorrows.

My precious city:  find me.  Tell me.  Answer.  For I know not where you are.
But you need only aim in the right direction and you shall find me where I am.

I was waiting in the express lane with my twelve items or less.  The old man in front of me had a handful of groceries, too.  Suddenly, he turned around, looked me straight in the eyes, and said…

“WHAT AM I DOING?  I WAS SUPPOSED TO GET ORANGE JUICE!  DO YOU SEE ANY ORANGE JUICE HERE?”

And with that, he left me waiting in line with a hilarious memory.

[New Podcasts.]

Of all the books read I’ve read, I understand Revelation the least.

It does help, however, to know that just about every generation in the past two thousand years has had their own interpretation of the end times.  And just about every one of them has thought that it would all happen in their lifetime.

So far, it hasn’t.

Probably because “a day is like a thousand years to the Lord and a thousand years is like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).  From that point of view, a glimpse into eternity, it has only been two days since Christ ascended to Heaven.  And since we know Christ will return unexpectedly, it ought to be obvious that the more people expect His return the less likely it is to happen.

Of course, for all I know, Christ will return soon because I’m thinking that the more people expect it, the less likely it is to happen–which actually means His return would be unexpected.  Well, to me at least. As I’ve said, I really don’t understand The Book of Revelation.

But, every so often, my eyes open.  And I come to understand something about that book which had escaped me previously.  For instance, in Chapter 4 John gets a glimpse of Heaven; he sees The Throne of God.

I saw The Throne and Someone sitting on It.  The One Sitting On The Throne was as brilliant as gemstones…And the glow of an emerald encircled His Throne like a rainbow.  Twenty-four thrones surrounded Him, and twenty-four elders sat on them. They were all clothed in white and had gold crowns on their heads.  From The Throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder.  The twenty-four elders fall down and worship The One Sitting On The Throne (The One Who Lives Forever And Ever).  And they lay their crowns before The Throne and say,

You are worthy, O Lord our God,
to receive glory and honor and power.
For you created all things,
and they exist because you created what you pleased
(vv. 2-5 & 10-11).

Some people think that The Twenty-Four Elders are actual people–literally, The Twelve Sons of Jacob and The Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Others, however, think that The Twenty-Four Elders represent all believers, those who have been redeemed before and after The Resurrection of Christ.  I take the latter view.  But, in either case, that glimpse of God’s glory–and humanity enthroned before The Throne–is a drastically different reaction than that of The Israelites when He appeared at Mount Sinai:

When the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of the ram’s horn, and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear.
And they said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen.  But don’t let God speak to us, or we will die!” (Exodus 20:18-19)

And even the morning of The Resurrection:

Suddenly there was a great earthquake!  For an angel of the Lord came down from Heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint (Matthew 28:2-4).

Today, we face loss with fear and trembling in our grief and rage at the storms that come our way.  In our pain or out of it, we simply cannot see ourselves fearless before The Throne of God, but

We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love.  God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.  And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.  So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear.  If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.  We love each other because He first loved us (1st John 4:16-19).

So there shall come a time when we will stand before The Throne of God and feel no fear.  We will not need to run or to hide or to seek shelter from flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder.  And yet, all too often, we associate His awesome power and His incredible splendor with His wrath, just as we associate natural and spiritual storms with physical dangers and emotional turmoil.  But as we see from The Book of Revelation, it is in that power and splendor that The Almighty demonstrates grace and mercy and love.  For if it were not so, The Twenty-Four Elders could not stand in The Presence of God, nor could they manage to lay their crowns before Him.

Yet we spend so much time living in fear–fear of our neighbors, fear of our friends, fear of our enemies, fear of the law, fear of criminals, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of hate, fear of love, fear of physical storms, fear of spiritual tempests, &c.–that we have taken our eyes off of The Most Glorious Storm:  God and His great and perfect love, which, if we were to grasp it fully and completely, would leave us with none of this meaningless fear; we would simply lay the burden of our earthly crowns–grief and loss and rage among them–before His Throne in confidence.

Unfortunately, I must confess that my first thought when I considered getting a crown was a very selfish one:  If I do get a crown, I don’t want to give it up.  Then, of course, it occurred to me that if I am the only one who is not laying my crown before The Throne of God, I am definitely in the wrong place.

I was too focused on what I wanted, not on “the glory and honor and power” of God.  And The Presence of God is so great, so glorious, so peaceful, so holy, so powerful, and so good that it is like a cup that runs over with the richest wine.  For when I stand before The Throne of God, I too will be filled with overflowing.

What is a crown of gold compared to that?

Can fine metals and jewels of diamonds and rubies withstand the awesome thunder and the incredible lightning of The Presence of God?  Of course not!  The only purpose of that crown–which, obviously, I do not deserve–is to give it back to God.  For I am His creation.  And so is my crown.

After a while, I realized that just I shall willingly give my crown back to God for His glory, so too must I give Him that which He has given me in this life.  I so desperately want to live a life worthy of my Creator.  But, all too often, I convince myself that that which I have is mine–not His.

A good carpenter lays a strong foundation and builds a house of wood with nails and glass.  He stains the wooden floors for appeal and seals them for protection from wear and tear.  He carefully sets the shingles on the roof for durable shelter.  And he paints the outside of the house so that it too may withstand the elements–for a time.  But that carpenter only uses these materials; he does not create them.  And so it is with us.

But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done.  The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.  If the work survives, that builder will receive a great reward.  But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss.  The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames (1st Corinthians 3:13-15).

I have wasted so much time on insignificant details, on matters that shall not survive the refining flames of God’s judgment.  And yet, here I am:  writing words that will be read all over the world.  Why should I write about shoes and socks or spaghetti and meatballs when I know, full well, that I must give my gifts back to God?

For if a crown of gold is worthless in His Presence–given to us only so we shall give it back to Him–how much more so such insignificant details?

The Most Glorious Storm of God is His grace.  And His mercy.  His compassion and forgiveness.

His love.  Awesome.

And the storm shall be the sunrise.

[New Podcasts available.]

[Author's note:  When I was in grad school, I got some strange e-mail.  This was one of them.  And since I could really use a laugh right about now, I thought I might share it.]

These are the ten winners of this year’s “Dark And Stormy Night” Contest–sponsored by The English Department of San Jose State University–wherein one writes the first line of a bad novel.

10.  ”As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were to ever break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it.”

9.  ”Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens.”

8.  ”With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small, straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description.”

7.  ”Andre, a simple peasant, had only thing on his mind as he crept along the east wall:  ’Andre creep…Andre creep…Andre creep…’”

6.  ”Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back-alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved.”

5.  ”Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store.”

4.  ”Stanley looked bored and somewhat detatched, but then penguins often do.”

3.  ”Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor.”

2.  ”Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear,’ a man could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death…actually, he was just a moron with suicidal tendencies.”

And the winner is…

1.  ”The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside the darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog’s deception, screaming madly, ‘You lied!’”

[Author's note:  I did ask permission to share tonight's minutes from The Church of Misfits so I don't violate The Rules & Reasons.]

Scheduled Start Time:  6:30p.m.
First Person Showed Up:  9:00p.m.
Last Person Left:  10:30p.m.

Tonight, we studied 1st Corinthians 2.

No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
for those who love Him (v. 9).

“That verse really stands out to me,” Chris said.

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, last year my old church had a concert,” he began.  ”And I sang ‘I Can Only Imagine’.  There were only ten or twenty people there.  But I didn’t sing for you.  I didn’t sing for her.  I sang for God.  I didn’t sing for anyone else.  And that night, I didn’t want a drink.  I didn’t want to drink.  I didn’t want to get stoned.  I didn’t want to pop pills.  I wasn’t angry.  I felt at peace.  I felt at peace.”

“That’s your moment,” I told him.  ”Like I said before, alcoholism is a spiritual sickness that manifests itself physically.  And when we don’t seek Him diligently, that spiritual sickness consumes us.  So we turn to other things.  In your case, you drink.”

“Do you think I like drinking?  Do you really think I like it?”

“No,” I told him.  ”I think you like what it does for you.  How it takes away your anger.  For a little bit.  But you know me.  I’m not going to judge you.”

“That’s right,” he said.  ”You’re not.”

“But that moment you had when you were singing at your old church, your doing that for God, that’s your moment.  That was when you were seeking Him diligently.”

“And I didn’t want to drink.”

“And you didn’t want to drink,” I repeated.  ”Now, my ‘moment’ was when I had invited an accused rapist into my home after Britany killed herself.  And she had been sexually abused as a child.  But I had a choice:  I could put my friend before God or I could put God before my friend.  It wasn’t easy…”

“I know it wasn’t.”

“…but I did it.  And after that, I had that same kind of peace you were just talking about.  I hadn’t had that since she passed away.  I lost it somewhere.  And I want that it back.  I want that peace back.  So when I start getting down about things, I go back to that memory and I focus on that moment, that peace.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Chris said.  ”No way.  When he was here–”

“But that’s not your moment,” I told him.  ”I know you’re not at that point now, but you know I don’t condemn you.  Besides, you say it every Sunday, ‘Forgive us our sins AS we forgive those who have sinned against us.’  You’ll get there.  We’re all a work in progress.  But your moment was when you were singing at your church.”

“For God.”

“For God,” I agreed.  ”What you’ve got to do is get that moment back.”

“How?  How am I supposed to…?”

“Chris…that’s where faith comes in.  Faith faith faith.  We are justified by faith.  All you’ve got to do is ask Him.  Say, ‘Make that moment my life.’  He is faithful.  He’ll make that moment your life.  A lot of people think that Heaven is some sort of La La Land.  But the truth is, when you stand before God–with your confidence in Christ–The Presence of God is so peaceful and so glorious and so overwhelming and so holy and so infinitely pure…You won’t even want a drink.”

His eyes popped open.  ”That’s hard for me to imagine.”

“I know it is,” I said.  ”But you caught a glimpse of that when you sang at your old church.  You didn’t have a desire to drink.”

“No, I didn’t.  Not at all.”

“And it may happen next week or forty years from now, but God will restore you.  That’s His promise.  Just ask Him.  Pray without ceasing:  ’Make that moment my life.’”

“Make that moment my life,” he said.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Within a week, it’ll be here,” Chris said, pointing to his head.  ”Within a year, it’ll be here.”

He pointed to his heart.

Oh, yeah.

Solitude

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
  Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
  But has enough trouble of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
  Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
  But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
  Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of your pleasure,
  But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
  Be sad, and you lose them all, –
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
  But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
  Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
  But no man can help you die.
For there is room in the halls of pleasure
  For a large and lardly train,
But one by one we must all file on
  Through the ailses of pain.

for the G~.

Rule #1:

What we say at The Church of Misfits,
stays at The Church of Misfits.

Rule #2:

What we say at The Church of Misfits,
STAYS at The Church of Misfits.

Reason #1:

It is IMPOSSIBLE to be a godly gossip.

Reason #2:

When you talk about the things that people
can’t, don’t, or won’t
talk about on Sunday morning,
YOU HAVE TO EARN THEIR TRUST.