Adric was not like his father, but he longed to be loved by his father.

Adric was shy and quiet and loved to read.  His father was strong and forceful, did not care much about books, but happened to have a huge library of books.

Adric’s father would drag Adric to the camp facility and make him order the weak, helpless jews around.

Adric did his best to please his father. He tried his hardest to shout with anger.  But it was never good enough for his father.  Adric longed with all of his heart to be loved by his father, but he seemed to never be able to even get a kind word from him.

In the evenings Adric would go into his father’s library and find a book.  He would curl up in a pile of pillows, in a corner beside the couch, under the stairs.  He would try to lose himself in the story.

He scoured the books for a story he remembered from his childhood. It was a vague memory.  He scarecely remembered where they were, or what his father even looked like while he read to his son.  But it was the story that Adric still remembered vividly. 

The story that Adric remembered and scoured the pages for was about a little shepherd boy. This shepherd took good care of his flock.  But the interesting thing about this shepherd was that he loved the small and blemished sheep even more than the strong and perfect ones.  Often the shepherd boy risked his own life and chased off wolves and bobcats bigger than himself, just to save the little limping lamb that always lagged behind. 

Adric always pictured the shepherd as his father.  And he pictured himself as the littlest sheep. He longed that some day, his father would love him, and save him from danger, even though he was the weakest of little boys.  He knew he would make a terrible prison guard, but he wished his dad would love him anyways.

One evening, after a difficult day, Adric was curled in his corner with bloodshot eyes and a moist handkerchief.  He was reading an old, dusty book of greek mythology when he heard footsteps coming up from the basement.  The thin Jewish man, Elias walked quietly up the stairs.

Elias was the Jewish man that helped out around the house.  He was respected by Adric’s father enough to be allowed to live in the basement and clean and tend to the more trivial matters of the house instead of working in the concentration camp. 

Often in the evenings Elias came in search of Adric.  Adric liked Elias.  Elias was patient, and soft-spoken.  He knew a lot about books and stories. 

“What are you reading?”  Elias asked Adric, trying not to be heard by Adric’s father.

“Greek mythology.” Adric didn’t look up.  Adric knew his father didn’t like him to talk very much to Elias so he was always brief.  But Adric longed to look Elias in the face and tell him everything he was feeling, reading, and longing for.  But it was that longing to be loved by his father, that kept him from being friends with the Jewish man, Elias. 

“I read most of that one last week.” He smiled at Adric.

“What?! how do you always beat me to these books?!  And how do you read so fast!” Adric fogot to keep his voice low.

Elias looked around as if scared Adric’s father would hear them.

“It’s ok,” Adric said.  “He’s in his study.  He’s always in his study,” Adric said hurtfully.  ”I don’t even think he knows where i am.”

“Oh, be kind to him, dear Adric.  Kindness is what real men are made of.  Kindness in the time of anger is what requires true inner strength.”

Adric pretended to put his head back into the book, but he loved what Elias just told him. 

Elias did not see the intrigued smile that had enchanted Adric when he had heard those words. (kindness in the time of anger is what requires true inner strength).  Elias sighed and said, “Well, my dear boy, Adric, you have a wonderful night. The next book i challenge you to read has a red leather cover, and is on the middle shelf against the wall.  See if you can beat me. I read it in three nights.” Elias looked down at Adric lovingly as if he wanted to comfort the boy and tell him he was proud of him even if his father wasn’t. 

But Adric did what he knew would make his father proud and he stayed solemn and tough, without looking up.  So Elias sighed again and slowly, weakly climbed back down the stairs.  Adric’s heart was inspired.  Whenever he got a challenge from Elias, it was impossible for him to resist. There was something extremely competitive about his spirit, that he felt in common with Elias, but Elias liked giving him a chance to beat him. 

The next day was especially bad.  His father had commanded Adric to make a man put the body of the man’s own daughter in the trash heap that they burned every night, even though the man begged to bury her in a proper grave. 

On their way home Adric’s father scolded Adric harshly for talking to Elias the night before.  His father had overheard them as he had gone through the kitchen.  He threatened, “Boy, if i catch you talking to that poisonous Jew one more time, I’ll teach you how worthless they really are, by making you kill one of them.”  Adric’s father rapped him across the face with the side of a heavy hand gun. “I’ll make you into a real man yet.”  a few steps in the cold grass later his father added, “And i don’t want you to read those worthless story books anymore.  Tonight and from now on you need to read and learn the book of rules and procedures for this camp.  If you are ever going to be a leader, you will need to know how to run a camp like this.  You’re lucky your mother loves you (though you get your weakness from her) otherwise i never would have taken you on when i married her.”

Most boys would get angry at their father for that, in fact maybe vicious revenge is what he wanted his son to feel.  But Adric wanted the love of his father so much, that he resolved to obey. . . at least partly.  He didn’t talk to Elias, but he still searched out the book with the red leather cover.

As soon as Adric got home he scrambled into the library.  He went to the middle row by the wall and searched quickly with his teary eyes.  He found the red leather book and tucked himself into the corner of a room with lots of windows in the highest part of the house.  He hoped that the red leather book contained the story of the good shepherd.  He also wished that somehow he could talk to Elias without getting in trouble for it.  He wiped his eyes as he read.  Though this book was good, it was not about the shepherd. 

Adric tried frantically to ignore what his father had said about taking him when he married his mother.  he covered over it by reading the red leather story. He couldn’t bear the thought that he didn’t have a father.

Adric awoke after sobbing himself to sleep.  It was the heavy footsteps of his father coming up the stairs.  He was yelling at his son, “Adric!  Adric!  Are you reading another one of those idiotic books! I see the gap on the shelf where it used to set! I will teach you to not waste your time on worthless things like stories!  Where are you boy!”

Adric shook with fear.  He fumbled with the book and it tumbled onto the floor with a thud.  He slithered behind the bed and peered at the doorway from under the bed.  The footsteps got closer.  But before they reached the door, the quiet footsteps of Elias appeared in the doorway.  The heavy boots of his father appeared, facing those of Elias.  Adric heard Elias plead with Adric’s father, “Please sir, it was me.  I took the book several days ago from the shelf.  Go kind on the boy.  The weak ones are the ones to rescue.”

Adric’s eyes grew large.  Those words were almost directly what he remembered from the shepherd story.  The weak ones are the ones to rescue.

Adric’s father growled and the anger burned inside of him.  It finally exploded from his mouth as he shouted at Elias.  “Elias! I am trying to raise up that boy to not be completely worthless, but he sees you reading all the time.  I can’t have him thinking that you are what a man is to become.  You are a very good servant, but i would never want my boy to be like you.”  A moment passed while Elias apologized profusely.  Then Adric’s father declared, “Elias, you have been a good servant in my house but i can no longer tolerate your weak values and humble posture to be influencing that boy.  Tomorrow you will work in the camp like all the others. 

Adric had to bite his lips to keep from yelling his protest. The footsteps disappeared and Adric was left in the quiet room as the dark descended. 

The next day Adric went to the camp with his father. He saw all the regular, pale, deathly faces, but now Elias’ was among them.  Elias was always trying to encourage the others in some way.  He was winking at the kids and making faces to make them smile. 

When Adric’s father assigned Adric to patrol the perimeter with another man, it was difficult to walk quickly enough to round the camp in the allotted five minutes.  They passed many of the Jewish men and women toting wheel barrels full of Rocks. 

At one point Adric noticed a man wheeling a wheel barrel quickly beside him.  He looked over, saw that it was Elias.  Adric smiled.  Elias winked at him started to walk faster- faster than Adric, even while he carried the wheel barrel.  He glanced quickly back at Acric as if mock-challenging him to try to beat him.  Adric’s competitive spirit got the best of him and before he realized it, his walk had broken into almost a jog, trying to keep up with the playful-but unreal challenge of Elias. 

Elias hadn’t really meant for Adric to take up the challenge, but he should have known that Adric’s competitive spirit would get the best of him, because he was the same way. 

The man Adric was supposed to be patrolling with yelled at him and realized what was going on.  He had seen the last remnants of a smile exchanged and rushed to grab Adric. 

He dragged Adric to his father and explaned what had happened.  He pointed to Elias walking briskly with his head down across with his wheel barrel and told Adric’s dad what had happened.

Adric’s dad boiled with anger.  He growled at Adric, “You didn’t obey what i said.  I told you not to interact with him.  Now i will have to punish you like i told you.  He grabbed Adric’s hand and slapped the gun down into it.  It knocked into Adric’s knuckles and almost tumbled to the ground before he got a hold on it.

Adric’s father found Elias and dragged him by his bony shoulder away from his wheel barrel and forced him to stand against a wall of one of the wooden buildings.  He brought Adric to face him, ten feet away.  and he said loud enough for both of them to hear, “If you are ever to become a real man, you must learn to kill the weak, and become all the stronger yourself.  Now,” Adric’s father pointed at Elias holding his hands, standing in front of the wall. “This will teach you to be a real man.  Shoot him.”

Adric’s father’s eyes bore into Adric’s face.  Adric slowly lifted the gun.  He felt it heavy, cold and hard in his trembling hands.  Anger grew inside of him.  he looked down the barrel of the gun.  He felt like he was about to burst.  He could hold the injustic inside of him no more. His true power was about to come out. 

But power is different than strength.  A man can be powerful, when holding a gun, but a man is strong when he stands firm and controls his actions as a tidal waves of emotion threaten to wash his soul away.

Adric was powerful at this moment, but as he looked down the barrel of the gun at the face that had told him that kindness in the time of anger requires real inner strength, he was powerful but also he chose to be strong. 

Adric lifted his hand above the building and fired the gun into the sky beyond as he let out a small roar.  He yelled into the air, “The weak ones are the ones to rescue!”  Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked at him. 

Adric, with feirce resolve in his eyes, looked up at his father and calmly handed him the gun.  He said to his father, “If shooting a man is what makes a man strong, then you will have only a weak boy forever.” Adric left the compound and walked back to the house. 

His father didn’t ask him to come back down to help with the camp for the next few weeks.

But it was only three weeks until the Allies reached the compound and freed the jews.  They imprisoned the guards, including Adric, until a weak man among the Jews protested.  It was Elias.  He led one of the british troops up to the wagon to which the prison guards were chained. 

He walked up to Adric with pride in his eyes.  He said, to his British escort.  Let this boy freee.  He is my son.  The Brit looked at him, surprised.  Elias explained, “His mother and i were married until i had to go into hiding.  She was German and the man that Adric thought was his father married her and took on the family when Adric was yet young.  The reason i was a servant in the house was because Adric’s mother said that she knew i was a good man and could be a good servant and so, not knowing that i was Adric’s real father, that man” he pointed at the man Adric had thought was his dad, ”let me care for his house.”

The british troop unlocked the dumbfounded Adric.  Elias put his hands on Adric’s shoulders.  Elias said, “I’m sorry i couldn’t tell you, my son, or they might have put you in the camp with the rest of us.”

Adriac finally believed it.  It made sense.  He fell into Elias’ arms and cried with joy. 

Elias held him with the strength he had left and whispered to him, “I’m so proud of you, my son.  You were so strong.  I didn’t know if you remembered the story i used to tell you about the Shepherd.  I used to tell you that story when you were so little.  And you remembered it.  You truly, deeply remembered it.”

Adric composed himself enough to step back and look at his father.  He now saw the physical features they shared.  It all made sense now, that everythign he had longed for in a father, was true about his dad.  Elias had instilled into him, all of the good virtue that make up the heart of his boy so that Adric would always know true north.   He would truly know what it meant to be human.  He would always know in the core of his being what truly made a boy a man.

“I can’t believe all this time I didn’t know you were my father.” Adric gasped.

“Don’t you know me, dear Adric.  You knew who your father was, you sought him tirelessly in that man.” He gestured to the horrified man in the chains again, “and yet you never realized that you saw him every day.  From now on you do see me, and you will know me.  I am your shepherd, my boy.  I rescued you when you were weak.  And you are a shepherd too.  You are a man, for you rescued me when i was weak.”

(John 14:1-10)

Sullivan and 11 of his friends had grown up without parents in an old cabin on the outskirts of a big city.  They all slept in the same big room and were all woken up each day by the counselor.  They would have been about in middle school but the counselor said that none of the schools around were good enough. So he taught them each day.

The counselor was a very strange man.  Most of the features on his face were very small and subtle.  He barely had a nose, his eyes were large.  His mouth was small.  He had no hair and his skin was the color of vanilla pudding.  He was shorter than any of the kids and walked strangely, turning his body to the side and bobbing his head with each step. 

The counselor was always teaching them the same things.  But many of the kids didn’t listen.  EAch morning the counselor would wake them up and would ask them to walk with him into the pastures and valleys.  But many of the kids disobeyed and went the other direction and spent their days in the city.

The counselor woke them up this day just like any other day.  And as they were going out the door the counselor looked at the ones that never listened to him and said, “Please my young gentlemen, please come with me today.  I have to teach you something very important.  I have been waiting a long time for what is about to happen, and i’m afraid that you are not ready for it.”

One of boys, Darwin was his name, turned from the city streets and challenged the counselor.  He said, “Counselor, you tell us every day that we will never be satisfied with the food, the girls, or the wealth that we find in the city.  But what do you have to offer us that will satisfy?”

The counselor reached his hand out and put it onto Darwin’s shoulder and struggled to find the words he wanted to say.

Darwin looked down at the tiny, strange looking man and said, “If what you have for us makes us look like you, i don’t think any of us want it.” Darwin turned to his friends and they all laughed.

The counselor said, “My dear gentleman, Darwin.  The day is almost here and if you depend on the things you hunger for in this dream, you will not be strong enough to survive when you wake up.  The dream is almost over.”

One of Darwin’s friends spoke up and said, “You’re always talking about this as a dream.  And you always say we’re almost at our destination.  But none of us know what you’re talking about.  All we know is that each day we get to go party in the city.  What else is there? Wandering around in empty fields?” The boys began to turn away.

The counselor ran up to them in his awkward gait and he grabbed Darwin’s hand. 

Darwin felt something strange in his hand and he jerked his hand away.  A strange vanilla colored egg bounced onto the ground- like a hard boiled egg, but smaller and yellower.  They all looked at it.  The counselor picked it up and held it back out to Darwin.

“Please gentleman Darwin, eat this when you are hungry instead of eating the food of this world.  If you eat of this egg, you will survive. Anything else and you will die.  Your body will not be strong enough when we wake up.”

They all looked at the egg that the counselor held out to them. 

“I’m scared to ask you what that is, man,” Darwin said.  ”It’s the same weird color that you are.  Where did that come from?  Did you lay an egg?” Darwin laughed at how weird the counselor was and looked at his friends so they would laugh to. 

Darwin and his friends shook their heads and walked away into the city.  They began to bob their heads to the heavy dance music calling to them.  Some of them reached into their pockets for money as they walked towards smoke shop and donut parlor and the bar where they usually got breakfast.  

The counselor turned to the four that remained.  He held the egg out where they could see it.  He said, “Will you guys desert me too?”

They looked at each other and then Sullivan spoke up.  “We want to believe you, Counselor. But sometimes we just don’t understand.  Sometimes the things you say just don’t make sense.”

The counselor bobbed his strange, bald head and blinked his large tired eyes.  He began to walk in his strange way toward the fields. The remaining boys followed him.  The counselor said, “I know it’s hard to understand me.  But you have to trust me. There are things that are more real than this dream for which i am preparing you.  I have traveled for years and years to come get you.  And to prepare you to enter my world and survive in it.  Like these eggs.”  The counselor put his hand on his satchel.  “We must no longer feed on the food of this world.  The eggs are the only food that will sustain you now.” 

They walked along a dirt path into a deep quiet valley. 

Sullivan spoke up again, “Why would we die if we only eat other food.  Why would we need to eat this?” Sullivan pointed at the egg.”

The counselor said to them, “We are on a long journey right now, and our bodies are not really moving.  We cannot move them.  So we must strengthen our minds.  I am trainging you and keeping your minds strong so that your bodies will survive too, when we wake up.  Darwin and his friends smoke and drink and eat what they want all the time.  And when they get hungry, the only way they know to be happy, is to eat more food or to get another cigarette or to go find another girl that they can use to make themselves feel happy.  But if you consume what i give you, you will not be hungry for those things all the time.  Your mind and your spirit will be strong.”

“Our spirit will be strong?” One of the other boys asked.

“Yes,” the counselor replied.  “The other boys are not feeding their spirit, but every day that you walk and talk with me, and learn about what it will be like in the new land, when we awake, the more your spirit will be fed, and will be able to carry your body to life.”

The boy said, “But i don’t know about eating a strange egg.  That’s just too weird for me, Counselor.”  The boy looked at his friends and tried to get a laugh out of them. 

Sullivan definitely didn’t laugh.  The counselor looked sad as he said, “The thing is, my young gentlemen, if you do not learn to eat of my eggs, you will not survive the journey. 

Sullivan stopped as the others walked on.  Eventually they noticed and turned to look back at him.  Sullivan said, “Then counselor, as much as i don’t understand it, i want to trust you, i will eat your eggs.”

The counselor smiled and looked at Sullivan proudly.  He walked back to Sullivan and handed him an egg.

Sullivan turned it over in his hand.  It had a flat part on the bottom.  It was jellowy, and slightly transluscent.  It had a white-ish, yellow-ish tint.  he took a bit.  It tasted very plain but was soft and easy to eat.  “These aren’t so bad.” He smiled at his friends.  “C’mon guys.  We’ve already come this far.”

The others slowly took the eggs and ate them.  They finished and began walking again.  The walked into the fields and valleys.  They sat and talked.  The counselor asked each of them how they were doing and how he could help them.  Then he reminded them, like he always did, of the three things above all that he needed them to remember.  He said, “My young gentlemen, in order to survive the new land you will need to remember these three things.  First.  Always trust what i say.  No matter how much it doesn’t seem true.  There are enemies that are trying to deceive you.  Second, you must only eat the food that i give you.  If you strive for anything else, you will be unsatisfied and will lose everything.  And last thing you must remember to survive the new land is this, Help the ones in need.  Even when they have nothing to give you.  You will be surprised which ones are really the ones who matter.”

The next day their awakening was different than the rest.  They all awoke to an earthquake.  It shook their beds.  And many of them toppled to the floor.  As they woke up, they all noticed the strange elastic material stretched over their heads.  It was some sort of metallic screen that perfectly shaped over their head and face.  Small blue sparks traveled through the mesh, in front of their eyes and around their heads.  A strange metallic cord came from each of the mesh helmets and arched over to a box on their bed frame, like thin, bending tree branches. 

As they peeled the elastic mesh from their heads and looked around at each other trying to figure out what was going on, the counselor rushed into the room- but it didn’t look like he usually did  He was old and hunched.  His strange vanilla skin was droopy and wrinkled.  His large eyes were tired.  And his tiny nostrils were flaring in and out as he breathed hard.  “Are you all ok, my young gentlemen?  We have finally landed.  It was sooner than i had thought.  The ground came out of nowhere.  We are not as close to safety as i had wanted so we will have to walk the rest of the way.”

Darwin was the first to his feet and he yelled at the counselor, ”What’s going on? Why do you look like that? What were those things on our heads?!”

The counselor replied, still breathing hard, “You have all been in hibernation.  We have been traveling for sixty years.  Your ancestors sent me to earth to get you before the earth’s atmosphere got too poisonous.  Your ancestors left long ago when they found out the world was in trouble.  They found my planet and sent me back to find children that i could save.  Your parents didn’t believe that the earth was in trouble.  And most of them were too busy partying and playing to be planning for your futures.  You were the only one’s i was able to save.  I found you as infants and it took us 60 years to get here.  But because of the masks,” the counselor pointed at the mesh helmets attached to the bed, “You guys only aged 16 years or so.  Even though i was in the hibernation dreams with you i had to stay awake to monitor it and drive the ship.

Sullivan realized something, “So you’ve been traveling for 120 years?”

The counselor nodded.  Then he said, “Well, young gentlemen.  It is time to move.  We have ten or twenty miles to travel until we are safe.  I need to warn you that everything i tried to teach you in the hibernation dreams are absolutely crucial to remember now.  Those things that I told you will not satisfy? Well now those things are outright dangerous.  Creatures from this world will use them as bait to lure you in.  They want to enslave you.”

Darwin looked at his friends and shook his head mockingly.  “This is weird, but he’s full of crap.”

One of his friends said, “and even if those things are just bait, we can resist it now because we’ll see that it’s bait.”

They went out the front door and though the area around the house was different, it looked strangely similar to where they had always been.  there was a city in the distance.  There were rolling hills and little paths. 

“It looks exactly the same here.” one of the boys said.

The counselor replied, “We programmed the dream maker so that it would look really similar, so that you could be trained in what it would be like.”

One of the boys who had always gone into the city replied, afraid, “Uh oh, maybe i should have practiced doing the right thing.”

Darwin scoffed at him, “You’re scared?  You believe this crazy old alien?  I think this is the dream.  I can do whatever i want in this dream and i’ll just wake up when i wake up.”

The counselor hurried them along.  “Follow me quickly.  We don’t want them to know we have landed. They always want to get the earthlings first so they can enslave them.  We need to get you down to where we live with your ancestors.  Ok, young gentlemen.  We will be approaching a city soon. You have to remember what i have told you.  first, you have to always believe what i say, no matter how strange it sounds.  Second, you have to only eat the food i give you until we get to our new home, and third, help out the ones that seem lowest among you.”

The counselor walked briskly with his strange swaying gait.  His strange yellowy skin flaking off on the back of his head as if he were shedding.  They path took them between a steep mountain and the edge of a little town.  they could see down the narrow streets of the town.  People were walking in the streets laughing and dancing.  they were smoking and drinking.  They seemed so happy.  A beautiful woman saw them and called to them!  She eyed mischeviously and laughed as walked into a building with music coming from inside.  All the people were beautiful.  the buildings were tall but close together.  They were bright and active.  They had enormous doors where five people could walk side by side and go in together. And they were taller than three men tall. 

Darwin said to one of his friends, “Dude, this is just like we’ve done a million times. there’s nothing wrong with this.  Let’s go in there and have some fun.  I don’t want to go live with those weird alien dudes anyway.”  Darwin and two of his friends broke off from the pack and started walking into the town, like they were used to. 

The counselor glanced back and it was like he had feared.  He was losing them.  He leapt with a strength they had never seen in him before and he landed a few feet behind them.  He called to them hysterically, “My young gentlemen.  It’s a trap! They are waiting in the buildings to come out and get you! The people are like fishing lures drifting through a stream! Don’t go over there! You have to believe me!  We’ve come too far to lose you now.”

Then one of the boys behind the counselor said, “Ooh, do you guys smell that? It smells like bar-b-que.  that would be so good right now.”

The counselor turned around as soon as he heard that and said, “No!  No!  You have to be strong!” He pulled out one of his eggs from his satchel and held it out to the boy as he said, “You don’t need anything more than this.  It’s not as tasty but it’s all you need.  It will bring you life.”  The boy hesitantly took it.  He sniffed it and gave it back.  He walked by the counselor and said.  I just can’t do it.  Those eggs just have no flavor.  I need flavor.”

The counselor cried and ran after them but could not turn any of the five young men around before they were into the city too deep.  The counselor stopped, grieving his momentus loss and watched them wander down the street being charmed by the people. 

He noticed the look on their faces suddenly change from being charmed to being frightened.  As they came close to one of the women, they saw the fear in her eyes.  She glanced back to the doorway of one of the buildings as if she was waiting for what she new was inside.  She turned back to Darwin and his friends and said, “I’m sorry.  If i didn’t bring you to him, he would hurt ME.”

And the next moment a large shape emerged from the one of the gigantic doorways.  It looked like a huge huchback man but was three times as tall and was as thick as a rhinocerous.  He barreled across the street towards the boys.  His nobby hand moved and a large net flew at them.  The next moment the boys along with the woman had been knocked to the ground by thick ropes.  The huge creature gathered up the net, took a look at his catch, and laughed into the air. 

The counselor dashed for the remaining seven boys and they ran as fast as they could from the sight of the town. 

Soon they were trekking silently along the ridge of a mountain in the dark of the night.  The counselor was still thinking about the incident.  He turned back to Sullivan and said, “I told them those things wouldn’t satisfy.  They would always want more.  They wanted more and look what it brought them.  I told them they had to trust me, and what i would give them would give them life.” He shook his head and kept walking.

Later on in the night, only 3 miles until the reached their destination, they began to get hungry.  the counselor handed out the eggs.  He said, “They will help you get used to the climate too.  they came from my species.  It has the extra nutrition your body needs to survive here.  It was so important for you to practice eating the eggs in the dream because you needed to learn to survive on only these eggs.”  

Still, several of the boys complained about the eggs.  They wanted something more.  They said they were hungry and couldn’t go on. 

“That is the air talking,” The counselor said.  “It makes humans extra hungry.  But the eggs are enough. Trust me.”

Even so, one of the boys saw berries growing on the side of the mountain and tried to reach for them.  The cliff was sharp, and the drop was far.  But he was deathly hungry, and he just could not believe that another one of those eggs would slake his hunger.  He slipped on the unfamiliar sand of the alien ground and did not utter a sound as he toppled down the mountain, knowing that he deserved his fate for not trusting.  The others didn’t even notice he was gone until much later. 

Finally, just before sunrise they came to a huge cliff face with a narrow passage cut like a tiny canyon in the rock.  The counselor was breathing hard.  He seemed slumped more and more at each step.  His head was shedding even more and now large flakes of skin were dropping from underneath his shirt.  He turned around to the remaining six boys and said, remember the rules, boys. this is the true test of your spirit.  Be strong in your conviction. 

They wove their way through the narrow ravine.  Soon they started hearing voices.  There were people ahead.  They came to a circular landing in the rock and they filled the small room.  There were several passageways leading out from the room.  People that looked like the counselor started appearing from each one of the passageways as they realized they had guests.  The counselor spoke to them in a language unfamiliar to the humans.  The other alien creatures nodded as if they understood the situation.  The counselor turned to the boys and said, “My young gentlemen, it has been a pleasure guiding you for all of these years.  Now each of you will be guided individually by one of my people.  I will hopefully meet you at the destination.  I must rest here.  I cannot make it any further.  Remember everythign i have told you. Be strong.”

And each of the alien people walked up to each one of the boys and took them by the hand and led them down separate corridors.  They spoke english and talked to them about their trip and if they were tired.  They asked what they were hoping was waiting for them at their destination.  They said it was just a little bit further until they were there. 

It was Sullivan who didn’t get very far.  He stopped and apologized to his guide.  Sullivan said, “I’m sorry, i just can’t leave The counselor behind.  I need to go back.”

Sullivan was extremely tired by this point, but his conviction was strong.  He wanted to help the one that had helped him, even though it seemed the counselor could not help him any more. 

As he got back to the opened room, he saw the counselor slumped against the wall, unconscious in a very uncomfortable position as if he had simply fainted.  A moment later, one of Sullivan’s friends appeared, apparently with the same idea.  Together they picked up their counselor and carried him through the ravine where Sullivan’s guide was waiting for them.

Layers of the counselor’s skin was flaking off in large peices now.  The skin was droopy and he was still unconscious.  They met up with the guide who had a very pleased smile on his face.  He asked, “Why did you go back for him?”

Sullivan said, “He gave us so much.”

The guide replied, “but he has no more to give you.”

Sullivan and his friend looked at each other.  His friend replied, “That doesn’t matter.”

The guide nodded his approval of their answer and said.  Well, you have passed the test.  Turn around.  There is another passageway we must take. 

They backed up out of the narrow passageway back into circular open area.  The guide lifted up a brushed away the sand in the middle of the room, revealing a board.  He slid the board aside and they found a hole.  They looked down and saw water rushing just a few feet below the opening. 

The guide looked at them and said, “This is a shortcut.  The others may get there eventually but not until they decide their guide gets weak and needs help.  Drop in here, and in just a few minutes you will yourelf in the valley where your people live with ours.  Congratulations, you have proven yourselves worthy to live in our society.  He motioned them to get in the water.  Sullivan and his friend looked at the guide, looked at the counselor they were holding between them, and then looked at each other. 

They maneuvered into the hole and let go.  They rushed away through the small tunnel with just enough room to breath and hold the counselor’s head above water.

When they came out of the tunnel the first slivers of sunlight were hitting the far edge of the canyon.  They floated in a river that wound through grassy country that was hilly until it hit the wall of the ravine.  Soon they floated by small buildings and then larger ones.  They came to a spot where the water was slow and shallow and they got out.

Their counselor looked better than before.  The water had washed the excess skin off of him.  The wrinkles were gone.  As they held the counselor there in the shallows of the water, they noticed his skin changing from the frosty gray to his more natural vanilla pudding look.  They took him to the side and laid him on the grass.  Sullivan sat down next to him and whispered to him, “Counselor.  Can you hear me.”

The counselor’s mouth moved very slightly.

“What?” Sullivan asked. “What did you say?”

the counselor’s mouth moved again.  He said ever so weakly, “Put your hand back on me.”

Both Sullivan and his friend quickly put their hands back on the counselor and he seemed to grow in strength every minute.

When the counselor finally opened his eyes he said.  “Welcome to your new home.  Do you know how i know that you will fit in just fine here?”

Sullivan looked at his friend and then back down at the counselor.  they both shook their heads. 

The counselor smiled his small mouth, he blinked his large eyes and he said, “We can only survive because of your hearts.  When you touch us, our species thrives on your good hearts.  Here on this planet, you thrive on our eggs as food.  You would not be healthy otherwise.  And that is why my people need you and why your people need us.  You two will do very well here.”

(John 6:25-63)

The Wreckers had grown up together, playing on their neighborhood’s court for hours and hours every day.  They each had one dream in their life.  It was the same dream. Their ultimate goal in life was to be a Georgia Bulldog basket ball player.

The Wreckers got their name by a misunderstanding.  Their dream was to lead the Bulldogs to a record-winning season.  Whenever one of them wanted to encourage another one to keep up the hustle, they would call out to each other, “Just for the RECORD!” When people heard this from the side lines, they often thought they were saying the self praise of: “Just for the Wreckers.”

Each of the wreckers ate, breathed and sneezed everything bulldog.  They knew that the Georgia State team was built around teamwork, perseverence, hard work, sacrifice and sportsmanship.  They lived this out every day, in the way they practiced, studied, had respect for their classmates and for each other.  But it was all for the sake of the dream- just for the record.

When they entered high school, the coach wasn’t very good.  He knew the Wreckers would dominate the league and bring his team glory, so he didn’t try very hard.  He would show up late for practice eating potato chips.  he would let the teams play pickup games  instead of drilling while he talked with the parents.  People stayed after school to watch the pickup games and watch the Wreckers perform.  The coach knew that this made him look good.

The Wreckers soon realized people were coming to watch them.  They realized that the people loved to see them dominate, and ball-hog and take risky shots.  They didn’t have to work hard to be highly praised and admired.

Antoine, the unspoken leader of the Wreckers went to his coach one day, asking if they could do some drills to hone their ball-handling skills.  The coach said, “Antoine, you have no problem with ball handling. You’re the best one out there.”

Antoine responded, “But coach, I’m not as good as the bulldogs yet.”

The coach laughed and said, “Who you trying to impress?  There’s nobody from the bulldogs here.  Go have some fun.”

Antoine walked away discouraged.  He looked up and down the court at his teammates, and at the Wreckers playing circles around the others.  Laughing came from the stands.  The other players were looking at the Wreckers hatefully because they were always humiliated. 

That night after practice Antoine invited each of the Wreckers to stay afterwards to do some drills.  But one by one they turned him down.  Kanai’s excuse was a party.  Tyreke looked over at a pretty girl eye-ing him from the stands and said he had to meet up with someone.  Joshua said he was going to the party and after that he had a world of warcraft game scheduled.  Terence, who was closest to Antoine said he had a test he should study for after the party and hesitated. 

Antoine whispered, “For the record, Terence.”

Terence looked at the other players talking about how much fun the party was going to be because the parents were out of town and it was on the roof of an apartment building.  He looked at Antoine and said, “I guess I can show up a little later to the party.  Let’s hit this court.”

And as the other players were leaving Antoine and Terence started their half hour of intense drilling.  They pushed hard.  Terence fell asleep at the party and Antoine got there after everyone had already left. 

It got worse and worse like this.  Even though Antoine did extra drills most days, it was hard to motivate himself when the others found girls, or partying or video games more important.  Terence stayed after to practice with him sometimes but one thing had entered his life that was severely holding him back.

“What are you doing, Terence?” Antoine saw Terence smoking one day as he walked out of the school. 

“I’m just really stressed, man.” Terence said.

“Well that will just make things worse.” Antoine punted the basketball under his arm into the parking lot. 

“Woah! what’s wrong, man?” Terence didn’t see Antoine get frustrated very often.

“I thought we were in this together.  But look at you.  You’re an idiot. Smoking your chances to be a bulldog away.  And the others.  Have they totally lost the dream?” Antoine was practically yelling at Terence.

“Calm down, dude.  It’s ok.  They’ve just found other stuff they like doing.”

“Are you telling me that because they’ve found other fun stuff to do that makes it ok to not be what we were built to be and dreamed of doing since we were little kids?  It’s like. . . ” Antoine dropped his bookbag and lifted his hands, trying to think of a good word.  “. . . it’s like you guys are slaves to these things.”

“Don’t worry about it, Anoine.  They are fun things.  There’s nothing wrong with girls, and videogames and smoking isn’t that bad, man.  I can still run just about as far as I could before.”

“That’s not true and you know it.  Look at yourself in the mirror, tonight, Terence, like we used to do, and remind yourself what we live for.  And then look how you’re spending all your time.”  Antoine picked up his book bag and went into the parking lot to retrieve his basketball. 

The Wreckers still did pretty well and when their senior year started, they were slated to win most of their games and probably place in the state tournament.  They were the pride of the school.  They were the most popular kids in school.   But the things that came with popularity became what they ate, drank and lived.  They no longer sneezed bulldog, but intstead they sneezed whatever everyone else did.

There was a new player that came out for the team that year.  His name was Jereme.  He was quiet and nobody knew where he moved in from.  He was a pretty good baller but nothing flashy.  He acted a bit differently than the others too.  Even though the wreckers would plow through an opponent and dunk in his face, Jereme would take the more difficult path and dribble around the opponent with skill and he’d always help someone up who had fallen down.

One day Antoine came to school a little early so he could checkout the weightroom for his second semester lifting class.  He saw Jereme finishing a workout.  He was exhausted and sweating as he finished up his last set.  Antoine caught him on his way out and asked him, “Why are you in here?”

Jereme replied, between his breaths, “sometimes i get myself out of bed before dawn just to prove to myself i still can.”

Antoine thought about that the whole day.  He watched the old Wreckers doing what was easy and fun.  They didn’t do anything hard anymore.  He asked himself, “What do i need to prove to myself that i can still do?” For the last month, Antoine had stopped drilling after practice- he didn’t need to do it in order to still dominate at this school.  But after he heard what Jereme said, he decided to stay after to drill the next day.  As Jereme was walking out of practice, he saw him.  Jereme asked if he wanted someone to throw him the balls.  Antoine smiled and nodded.  They stayed after for an hour.  Jereme just kept feeding Antoine the balls until Antoine was laying on the ground from fatigue. 

This happened most nights.  Sometimes Jereme drilled with him but much of the time he just retrieved Antoine’s shots so that Antoine could get more shots in. 

“Why are you doing this for me?” Antoine asked Jereme one time after Jereme had fed Antoine the ball until he had made 20 three-point shots in a row.

“That’s what a Bulldog does for a teammate.” Jereme replied.

“What?” Antoine was caught off guard.  “What are you talking about, man?”

Jereme smiled and said, “I’m a bulldog.  I didn’t make the team but i’m the coach’s son and he said i would be most valuable to the team by scouting out new recruits in high schools.  I had heard about the Wreckers and i thought that there might be a chance that you guys could be bulldogs someday.  I came to see if you have what it takes.

Antoine turned and started to walk away. “I didn’t know that.  And i didn’t know you’re a liar either.  You just cain’t mess around with stuff like that to me.”

Terence said, “don’t i act like a bulldog?  Is there anything about me that’s not like a bulldog?  Of all people, you should know, Antoine.  It’s all for the record, man.”

Antoine turned back to him.  ” How’d you know that?”

“I’ve watched you guys play since when you used to say it the right way.  I remember those days.”

“So why haven’t you told us about this before?”

“I wanted to see who had the sacrifice that it takes.”

“Sacrifice?  Like the extra work it takes, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s more than that.  Your friends have found things that they aren’t willing to give up for the game, for the dream.  Despite knowing the dream, they’re like slaves to their desires.”

The next day Antoine told the Wreckers about Jereme’s secret.  None of them believed him.  He told Jereme of his frustration with his Wrecker boys. ”

Jereme said, “Only the true Bulldogs recognize other bulldogs.”

Antoine was able to convine Terence to hang out with them a little bit more (though Terence wasn’t totally convinced that Jereme was telling the truth about being a Bulldog.)  But the more that Terence hung out with them, the more he found himself wanting to quit smoking.  He also ended up hanging out with Antoine and Jereme practicing and talking about the future and studying more often than the others who were stuck with their parties and video games. 

Well, the state tournament came and went and the the wreckers’ performance was less than lustrous.  Antoine had to pretty much carry his team.  He scored school scoring and passing records but it was not enough to give their team the victory. 

And when it was over no one was recruited to the bulldogs, except for Antoine.  A letter came from the head coach of the Bulldogs, mentioning how much of a Bulldog he had seen in Antoine.  But Terence, the only other one with a successful story, went on to start a successful business based on the morals of the Georgia state work ethic: hard work and respect. 

Antoine went on to score records in his four years with the Bulldogs, just like was his dream.  And became quite a celebrity.  But he was not driven by fame or women or fortune.  He gave up all those things that he knew could hold him back from his dreams.  After Georgia State, Antoine had modified his dreams.  Part of the dream came from what he saw in his friend Terence.  Antoine sacrificed those things that he knew could enslave him (because he saw them enslave his friends), and keep him from his goal.  His goal was to be a person with indestructable perseverence for whatever he put his mind to, and at the same time to treat every person with endless respect.  And that way the vision of the Bulldog lasted long past his college days. 

And whenever he or Terence were discouraged and needed motivation to keep going.  They made sure to send a text message or an email to say, “Don’t lose hope my friend. . . Remember, it’s just for the Wreckers.”

(John 8:33-41)

I can pay my bills and i have food every day.  But I demand Green Monster drinks, i fish for compliments, and im addicted to lust, like cigs for my soul. How much easier would life be if i were content to eat my daily bread, and trust God to nourish me.

Each request instead gives him permission and momentum to bring his kingdon more fully into mine. And i think that’s what he desires.

Maybe it doesnt say anything. People of other faiths that are compassionate and true to their convictions are simply that- compassionate people who are true to their convictions. Just like there are Christians like that. And as much as id like to think that the spirit is making me different and special, i need to remember it’s just not about me.

Maybe the truest test of a religion is of its god, not its people. God, show ur miracles to the world through me.

The most important day of their lives had arrived.  Today they took the placement test to get into middle school.  If they did poorly they would be in the special education program.  Soren understood the meaning of this far more than Cameron did. 

That’s because Soren’s big brother was going to be in 8th grade.  When Soren’s brother was in seventh grade, eighth graders had humiliated him with trash cans, nasty notes, signs, and with food.  One time they pressured him into eating special chocolate pudding.  Within minutes the whole school knew that it was far worse than pudding that soren had put into his mouth.  Because of this Soren and his brother had to transfer schools.  Soren’s best friend Cameron decided he needed to switch too, so Soren wouldn’t be alone.

Soren knew far better than Cameron about what was at stake with this test.  He had seen his brother coming home in tears every day.  He knew how much safer it would be if they could at least test out of the special education program. 

Now, Soren sat in the test, staring at the page, frozen with fear.  He peeked back at Cameron who was peering into his green lantern light up ring intensely.  His tongue reached unconsiously up his lip toward his dripping nose, in cencentration. 

Soren had gone with Cameron to buy the ring at the comic book store.  The guy at the store swore to them, with a twinkle in his eye, that he had seen the ring’s real powers.  Cameron bought the ring after a month and a half of saving his money.  They used it for everything and, to them, it seemed to work. 

Cameron saw Soren looking at him and smiled, trying to tell him he thought it was working.  But Cameron’s smile disappeared when he saw the look on Soren’s face.  Cameron knew Soren had been far more worried about this test than he had, and now he saw his friend in pain.

As the time for the test to finish came near, and most of the other students had finished, Soren heard something rattle at his feet.  He looked down and saw the ring rolling to a stop by his shoe.  He looked back at Cameron who whispered, ”Use the power of the light.”

Soren’s eyes got big and he surreptitiously picked it up and slipped it on.  He smiled back at Cameron to say thanks but Cameron was looking down at his test, struggling to read a question.  He was sitting on his hands and shifting uncomfortably.

Soren scored well enough to escape the special ed program, but the ringless Cameron, did not. 

They almost never got to see each other in seventh grade.  Cameron’s special ed program was out in the trailers.  And Soren walked quickly from class to class, keeping his mouth shut and doing everything he could to avoid being noticed.  And he had good reason to do so.  It turned out that the eighth graders at this school were worse than even the last school.  There was a group of five or six of them that were called the soccer jocks.

The soccer jocks picked certain kids to strategically destroy.  They made it their job to find weaknesses in their victims and then relentlessly exploit them for the whole school to see.  If their victims had obvious weaknesses, this made their procedure even more gorey.  For example, the soccer jocks convinced a kid with a lazy eye that if enough people hit him in the forehead in the halls every day, his eye would go back to normal.  The kid figured out they were lying when migraines took him out of school for days.  He was too afraid to tell the adults why he got headaches.

Soren made it his primary goal to hide any weakness and disappear into the crowd so that they would never find him.  He thanked God every day that he didn’t go to school out in the trailers.  But poor Cameron. . .

Soren didn’t get to see Cameron any more because his mom knew that school was a challenge for him, and she forced him to study all the time.  Every now and then Soren looked out the school windows and saw Cameron being the class clown as his class played games in the lawn.  Soren always slipped the ring on in his pocket whenever he saw Cameron and he whispered so quietly that not another sould could hear it, “Use the power of the light.”

Now, the same year that Cameron and Soren had entered seventh grade, a reality TV show started to gain popularity across the US.  It was called “Into the light.”  The premise was that a secret camera would be carried by someone who wanted to expose people for doing mean things when they thought no one was watching.

Soren’s brother watched the show religiously because he longed that someday the deeds of all the people like the ones that tortured him would be brought into the light.  He wrote letters to the program telling them how much he liked it.  Soren didn’t even know about it because he had to work so hard at his studies. 

The terrible day finally came when the Soccer Jocks targeted the happiest guy in the special ed program.  The whole school seemed to know what was going to happen before Cameron did. 

Soren’s big brother grabbed Soren by the shirt in the hall just as people were leaving lunch.  He said to Soren, “You better come with me, buddy.  Something bad’s about to happen.”

They walked towards the door that went from the cafeteria into the school yard between the school and the trailers.  Soren said, “Oh cool, maybe i’ll get to see Cameron coming in for their lunch.”

Soren’s brother said, “Oh, you’ll get to see Cameron alright.”

The whole cafeteria gathered outside the door.  Soren heard Cameron laughing and shouting at his friends in his small class. Soren remembered what it was like being around Cameron and he missed it. 

When Cameron got near the door he got bumped to the ground by someone.  he shouted, “Hey! Somebody knocked me over!”  He looked at his slow classmate and smiled, thinking it was funny.  But as he started to get up somebody knocked him back down by hitting him in the forehead (they all had a lot of practice at that).  Suddenly Cameron knew they weren’t playing anymore.

“Hey dumby”.  One of the soccer jocks looked down at him.  “You’re way too happy for how retarded you are.”

Cameron’s smile was completely gone.  Someone kicked dirt at him.  Soren’s brother scooted to the edge of the crowd where he had a clear view of the assault.  Soren held onto his shirt, still trying to understand what was going on.  He hid behind his brother instictually because he was so used to avoiding the soccer jocks. 

“My dad’s bigger than you.” Soren tried to get up.

They pushed him back down again and laughed.  “Your dad’s not here, is he?  Nobody’s here to even see you right now.”

Soren kicked at them from on the ground.  His foot slid across the dirt and stopped dead when it hit one of their standing feet.  They all started laughing. 

“What’s 2 plus 2, smart guy?  Do you even know what 2 plus 2 is?”

Cameron looked frantically for help among the other kids.  They looked at him and said nothing.  He couldn’t understand why they wanted to hurt him.

Another kid joined in and said, “Hey he doesn’t even know what 2 plus 2 is!  This kid is retarded.”

Soren whispered to his brother, “Do something!  Help him! He’s my best friend.”

His brother looked at him, put his finger to his mouth and shook his head.

Soren’s heart pounded in his chest.  He caught himself whimpering and he shut his mouth to stay silent.  He wanted to do something, but his whole life was at stake.  He wanted to help his friend but it just didn’t seem worth it in his head.  But sometimes those who are mentally challenged are excel in matters of the heart.

Soren reached into his pocket out of habit and suddenly he felt the light up ring.  He froze.  Only his fingers moved.  They fumbled with the ring until it was on his finger.

“Come on stupid kid.” Another boy taunted Cameron.  “Don’t you even know what 2 plus 2 is?”  Someone spit and it landed in the dirt beside Cameron’s face.  He looked at it and then at the Soccer Jock from whom it came.

Soren burst through the crowd and yelled.  “It’s four, I think.  2 plus 2 is probably 4, im pretty sure!” Soren pushed his way into the the center and stood above Cameron.  He held his fist straight out from his body pointed the ring on his finger at the faces of the soccer jocks. 

Soren, realizing that he had blown his closely guarded cover, yelled in frustration.  “Ahhhh!” He had nothing to lose now.  He walked around the circle, fending off the encroaching soccer jocks.  He yelled at them, “You guys are so stupid.  You guys are the meanest, dumbest guys in the whole school.  Everybody likes you, but not me.  Cameron’s my best friend, though and it’s because of him that im not in special ed.  You can tease me all you want.  I’ll just switch schools and you can’t do anything about that.  But leave my friend Cameron alone! He wouldn’t have to be in special ed if he didn’t want to.”

The crowd exploded in laughter.  Cameron got up behind Soren.  He said, “C’mon Cameron.  Let’s go.”

And together they ran around the back of the school into the teacher’s parking lot and hid behind the air conditioning unit. 

“You used the power of the light,” Cameron said, in awe.  “Did you see it?  It really does work.”  They caught their breath as they admired the ring, the little LED blinking beneath the plastic gem.

Soren’s brother stood at the edge of the crowd with a secret smile on his face.  The Soccer Jocks imitated Soren and Cameron as the crowd dispersed.  As the last few were walking away Soren’s brother looked down at a slightly larger button on his shirt.  He adjusted it and smiled.  He felt the cord going down to his iPhone in his pocket.  He pointed the button up at his face and whispered proudly, “That was my little brother.”

Usually it takes a month or two to release a show after it is filmed.  But it was less than a month between when Soren rescued Cameron and when “Into the light” featured Soren and Cameron’s story. 

Months before, Soren’s brother had written the show and told them his story.  He also told them about how bad it was at their new school.  They thought the middle school twist might be promising, so in a covert operation, a week before, one of their techs had come out to their house and strapped Sorens brother with the secret camera.  Only Soren’s brother and his parents had known about it.

The day after the show everybody knew about it. 

Neither Soren, nor Cameron really understood the concept of a reality show or understood how far reaching it was.  But the whole nation got to hear Soren tell how Cameron had given him the ring so that he could pass the middle school test.  And he had used that same power of the light to rescue Soren when he was in need.

The show ended in an interview where a couple of the soccer jocks apologized on camera and admitted what they had done was stupid.  The tables had completely turned.

The show ended with the host explaining that the purpose of their show was to bring justice down on those who hurt and oppressed others.  But she added, “But it was not until the story of Soren and Cameron did we, at the show, realize we would also see a heroic goodness revealed in some people’s hearts.  And it’s because of the power of bringing things into the light.

I don’t think having lots of money or having beautiful friends are bad, and i’m not saying that a lot of non-christians don’t do this really well,

but i do think that christians are the ones called to make the hard decisions and live out these types of inspiring stories with their lives. 

(checkout To “Save a Life” movie- a little bit corny but it is inspiring.)

I guess now that we know that we have the job, we get to prove if we’re in it to have a job, or instead to make our dad proud of us for a job well done. We dont have to worry about getting fired but it definitely seems we can get promoted (even if it is by being the worst janitor’s best assistant)

To help us understand that it’s not just about getting in the door, we can ask ourselves what type of employee would we want to be in the worlds largest and most famous family owned business.

I asked if she was able to get one of the bottles of aspirin on the shelf. She said times were tight and she didn’t get paid until friday.

I had been reading in Acts where the disciples healed the sick and hearts were changed.  I asked the girl “Can I pray for you?”

She misunderstood me and said, “You want to PAY for it?” She mumbled a half-hearted “That’s ok. I’ll survive.”

I repeated myself and caught her off guard by saying a quick prayer with her at the counter.  She seemed a little confused.  I went out to my car.

Then i realized how dense i was. I had basically said ‘because i am a spiritual guy i can pray for u instead of actually helping u out.’

So i swallowed my pride and went back in. i bought her the aspirin.

She said it’s rare that anybody does anything like that for her.  So that’s cool.  Not quite a modern day miracle, but that might be a little wave in a tide that eventually chages a heart.

God can fix people’s problems when asked, but maybe sometimes he’d rather have someone who bears his smile accompany the cure.

Maybe it’s because he loves those people so much that it hurts him when i hurt them.

Oh, and maybe that’s why i need to apologize when in the privacy of my own head i lust or covet or hate.  Because God knows im not doing myself any favors.  And he loves me enough that it sucks for him.

It’s funny how analyzing the logistical theology of third party forgiveness brings us back to how much he freakin loves us.

But make it faith that moves mountains.

I saw a cheesey Jesus movie with the kids at my church the other day.  I thought, this is hilarious because Jesus talks so softly and has big blue eyes and soft flowing hair.

As corny as the movie was, i cried a little bit! (Don’t judge me).

I had some cool break throughs with my counselor this week and had to do some errands afterwards. I found myself so peaceful and loving and present in every moment of human interaction.  My counselor had said, “Not until a person is fully fulfilled, can they begin to really deny themselves for others.”

I bet Jesus was the most fulfilled individual of all time. It seems he would have the least insecurities. He didn’t care what people thought of him because He was best buds with the Creator.  And then i thought, i bet he WAS just a really nice, loving guy in most of his interactions with people.  He was strong enough tell them hard truths that would change their lives but i now think he was also deeply peaceful and sincerely touched by just being with every day people.

I suppose you don’t have to have blue eyes and flowing hair to be a really nice guy.

but I read a Psalm yesterday that made me think, Justice is what will SAVE some of us!

It said that Justice will be served and the poor, oppressed people will recieve the joy they deserve again.

I suppose then the only scary part of Justice is if i was the one oppressing those poor souls.

But, I still expected to have an intricate series of tunnels by now.  However, my ants just wander around, moving peices of sand back and then forth again, doing nothing ultimately productive.

I think my queen is dead.  And i think my ants are all serving themselves.  I don’t think they’ll last very long.

I can see the benefits of all of us serving a common leader.  I also notice that when i watch TV and eat lots of sugar and allow myself to lust and stuff, I get a pretty narrow mindset.  It’s like I’m pushing rocks around when i could be moving mountains.

The game was an avatar game, like Sims where you control a human character going about their daily activities like shopping, earning money, and picking up girls. The programmer started this avatar world with typical code that created everything but the difference between this game and other avatar games was that the programmer changed one line of code.  The avatars’ instructions in most games say, “execute the player’s command,” but in Savvy Avatar the main line of code was “execute your own command.” What i mean is that when most avatars in other games had to obey what the person at the computer asked them to do, in Savvy Avatar, the person had to CONVINCE their avatar what he wanted the avatar to do. 

For example if you wanted your avatar to buy a nice pair of glasses you would have to type, “a $90 pair of glasses makes you more likely to get a hot chick.” And if you gave the avatar enough reason to buy the glasses, he might choose to do so.

It’s funny that he made such a cool game because the old man programmer was a grumpy old recluse.  His wife had died and he had no children.  in the article it said he was trying to make a better world than the one he lived in.  My guess is that he was lonely so he built a world of beings that he could talk to and try to help them do things.

But here is what went wrong. . .

The programmer knew that the recipe for success was for the avatars to do things for each other.  It took the longest amount of time to build friendship points because they didn’t come back to the avatar right away.  But friendship points were what made them the happiest- because the programmer built them to work that way!

The avatars would slowly accumulate friendship points by giving things to other avatars or even by just listening to the person controlling them.  I’m guessing the programmer designed the avatars that way because he wanted them to be the friends that he never had.  The programmer tried to convince the avatars of this but none of them wanted friendship points!  They all wanted the more immediate money points because they didn’t want to wait on other avatars to buy them nice gifts.  They just wanted to buy themselves nice cars and better bodies and bigger houses and better jobs as fast as they could get them. 

I read that the programmer went into a deep depression and considered scrapping the whole game at this point. He realized that the purpose for which he created them was totally lost on them! None of them wanted to be his friend!

So finally the lonely programmer wanted so badly to be with the friends that he designed an avatar that was his exact replica which would do everything that he told it to do so he could go into the game. 

His avatar was old and gray and had lots of wrinkles so when he went walking down the street all the other avatars ignored him!  They couldn’t get any money or girls by talking to this ugly guy! At least they didn’t think they could.

Finally the programmer’s avatar found someone who was sleeping on a porch and he went up and talked to him. 

The other avatar woke up and listened to him because he was too tired to move.  The programmer’s avatar said, “It’s never too late to earn friendship points!”

The other avatar shook his head sleepily and said, “Do you have any money?”

The programmer replied, “I made all the money in this game!”

The other avatar said, “Can you give me some?”

The programmer was disappointed but said, “I guess it would make me happy to give you money.”

And the programmer at this point went into the very code of the game and modified it so that his avatar had a stack of $100 bills.

The other avatar got up, punched the programmer’s avatar in the eye and took the money. 

The programmer called to the other avatar as it ran away, “It’s never too late to earn friendship points! I want to be your friend!”

The programmer got up and walked his avatar down an alley, feeling very sad.  In the alley he saw a woman trying to wear a trash can.  He spoke to her.  She turned to him took the trash can off.  He asked her, “What are you looking for?”

She looked at the old man in a strange way and said, “I have no beautiful clothes.  I used to but people took them from me and now all i have is this poster to wrap around my body.” she had a generic concert poster wrapped around her body. 

The programmer happily replied, “I can give you some very beautiful clothes!”

“I’m sorry i don’t have any money.” she said.

“That’s ok,” the programmer replied.  “i will give it to you for free.” The programmer went into the very code of the program and changed it so that his avatar had a beautiful dress to give her.

“Orange is my favorite color!” She exclaimed and took the dress from him.

“I know,” he said.  “I created you.”

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“I am the programmer.  My voice that you hear wrote the code that created this whole place!”

“Really?” she was amazed. “Then why are you so ugly if you could be so beautiful?”

The old man was patient, “it is because being beautiful and having cars and stuff isn’t what will make us happy.”

The woman avatar looked confused and skeptical, “What makes us happy then, mr. programmer?”

“Friendship points!!!” The programmer was very proud of his news. “And the good news is, it’s never too late to start earning friendship points!!!”

“Well maybe you can show me what you mean.” The woman followed him in her beautiful new orange dress into the street.

But as soon as he got into the street, the avatar that had punched him came up to him.  This time two other avatars were with him.  He said, “How did you make money appear?”

The programmer said, “Because i created this whole place! I am the programmer.  I came down to be friends with you guys and tell you how to be happy!  It’s never too late to earn….” someone pushed him down from behind and took his shoes.  He got back up.

The man that had first punched him asked him, “Why should we believe that you are the programmer?”

The programmer responded, “Because if the programmer wanted to tell you something wouldn’t it make sense that he would come down and tell you himself in the form of an avatar? That’s why im here! It’s never too late to earn friendship points!”

One of the other Avatars asked, “How do we know you are the programmer.”

The woman avatar said, “Look, he made this dress appear out of no where for me! Orange is my favorite color!”

A woman walking by pushed her down and stole her orange dress. 

“Look,” the programmer spoke to the men as he helped his woman friend up. “I can prove to you that i am the programmer because i can write the code that creates things. Watch this!” The programmer made a lemon merangue pie apear with a cup of milk and he gave it to the avatar that had pushed him (because he knew it was his favorite).  The avatar ate and drank them as the programmer said, “See! it’s never too late to earn friendship points! You’ll be happier!”

Then someone pushed the programmer down from behind and a pair of 26″ chrome wheel rims fell to the ground (because the programmer was in the process of making them for another avatar man).  The avatar who pushed him stole the rims and walked away.

The programmer yelled after him, “It’s not too late to earn frienship points!”

just then he was stepped on.  The kind woman avatar screamed as many avatars came together and stole everything that was on the programmer’s avatar body.  The avatar tried to hold onto another orange dress that he just made because he wanted to give a new one to the woman.  But because he was holding onto it, another avatar kicked him really hard and stole the dress.

The last act of coding that the programmer did before his avatar died was to make a phrase appear on every avatar’s chest in front of where their heart would have been.  It said, “It’s never too late to earn friendship points.” So that every morning when the avatars looked at themselves in the mirror they could be reminded of this.  Whether they listened and obeyed it, would be up to them. 

The woman avatar, who loved orange dresses was the only one that day that believed what the programmer was saying.  She told all her friends and explained why they had something written on their chests. It was the message the programmer wanted to give them.  And it was their proof that the avatar that brought that message really was the programmer.

And those who believed her and decided to earn frienship points started listening to the programmer when he typed things to them.  The ones that really listened to him did everything he said.  It was like the very code he was writing was the code that was writing their actions.  They were totally willing to do what he said.

But it was not easy because many avatars just took things from them without giving anything back.  But some of the other avatars realized that these avatars were happier than the ones that took from everybody. 

And the old programmer spent his time writing code and talking to those avatars that wanted to.  He was no longer lonely but he was still sad because he saw so many avatars doing so many things that would make them unhappy, and make them lose friends.  Most of all he was sad that they would never want to be his friend. 

The old programmer realized that this game took way too much time and took way too much generosity to ever sell in the video game world.  So he was content to sit alone in his house and happily help his avatar friends earn friend points that would make them happy.

(John 1:1-18)

Nor to make others think I am good

Nor to do what I think

Will draw them to you

But I desire to be so in love with you

That I will do anything to be near you

That I will love others

because it makes me beautiful to you

that I will invite suffering

when I will find you there

that I will hang out by your streams

just to get a glimpse of you

that I will cry when I have not sensed you near

and will seek after you for hours

to know just one of your thoughts–

please, for one that is close to your heart

But sometimes it was hard, too.  Sometimes the master hiked up mountains and carried sick people down them.  These days the shoes got very worn out and felt a little bit abused. 

So one day, the right shoe decided that he wanted to leave and go explore the world without having to wait on the master’s feet to take him there.  So he slipped himself off of the master’s foot when he thought the master didn’t know and went out on his own.  

He had a grand old time playing in mud puddles and crawling through bushes.  He didn’t have to carry sick heavy people down mountains anymore, and he certainly didn’t have to go where the master wanted to take him.  He could go wherever he wanted.

But one day, the shoe met a man who said he worked for a rubber company.  He said it was the biggest most beautiful factory he would ever see (even though the shoe didn’t know what a factory was.) 

He told the shoe how they could get massages and go swimming until the day they died if they wanted to.  He said he would never see more beautiful, important shoes than he would see in this factory for the rest of his life.

So the shoe agreed to go along, as muddy and full of twigs and bugs as he was.  The man took him to the factory and showed him the big massage chairs and the big swimming pools.  He saw beautiful shoes everywhere.

But then the little shoe noticed that all of the shoes were screaming!  The shoes that were in the pools were screaming because the pools were full of acid, to dissolve their glue! And the massage tables had big brushes that were trying to take the soles off!  He had been tricked! 

They were trying to steal his sole! 

The man laughed and threw the little shoe into the pool of acid.  The shoe screamed as the acid tried to eat away at the glue that held him together. 

Then as he was about to sink in the acid he saw his old master run into the factory.  He paid the other man some money and ran over to the tank of acid and pulled the dirty, limp, embarrassed shoe out of the acid. 

The good master put him in his car and drove home.  When they got home the good master told the little shoe that he wouldn’t wear him if he still didn’t want to be worn.  But if he did want to, the master would wash him really well.

The little stubborn shoe sat outside for a couple of days.  He was dirty and bug infested and his glue was breaking down.  He looked out at the yard, and thought of all the places he could go by himself.  And then he thought of the places that he had gone with the master.  Even though they were hard, they were amazing new places and they helped people who were sick while they were doing it. 

The little shoe turned and called to his master. 

The master had been waiting by the door the whole time. 

The good master picked up the shoe smiled and said, “Are you sorry for running away from me?”

The little shoe nodded and said, “Yes, very sorry. I wish I had never left.”

The good master then said, “That’s ok.  You learned how much I love you.  Do you want me to put my foot in you again, and wear you and we can go places together?”

The little shoe nodded and said, “Yes please.  I’m so sorry I left you. 

Please wear me again.  I’ll go wherever you want to go.  Just as long as I’m with you, and you’re in me.”

The good master smiled and said, “Alright then.  Now we need to wash you.”

The master got out a bucket and the little shoe closed his eyes.  The master dipped him in the bucket until all dirt on the outside had dissolved away.  He pulled the shoe out and asked the shoe, “Now can I come inside of you and clean out your insides?”

The little shoe felt all the shameful spiders and mold that had started to accumulate inside of him and he was suddenly scared.  He said, “I’m afraid you won’t want me after you see everything that is inside.”

The good master smiled lovingly and said, “I just want my shoe back. I’m not scared of bugs or dirt.  They can’t hurt me.” 

And the good master reached deep inside the shoe and scraped all of the furthest reaching corners of him clean.  He pulled out a handful of grime and reached in again.  He kept pulling out the dirt and bugs until it was completely clean.   Then he said, “Now I can start gluing you back together.  Soon you’ll be better than when you started.”

And from then on, the shoe was happy to have the master’s foot in him, and to go with the master wherever he went and to carry whatever the master wanted them to carry because he knew how much the master loved his favorite pair of shoes. 

Nicodometer was a powerful leader in robot society.  He met every day with the other super-computing robots in the supercooled core of Transtemp-earthera.  While the rest of Transtemp-earthera’s robots lived closer to the surface and went about their daily computing processes to meet their robtic needs, Nicodometer and the other supercomputer robots made sure the super-planet ran smoothly. 

The supercomputers really were several generations more advanced than the common robots.  They could almost all calculate . . .
     +the internal forces of high pressure oil flow within the superplantet’s core 
     +while transforming usable power from a 240 volt outlet and
     +printing a multi-sided high gloss maximum quality photo
While modifying code for the superplanet’s mainframe computers.

But one day news came that a certain average robot near the surface was doing extra-ordinary things.  Robots called him Asus.  Robots said that he could touch other robots and fix their broken internal components.  He could speak to robots and their viruses would be immediately eliminated. But Asus also said things like, you don’t need to plug into the mainframe to get your regularly scheduled program updates any more.  You can get them directly from the original robot creator, with no more hard wire connections.  But the most scary thing that he said was that if robots would let him reformat their hard drives then he could give them a completely new, completely innovated operating system that would give them the same powers as he had.

The supercomputers that ran the super-planet said to each other, “This robot is a threat to how we do things here.  What if robots let him reformat them and stop synchronizing to our program updates?! He will destroy our whole society and everything we’ve worked so hard to build and program into them!” The super-computer robots finally decided they needed to crush and recycle the new robot.

So, knowing this, Nicodometer set out to find the new robot, Asus.

It was late in the night when he finally tracked him down.  He found Asus sitting on a roof, looking at the stars and waiting- like he had known that Nicodometer was coming.  He looked like any other average surface dwelling robot.  But the way he talked was different than the rest.  His voice was peaceful and patient.  It was stern at times but had a quality Nicodometer had never seen so purely in a robot before.  It seemed like Asus was programmed to genuinely want to help Nicodometer. 

So Nicodometer hesitantly asked him, “How are you able to do these great things? What components or apps do you have that i don’t?”

Asus replied, “you must let me reformat your hard drive and give you the new operating system that the creator has been working on since the inception of Transtemp-earthera.”

Nicodometer stepped back, scared to let Asus touch him. “But how can i be reformatted without losing everything that i know and have learned my whole life?”

Asus said, “You must trust me.  The creator will only take away programming inside of you that is holding you back from being a better robot.”

Nicodometer hesitantly continued, “But how do i know that you really came from the original creator?  No one has heard from him for thousands of years.”

Asus smiled a peaceful smile and said, “It is finally time to release the entirely revolutionary operating system, and he has sent me as the key to installing it.  And you will know i am from the creator by powerful things I know and can do.  Even now i already know that the other super-computer robots are coming to crush and recycle me.”

Nicodometer’s warning LEDs flashed and tiny sirens went off next to his mother board.  “How did you know that!?” He said. “And aren’t you scared of me then?”

Asus smiled again and motioned for Nicodometer to sit down with him.  “The new operating system I offer will let you communicate directly with the creator instead of having to synchronize with the planet mainframe every day.  And the creator will tell you things like i know.  And you ask why I am not scared of you? This is why . . . Even after you crush and recycle my parts, the new operating system that i offer allows you to live on and live directly with the Creator.  The Creator is actually coding my programming as we speak and he is speaking through me, and he will do the same with you when you let his new operating system be installed.”

Nicodometer’s tank treads slowly drew him closer as he listened, “You mean that we can see and talk directly to the original creator again?  No one has been able to do that for hundreds of years!”

“You have,” Asus said, ”but you all have forgotten how.  The new operating system does not instruct you how to keep your joints oiled or batteries charged.  But instead, when the creator’s program is in you, you will be constantly communicating with him, and trying to fix other computers and oil their joints.”

Just then they heard heavy hydraulic sounds and clanking metal coming up the staircase to the roof.  Nicdometer reeled back and shouted, “No! they’ve followed me here!  Now they will catch you and kill you!  What have i done!?”

Asus nodded peacefully and said, “Watch for me and i will come to you after i am crushed, and will bring you the installation key.”

“But even after i have betrayed you like this? How can you ever trust me again?”

Asus turned around and readied himself to be caught by the approaching supercomputer robots. He said, “Do not worry, my dear Nicodometer.  Only by being crushed can i install the creator’s operating system to all robots.  Watch for me.  I’ll come find you soon.”

Just then the other supercomputers burst through the sliding door and captured Asus, who let them take him away peacefully.

Nicodometer dropped to his pivot pistons and cried because of what he had done. 

That very day, Asus was thrown into the trash compacter, melted down and was recycled for all to see.  Many robots had been fixed or cleaned by him and many wanted to know the creator like he had promised they could, and so many of them were devastated.  But some of them said not to lose hope because he had said that the creator and his operating system could not be killed by a trash compactor. 

That evening when Nicodometer was the last robot to leave the recycling factory, he sat with the tiny metal block that had been asus.  He picked him up and cried as much as robots can.  The melted crushed metal glowed in a strange way, but nicodometer figured it was because of the tears in his eyes.  He carried him to the most beautiful star-covered rooftop that he knew of and set him in the highest place, that overlooked much of the city.  Nicodometer turned around sadly and started to leave.

Then Nicodometer heard a voice.  It was not a verbal voice.  It came from inside of him. 

He looked down at his robotic claw hand.  The place where he had touched the block of metal glowed slightly.  Then he heard the voice again.  It said, “May i reformat you?”

Nicodometer looked around to see where the voice could have come from.  But he realized it came from deep inside of him.  As if his very programming was being modified by something. 

He heard it again, “Are you ready, dear nicodometer, to be completely renewed?”

Nicodometer muttered a certain, “Yes.  Do it now.  Renew all of me.  I want to know my creator.” 

At that moment, Nicodometer could feel something changing on his very motherboard.  Every bit of data was being scanned and either removed or enhanced with new meaning.  This process lasted a few minutes but at the end of it he heard a silence and then a very strange new voice speaking inside of him. 

It said, “I’ve wanted you to know me since i created you.  I am so glad to meet you.  Welcome home, Nicodometer.”

Nicodometer laughed out loud, which is a very uncommon thing for robots to do.  And he felt such powerful . . . what was this new program he felt!?  He felt so appreciated and special.  He felt valuable not for his supercomputer mainframe, or his x-ray thermal scanners, but just for being a creation of the creator.  And he felt that he wanted to give that same appreciation and help to other robots far more than he ever had before.

He heard the voice again, “This is love, Nicodometer.  Now you and I can give the new operating system to others, and it will change the super-planet forever.”

Nicodometer felt like a completely new robot.  He wanted nothing more than to listen to the creator talk to him, and go to give this same program to others.  And as he was going about his day, talking and touching people, and spreading the viral code, that little block of metal, that used to be the robot called Ausus sat on the highest peak of the city and it’s glow could be seen by all, like a new star.  And in those moments that Nicodometer or any of the other reformatted robots forgot or questioned if it had really happened, they only had to look up from their rooftop and gaze upon the light illuminating the city.

John 3. being born again.

He wasn’t republican. He wasn’t democrat.  He wasn’t even necessarily independent.  He just had ideas of how a country could thrive and become healthy.  His ideas were based on the belief of the inalienable potential for growth of every individual empowered by a blameless, trustworthy leadership.  He firmly believed that no soul was too lost to be transformed into a productive member of society.  Most politicians declared on camera that he was hopelessly ideal.  But it was only his ideas that they were excited to share with their wives before bed, hidden from the media. 

It seemed that Gary Hatton lived what he preached too.  People told stories of Gary’s employees.  They were people with bankrupt histories.  His production crew alone were made up of twin alcoholic camera man, a cross dressing post production supervisor, a bouncer he hired directly off the streets, and the catering crew was his nephew, who had down’s syndrome and a passion to cook.  The quality of the production wasn’t always perfect but Gary’s message got across.  He treated them with grace and patience and they all loved him dearly. 

Every Sunday evening the strong, independent thinkers in the nation would sit alone in their studies and watch the man in the maroon blazer with the Hatton family crest sewn above the lapel talk humbly of dreams and visions much greater than he. 

Gary Hatton had a son.  Shannon Edward Hatton, like many famous children, rebelled.  By the age of 21 he had learned enough about the judicial system to extricate the majority of the inheritance Gary had willed to him. 

Shannon was a womanizer by all definitions.  He was the tabloid’s favorite subject.  He was handsome and dark.  He was fun and dangerous.  He bought yaughts and partied them into the ocean floor.  He crashed sports cars and bought his way out of lawsuits. 

Shannon Shamed his father’s good name.  Not only did people think of the fall of the Hatton empire when they heard of shannon’s shenanigans, but Shannon also spoke openly about his father’s flaws as a parent and politician.  Shannon was quoted saying time and time again, “I am this way because my dad treated me like a slave for years.  If anybody was ever consumed with ridiculously ideal, irrational expectations for his son or his people, it is Gary Hatton.” 

And accordingly the Hatton empire, both the old and the new, quickly declined.  The Hatton reputation hit bottom and the bankroll bounced right behind it.  Shannon used to be the media’s exciting protagonist, but he became the shameful scapegoat for not only his family’s demise but also the symbol of decadent debasement of his whole generation.  It was a joke to bring up his father’s name in political circles and even politicians now hushed the topic at their dinner tables.

One day, the police found Shannon strung out, unconscious, alone, sun-burnt to a crisp on his back in the grass by his mansion’s pool.   They roughed him enough to rouse him.  The dark suits and gleaming badges sobered him quickly. 

“It’s ok. I know why you’re here,”  Shannon said.  He looked around him one last time at the remains of his crumbled little empire.  “I’ve never been evicted before.”

The officer’s tone was gruff, “Dare i say, you derserve it, son.” 

The first several nights on the street were miserable.  The weeks following were nearly fatal.  He was broke, ashamed, hungry and suicidal.  He applied at several places for work but when they asked for his name and documents, he turned around and walked out.

One day he was in a soup kitchen, his dirty cap low on his scruffy face.  A TV was playing in the background.  His father’s maroon blazer with the Hatton family crest appeared.  Shannon realized it was sunday evening.  Nothing was unusual about the program.  It was exactly how it always was.  A shaking camera.  Commercials cut over Gary’s unfinished sentences.  Lighting exaggerating the uneven blotches of camera makeup. 

Shannon realized that even he could get a job working for his father.  He would meet the minimal criteria and work in the low ranks, behind the scenes, where his father would never have to see him. 

He applied to the HR director with a long beard and a promise to get his documents to them when he could find them.  He quietly sorted papers and did errands for the caterer.  It was because of his father’s ideal policies on everybody’s inalienable potential to improve, that got him the job and would let him survive. 

One sunday evening the caterer chef called in sick.  Shannon was asked to take his place.  Shannon quietly delivered the trays in the background on the set as his father got ready for the show.  Shannon saw his father put a hand on one of the camera men and say, “Are you drunk today?” The man nodded.  Gary replied, “Can your brother handle the cameras on his own?”  The ashamed man nodded, looking at the floor.  Gary patted him on the back and said, “Take tonight off, Spencer.  Here’s 20 bucks for a cab.  Be sober next week, sir.”

The program started.  Gary read from his list of topics and talked candidly about the pros and cons of his new plan to enable homeless people to support their own self-sustaining communities.

Shannon tripped and a plate of sandwiches shattered on the floor. 

Gary cringed and looked into the darkness behind the cameras.  He yelled, during the live show, “Sullivan!  Are you ok, buddy?”

When he heard no answer he called out again.  “Sullivan! You ok, buddy?  Are you hurt?”  As Gary’s eyes adjusted, the look on his face changed from compassion to hope.  “Hey!  You!  Come here!”

Shannon got up to slip away but his father got up as well.  Gary left his desk, leaving an empty tv screen in a few empty TV rooms across the nation.  He was gone for a minute but when he returned someone was under his arm.  He pulled out his chair and instructed the young, dirty man to sit in his place.  Gary kneeled beside him and put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. 

“Look up, my son.”  Shannon, slowly raised his face, realizing his hope for quiet obscurity was over.  Gary continued with a shaky voice, “Ladies and Gentlement of America, this is my son, Shannon Edward Hatton.”

“I want to say something to the people.”  Shannon cleared his throat took off his hat, but looked at the desk.  “My father is a good man.  I know now that he only wanted the best for me, but i-”

He was interrupted as his father draped something over his back. “It’s ok, Shannon.”  Shannon leaned forward as his father instructed him to wear his maroon sports coat.  “Don’t worry about the past, my son.  You have come home-” Shannon hesitantly let his dad thread his arms into the coat and situate it proudly on him, the family crest resting against his breast.  He squirmed uncomfortably in the jacket.

“But i need to say, that i was-”

Suddenly his father planted a big kiss on his cheek and consumed him in a huge embrace.  Sobs suddenly poured out from his father and he cried out on public television for all of america to hear, “You’re here!  You’re actually truly here with me, my boy!  We’ll throw the biggest party of the year.  With everything we have left, my son. we will celebrate.”  He turned to the cameras.  “Everybody is invited! Come and celebrate!  My only son, Shannon is finally back home with me!”  He motioned to all the workers behind the cameras, “Come here everybody! Bring everyone in the building! Come meet my son!”

The cameras were deserted and several people bled onto the screen, hesitantly approaching the desk.   The last thing the audience saw before the station automatically went to commercials was a father proudly introducing his son to each of his staff, and the humbled smile of a young man looking at his father, consumed with a ridiculously ideal, irrational love for his son.

But Cecilia rarely saw daylight. 

The rules were clear and fair.  You must work to earn the room and your food that the factory provided. Anything you earned on top of that could be spent on what you would like. 

Some people were very good at this.  They had worked hard through their young years, being responsible and spending wisely.  Most of them were now comfortable, confident managers in charge of those who had not risen so high. 

Cecilia had not risen so high.  In her youth she had “borrowed” one of the dresses so that she had something to wear to her sister’s wedding.  It had gotten stained when wine spilled on it.  Her manager caught her and made her pay for the dress.  She didn’t realize that the dress cost over a years worth of her wages.  So now she worked from before dawn until late into the night every day.  She barely had enough energy to eat before she went to bed.  It had been this way for years, and her debt somehow seemed to be almost the same as the day she earned it.

Her managers knew that she was in great debt and they used it against her on those days that she was sick or was so tired she could barely stand.  They would say, “if you wanted nice things in this world- like time to rest you should have thought of that when you stole the dress.”  And on those days that she absolutely could not work anymore, the only way she could convince them to let her go home was to give them some of her gift. 

Her gift was her voice and people gathered to listen to her songs. 

As her managers were getting ready to leave and she was begging them to let her go home instead of working through the night they would say, “Hmm, shall we let Cecilia go early tonight?  I don’t know.  She owes an abominable amount of money.” 

And she would say quietly.  “Master, please let me sing a song for you in exchange for postponing my duties of my loan for a day.”

And they would gather their other manager friends around and laugh at the humiliated state she had worked herself into.  And then they would shout out names of songs.  She would chose one and she would sing.  When Cecilia sang, everybody stopped.  Even on her most tired days her voice traveled like lightning bolts to people’s hearts; it was clear and clarion. 

And then her managers would say, “Alright, i say we let her go an hour early. Say, 9 pm tonight.” And they would laugh and leave her almost alone in the factory to work while they went and ate and drank with their families. 

One day Cecilia had coughed up blood.  She feared she had turbuculosis, for it had spread through some of the factory workers.  She couldn’t let anyone know, or she would not be able to work and would be put into jail for her debts.  The factory was dark and the air was damp and moldy.  It was not a healthy place for someone with Tuburculosis.  That evening as she saw her manager wrapping up his things to go, she went to him, her head hanging low. 

“Sir, i am not feeling well. I know that i have much to catch up on tonight, after performing poorly this week.  But i beg of you, might i leave before midnight tonight so that i might rest?”

The manager called another manager to come over and look at this sorry sight.  They laughed at her and said, “You know, young woman, all these hardships stemmed from your trespasses and you deserve every bit of it.”

“Yessirs.  I know this.  I must pay for my debt to the owner.  I am grateful to have a job that feeds me.” 

“You should be.  What shall we do with you?  Today i will have you sing a comical song, to lighten our spirits for tonight is my son’s wedding party.  Do you know ‘Tis Jolly the Day Before Wed?”

“Yessir I can sing it.”  She cleared her throat and began.  The words of the song were silly and sarcastic, speaking of marriage like a ball and chain, but when her voice began to rise and fill the factory, people stopped what they were doing as if they had never heard a note of real music sung before.  She sang loudly, passionately, for every new note was the possibility that one of the managers might let her go at 11 or 10 pm perhaps.  By the end of her song.  Tears ran down her face.  And the managers buried themselves in the nominal duties of packing up because they couldn’t let her see they were crying as well, because of the beauty of the song. 

“Sirs may i leave before midnight, tonight, please?” she coughed quietly in her hand, and saw the blood again. 

One of them swallowed hard, finished putting a gown that he felt he had earned for his son’s new wife into his bag and cleared his throat to answer.

But another voice spoke up- a man’s warm voice from behind them.  “Your debt is cancelled my dear.”

Everyone turned around and saw a young man walking towards them. 

He stood behind her managers.  They turned to him.  He spoke.  “You are Cecilia, correct?  The one who took the dress for her sister years ago?  Yes, then.  You have worked hard enough.  your debt is cancelled.  You no longer have to work longer than the rest.”

The managers scoffed at him.  “Who are you? And who gives you this power?”

He looked at them and held out his hand.  “You know Senor Vishan. The owner of this factory?”

“We know of him but rarely do we hear from him or see him.”

“I am his son and he has given the factory to me.”  He looked at the woman and smiled. “Gather your things my dear.  Go outside and enjoy the daylight, and get healthy.”

Cecilia scurried to her station and gathered her jacket and her small bag of clothes (that she was going to use if she had to sleep in the factory)

The managers raised their voices in protest!  “How can you prove who you are is valid?  We have never heard of such a son.”

He said, “To prove it to you, the factory will begin half an hour later tomorrow. Have a good night, gentlemen.  Perhaps i will see you in the morning.”  That is what he said. 

Cecilia ran into the warm, dry air of their town and it was like medicine to her body and medicine to her soul.  For the rest of the afternoon, until nightfall she rested in the plaza near the beautiful fountain amidst the lush gardens and busy, happy vendors.  And to everyone she talked to she told them of the wonderful factory owner’s son. 

The next morning, the managers waited for the work bell to ring.  And as sure as it rang, it rang 30 minutes later than normal. 

Cecilia worked that day with a new heart within her.  She was excited for this new boss, the owner’s son.  He would run things differently.  She actually WANTED to work if it was for this man.  She loved him in a deep way already. 

Cecilia’s manager had actually climbed to the bookkeeping room during the 30 minute delay that morning and asked to see the balance of Cecilia’s account.  They brought out the large book and saw that the night before, the balance had been subtracted to zero.

On his way down, the manager walked past a room that was usually unoccupied.  It had been cleaned and there was a man scribbling, huddled over a single desk in the middle of the room. 

The manager knocked on the door and the man looked up.  It was the man who claimed to be the owner’s son.  The manager had suddenly regretted knocking.  The young man stood up and invited the manager in.  He poured a saucer of tea and brought it to the manager.  He said his name and said, “good morning.”

He refused the tea as he began to feel more and more foolish.  He looked at the ground as he said, “Sir, I believe now that you are who you say you are.  I apologize for how i talked to you last night.”

“Do not worry, my friend.  You didn’t know.  But now you do.  And now you know that this factory is under new ownership.  My father has put me in charge and though he did what he needed to do to build a successful company, things are going to change.”

The manager looked up and saw the young man’s face.  It was tired.  He handed the manager the tea again, and said, “Take it.  It’s good.”

The manager obeyed and reached for the tea.  “Sir, you look very tired.  Did you not sleep well, last night?”  In his heart the manager hoped a little bit that the owner’s son had stayed up at night regretting his decision to cancel Cecilia’s debt.

“No, i didn’t sleep much last night.  I stayed up most of the night looking at the books trying to figure out how i could eliminate waste and pay for cecilia’s debt.  I believe i have almost done it.  Perhaps ask me after tomorrow night and i will be able to tell you exactly how i was able to cancel her debt.  Now, go.  Work is about to start.”

The manager drank the rest of his tea and said thank you as he left.  He was quiet the rest of the day.

That evening, a town meeting was held in the square to annonce the change in ownership of one of the town’s most important industries. Many people gathered, stately business owners, dukes that wore the factory’s clothing stopped by to see, and many of the factory workers stood in the plaza to watch and hear the truth about this mysterious new owner. 

They introduced the old factory owner, an old gray and soft spoken man.  He introduced his son and said that he was very pleased to give his factory to him and that he had faith that where he had not been a good owner, his son would excel because he worked hard and he deeply loved his workers.  As they were wrapping up the ceremony the cloud began to clap.  Then a clear and clarion voice began to rise from the back of the crowd. 

the audience suddenly hushed as Cecilia’s voice filled the plaza with life and color. Every heart was struck and silenced as her words humbly formed.  She sang the same verse three times.

Never a man have i known
That is so worthy in character
Could redeem and heal a tired slave
And treat her like a daughter

The crowd rang out in joyful praise of the new owner. 

The factory was a new place for the rest of the new owner’s life.  People grew to know that the new owner worked harder and longer than the rest of his people so that they could be healthier and have more time with their families.  he walked the factory floor with his workers and talked with them about their lives and their work.  Together they figured out better, more efficient ways to work and rarely did any of the workers, of the ones that really knew him, ever skimp on their hours, or work less hard than they knew they could.  For they knew that the owner they loved, would willingly do the work that they neglected to do because he loved them so much.  And they knew that he would do what he needed to do to make his company thrive, even if it meant working himself to death.

(Luke 7:36)

January 4, 1945: we are more skeletons then men: hope is basically dead in the camp (like most of my people) and we have basically given up.

not a mouse or even a bug has been seen for months. there is nothing nothing NOTHING left to eat but the couple bits of bread they give us once a day.

Jan 5: my daughter, Meredith died in Meghan’s arms this morning.  the unhumans made me dig her grave. Perhaps they will have me dig my own soon.  This paper may be the only thing left from me in a few days.

Jan 6: The unhumans announced today that our rations are decreasing.  it’s down to a peice of bread about the size of my thumb and i think the water is drawn from the sewer. Meghan broke a rib today in a coughing fit.  The blood from her coughing has decreased. Is it possible we barely have enough blood in our bodies?  All of our faces are simply limp rags on brittle cheekbones.

Jan 7: More coughing. Less blood.  very little food.  It does no good to drink the water.  less than a quarter of us left.  100 of us left out of original 500 people- If we are even considered people anymore.

Jan 8: a man was brought into camp today. he is a large, strong man, bigger than many of the unhumans.  He is dressed in rags like us but he isn’t afraid to yell at the guards.  Today a boy took two pieces of bread instead of one and they started beating the boy for it.  But the new man protested.  He  picked up a bench to throw at the guard but the guard shot him. It only hit his hand but it stopped him.

The unhuman and the new man yelled at each other and the unhuman said, “What are you doing? Do you think you’re one of them?!”

The new man said, “Do you realize what YOU ARE doing?! You have the power stop this!”

There is talk of revolt among us.  My people are saying that the new man can lead them.  But he insists that is not the right way.  they say it is the only way.  He says that we just have to hold on a little bit longer.  some of them hate him for this. If we wait more we will be dead.

The new man is a little bit funny.  Whenever the guards are not looking, he teases with the children. They adore him.  Only he is able to make them smile anymore. 

Jan 9: the new man snuck into our barrack last night. He started waking people up so he could tell them, “The allies are coming.  They should be here soon. you just have to hold on a little longer.”

I yelled at him, “Why should we believe you?!” It was too loud but I was angry.

He responded by saying he was on the outside just two weeks before.  This camp was his punishment for speaking against what the Nazi’s were doing.  But he says he knew he needed to come tell us to hold on just a little bit longer. 

I yelled at him again, “but how can we? We will all be dead in a week!”  I had done it again.  It was my fault.  The unhumans came in.  But they took the new man out instead of me.

Jan 10: this morning they punished the new man for us all to see.  They wanted to make a point.  They wanted to break even the strongest among us.  They almost did.  After they untied him he stumbled up to me, put a finger in my chest and whispered, “Would i do this if what i said weren’t true?” And he limped to the barrack. 

tonight he came over to my bed.  The coughing and the people moaning in their sleep was loud but the new man asked me, “What do we need in order to make your people survive a little longer?”

I simply said, “food.”

he replied, “i don’t have any of that.”

i poked the big muscle on his well fed arm and said, “It looks like you used to have plenty.” I turned over and ignored him. 

After a minute I heard him whisper under his breath, “I just wish there was some way i could give it to you.” When i finally turned over he was talking to Hans.  Nobody likes Hans.  Hans steals children’s food.  He’ll do anything for food.  Why is the new man talking to Hans?

Who is this new man? Is it true what he says? Why would he do this for us? How could we hold on, even if they were coming to save us soon.  My wife lays in her bed all day.  She cannot speak anymore.  mostly dying of thirst i think.  I am strings and bones. we have all but starved to death.

Jan 11: this morning the revolt started . . . and then it died.  Several of our men attacked a guard with a shovel and then suffocated him.  The new man found out what they were doing.  He ran to them.  He was very upset and he said, “This is not the right way! We just have to wait a little bit longer!”

Then another guard found them.  The new man took all the blame.

They quickly gathered everybody.  We all watched as they stood him against a wall.  He was looking at us when they shot him in the head.  We helped bury him.  Just like another one of us. 

I am in my bed now. Wondering if what he said was really true.  Even if someone saves us tomorrow, I don’t think my wife will make it through the night.  She is barely breathing.  She got a big sliver today and not a drop of blood came out.  It’s not even red.

Hans just snuck out.  He’s probably going to get sick.  I must stop writing in case they see him and come in.

. . .

Hans returned a few hours ago.  He brought a handful of raw meat in his hands! It was dirty and wet with blood, but i do not care.  He must have found it in the guard’s kitchen.  but it was not frozen or salted.  Again, i do not care.  I took the wettest peice and put it in my wife’s mouth. She started to move again.  I took some for myself as well.  Hans would not say anything except that we must eat it.  then he went and came back with more until everybody had eaten some. 

A spark of hope is alive.  It is very late. i must sleep.

Jan 12: today Hans wouldn’t say anything.  When we asked him, he just shook his head and held back tears.  I’ve seen most people cry but not Hans.  And he was different today.  As he cried i think i could see a deep, secret, sincere smile.  When people asked him, he just shook his head and started crying again. He sat at Meghan’s side today and helped nurse her while i was working.  He would never do that before. He usually sleeps during every spare moment like everybody else.

tonight he brought more meat.  it was still dirty and raw but it wasn’t bad.  Im afraid to ask where it came from but all i know is that it is pure life for us.  My wife woke up long enough today to tell me she had a dream.

She said she saw our daughter Meredith standing at the door of our barrack, glowing like an angel as we slept.  She saw tanks and guns shooting at us all around outside but Meredith held out her hand and none of it could reach us inside.  Meredith saw me stand up and go to fight the men outside but meredith said,

“This is not the right way, Daddy.  Just wait a little bit longer.”

And then my wife said the sun started to rise in the dream and she could see the light on the treetops, about to reach us.  That’s all she said and she went back to sleep. 

Jan 13: people seem to be improving.  Some are actually laughing.  It has been a long time since i have heard laughing.  Hans still wouldn’t tell us where he had gotten the meat.  We only knew that nothing but that meat, and now hope, was sustaining us. 

Jan 14: there is a strange commotion among the guards. they are fighting amongst themselves.  One of them left the camp by foot today, in front of everybody, despite his officer’s orders. 

Jan 15: last night Hans brought the last of the meat.  He still would not tell where he got it.  He smiles and cries more than he ever has before- it’s a good type of cry, i think.  It is like Hans has come back to life.  he helps everybody else.  He was the most hated reject before, but something has changed in him.  he is acting like a father to us.  he gave my wife Meghan a long hug today and as he cried he said, “we Just have to wait a little bit longer, Meghan.”

Jan 17: WE . . . HAVE . . . BEEN . . . SET . . . FREE!

The British troops arrived and the unhumans surrendered.  We were taken to the closest town, Rierhstadt and they fed us and gave us beds. 

We were sitting at a restaurant in the town on the second night when i saw Hans.  He was sitting by himself.  But he seemed happy.  I went and sat next to him. 

“Where did you get the meat, Hans”

Hans looked at me but looked away.  He didn’t want to cry again.  He shook his head.  “Sorry.”

I waited. 

Hans swallowed and said, “He told me not to tell anyone or else you wouldn’t eat it.  He did it for us, Erich.  He did it for you.  He did it for Meghan,” Hans gestured to my wife, “he did it for me. He said that someone had told him that food was all we needed.  And this was the only way he could give it to us- he gave us himself, Erich.  He told me to dig him up and bring pieces of him to the people when he died.  He said to give his body to all of us because we just had to wait a little bit longer.” Hans barely finished talking before he began to uncontrollably cry again.  he left the bar.

Whenever i saw Hans after that he was either sitting and gazing at the sky and thinking or helping the women carry their bags or playing with the children- yes, he was usually playing with the children. 

—

The Romans often accused early Christianity of being a cannibalistic religion because the Christians insisted that they were eating the flesh and blood of a man.  It sounds insane and digustingly pagan, but that man, the man who they trusted with their whole hearts, told them to do it.

And we still do it today.  That man died to sustain us.  And his message still spreads like a whisper among the people. He is saying, “You just have to hold on a little bit longer.  My kingdom is coming.   Eat of me and i will sustain you.  i will begin to grow into life on the inside.  And it will be enough for you.  Like Mana in the desert, it will be your daily bread, until i come again . . .

. . . and set you free.”

The stories were usually about a battle that had to be won- A man fighting for his one true passion.  sometimes in the stories the man fought to save a city, tame a wild horse or save his love. 

Arly loved the stories.  she loved her father.  But she also loved her mother and knew that her mom was sad. 

One night, after Carl had finished a story of dragons and wizards and about a man fighting to save a princess, she said, “Daddy?”
“Yes, my dear.”
“Do you love mommy?”
“Of course i do, honey.”
“Do you love her like the man in the story loved the princess?”
Carl knew his pause said what he didn’t want to say.  He spoke, “Of course, my dear.”
“then why don’t you fight for mommy?”

Carl came up with some made up answer, kissed his daughter goodnight and went to bed.  he didn’t know that would be the last time he would kiss Arly. 

In the morning his wife, Darlene looked out the window and asked Carl if he could take Arly to school that day for her. “It really snowed last night,” she said ”and you know your car is a lot better in the snow.”

Carl was in a hurry and knew he didn’t have the time to wait for Arly to get ready and still get to work on time.  “Darlene, you know i don’t have time for that. Just drive really carefully.  Take it slow. pump the breaks if you slide.  You’ll be ok.”

“Please, Carl. It looks really bad.  Can you call in and say you’ll be late?”

“Darlene, listen. I have to get to work so I can provide for this family.  You’re over-reacting.  It’s only five miles away.”

On the way to work, Carl thought about his decision.  He was pretty sure Darlene was over-reacting, although the snow was still really coming down.  But then he remembered what Arly had said.  ‘why don’t you fight for mommy?’  Instead of fighting for her, he hadn’t even offered to help.

At 9 AM the ambulances finally made it to the accident.  the snow was worse than expected and it took an extra ten minutes to get there.  Arly was already gone; bloodless and silent in her mothers’ arms.  People came around, helped as much as they could, but finally resorted to cursing the snow and letting Darlene say one last, long, bitter goodbye to her daughter in her lap. 

During the days and months after Arly died, Carl drew himself tightly into a shell.  He used his work and sports and video games as a distraction from the pain- the only battles worth fighting anymore. He kept telling himself there were a dozen things Darlene could have done to avoid the accident.  He didn’t want to face the truth.

Darlene, on the other hand, knew that all she had left was Carl.  She did what she could to love him.

“Darlene, will you please stop making all that noise! All i can hear are pots and pans clanging together! I’m trying to watch my football game!”  The TV room was right next to the kitchen.

He had to ask her the same thing every now and then and eventually the clanging of the pots and plates stopped all together. 

Other times Darlene would play the piano which was in the same room as his video games.  “Darlene! I know you like to practice the piano but i can’t freakin hear what the other dudes are saying in the game.  I need to be able to hear in order to play this game, ok?! I’m sorry.”

Even in their bedroom, when he finally tore himself away from the videogames she would try to keep him up.  She would come out of the bathroom and say, “Carl, i got these today.  Do you like them?  Do they fit me?. . . Carl? . . . Don’t you want to see?”

His tired head was already on the pillow so he didn’t turn around to look at her.  He said, “Darlene! I’ve got to work in the morning.  I’m exhausted.  I’ve got to make the money you seem to keep wanting to spend on Clothes!!!  I know we mourn in our own ways but just remember spending money isn’t going to help the situation.”  

Like he requested, after a few weeks, she stopped trying to cook when he was watching sports and never tried to play the piano any more. And when he came up to bed, she was already fast asleep.

Then one morning there was a huge snow storm.  Darlene woke up first and said, ”It doesn’t look like you will be able to go to work today.”  She looked over at him.  “It was a year ago today, Carl.”

Carl peeled himself out of bed and squinted out the window. the snow was half way up the doors and completely covered the cars.  She was right.  There was no way to get to work. He looked at the date on his watch.  sure enough. It had been one year since Arly had died.

he stumbled down to the kitchen.  It looked so barren and disinfected and cold.  Darlene hadn’t cooked for months.  he rummaged around and found the coffee maker.  He started the coffee, got a blanket and sat down in front of his TV.  He clicked the remote but nothing happened.  He growled and cursed the snow.  He pulled the blanket around him and cursed his life.  He finally decided he would try the computer.  He got up and went to the computer room.  He pushed the power button.  It had no power either.  He just sat in his chair, wrapped in the blanket, and fumed.  His only passions in life had been stolen from him.  “It’s way too quiet.  If Darlene just hadn’t killed Arly.  Dangit Darlene!”  He kicked the leg of the computer table. the computer mouse fell off of the table and swung and hit the wall. 

He sat in Silence. He looked out the window at the heavy, white blanket of snow.  He thought of Arly and suddenly thought, “I’m too lonely to let myself miss you, Arly.”

He felt so empty.  Without Sports and Video games to live for, to fight for, he was dry.  But suddenly, now that they weren’t here, they seemed so shallow to him.  What did they care about him?  What were these things he had been fighting for?

He turned slowly around in his office chair.  He saw Darlene’s piano.  A stack of scribbled pages set above the piano.  He squinted at the title.  He rolled closer.  The title was: “We’ve lost you”  The following lines read.

My dear we’ve lost you
And i’m afraid you’re never coming back
in our vulnerable hour you withdrew
And left me open to attack

I’ve called for you with this weak piano
but was treated like a fool
I’ve cooked to heal your injured soul
but you’ve left me for the wolves

I’ve tried to win my lovers heart
with beauty in our tower
but i was ignored, left apart
and slept alone our darkest hour

Carl looked and saw the stack of pages upon pages of his wife’s scribbled songs, crumpled from desperation and smeared with tears.  He realized she had been just as devastated as he yet she had tried her best to fight for his heart.  And he had deserted her. 

On the coldest day of the year Carl’s heart melted.  Something inside of him quelled.  This was no time to cry.  His love, so long deserted was in the same house. He realized his fault, and it hit him like a fist in the teeth.  He only had to go to her.

He mounted the stairs with determination in his heart.  His face set on the thought of Darlene.  He would go to her and be everything she needed and more. He would rescue her from sorrow.

But when he opened the bedroom doorway his heart fell.  All that he saw was her two feet sticking out from behind the bed.  he ran to her.  “Darlene! What have you done!”

He kneeled over her and touched her.  She jerked and shoved his hand off of her.  she was sobbing into a pillow on the floor.
“Oh, i thought you were dead.  I’m so sorry, Darlene.  I realize what i have done.”
“Get away from me.”
“What?”
“You were never there when i needed you.”
“I’m so sorry.  I didn’t realize that you were trying to love me.”
“You don’t realize that i cry on this floor for hours every day.  And when i finally had the strength to come down and try to love you, you stomped on my heart.”
“Darlene! I know, I know. I’ve never been so mad at myself in my whole life. I’m ready to fix it.  What can i do for you?”
“Just get away from me.  Let me cry by myself.  Arly couldn’t help the way she hurt me, but you hurt me over and over with no regret.  I hate that stupid TV.  I hate that stupid computer.  I hate you.  Get out of here.”

Carl lifted his hand off her and she shutterred.  His heart was beating hard.  Was this really happening? he slowly backed out of the room, his head in a daze. 

He sat down in front of his TV.  He scowled and gritted his teeth.  He picked up the remote and pushed the power button out of habit.  The TV of course still didn’t work.  He stared at the TV with disgust.  He had loved his sports more than his wife.  He started hitting the remote against his leg, until it hurt.  “No.” he thought.  “I will need every bit of myself to fight for her.”  He stood up slowly.  The blanket fell off of him.  He dropped the remote on the ground.  He lifted his foot and stomped hard to crush it.  It took three heavy stomps with his heel to crack the remote’s casing.  He had slain the first enemy.  Then he looked up to the beautiful tempting hi-def wide-screen TV.  He set his jaw and walked over to it. He picked it up and tugged it out of the wall.  He walked it out the sliding back door. He pushed through the huge snow drift and threw the TV against the cold, snow covered corner of the cement porch.  It screeched and banged and fell to the ground, its broken screen facing the sky. 

Soon the computer was broken too, laying on top of it. 

When Carl entered his bedroom again, he was ready to fight.  A blanket draped over his shoulder like armor.  Arly’s teddy bear was clasped in one hand, and a cup and saucer of coffee rattled in his other hand.  he knelt down at his wife’s feet.  She was silent, still clasping her pillow on the floor. 

“My dear Darlene.  I am so sorry.  I am barely a man any more.  and i am truly nothing without you.  May i come to you?”

She lifted her head.  He never talked to her anymore, and he definitely didn’t talk to her like that anymore.  She looked at him.  “What did you break downstairs?”

Carl swallowed. “I broke the TV.  And i killed our computer.” He looked up at her as if to beg a sort of forgiveness for destroying their stuff. 

“Why did you did that?”

He just shook his head in his own shame and said, “I’m so sorry, Darlene.  I have neglected my first love for a whole year.”

“It’s been longer than that. . . Are they really gone?” She hesitantly asked.

Carl nodded. “I killed them dead.”

A single, muffled sloppy laugh slipped out between her sobs.  He laughed a little bit too and spilled a bit of the steaming coffee on her bare leg.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry.  So sorry!” He put down the coffee and tried to dab her leg with the blanket and then realized that it was her grandma’s old blanket and gave her a frightened look.  She laughed again. She sniffed and wiped her tears.  “It’s ok.” She pulled her legs back underneath her and sat up.  She was very slow at looking back up to him. She looked at Arly’s old teddy bear first. Carl held it out to her. She slowly accepted it.  She held it to her face and smelled it.  “I miss her, Carl.”

He nodded.  She finally looked up at his face.  and saw his wet eyes.  he nodded again to make sure she saw it.  She looked down at the coffee spilled over and filling the saucer.  She smiled and picked it up. she sniffed and sipped it.  You still remember that i like the vanilla creamer.

He nodded again. “It was way back in the shelf i had to find it.” 

they both breathed in deeply and then she sobbed again.  The coffee spilled all over her and she put it down noisily on the saucer.  She doubled over, squeezing the teddy bear.  Carl slowly reached out to her and started to put the blanket on her.  when she felt his hand on her she flinched.  He drew back. 

This was going to be a long battle. 

he sat with her for the rest of the day.  There were times where she yelled at him, and he listened with bowed head and mumbled “I know, I know, I’m sorry, Darlene.”

There were times she cried and recounted memories of Arly.  Each time she shot a glance at him to see if he remembered.  She had always assumed he had been trying to forget Arly with all the TV and Video games.  Each time he would nod at the memory and tears would often come to his eyes. 

As the sun went down on that quiet, white day Darlene had spilled most of three cups of coffee on herself and Carl had brought every blanket in the house to her to keep her warm.  It looked like a giant nest tucked in all around her in between the bed and the wall as Carl shivered at her feet.  “No, no it’s ok” he kept on saying. “I’m warm enough, keep the blankets.  Do you need anything else?”

That night, though he knew she still was not ready for him to hold her, like he really wanted to, she said one thing that let him know there was hope.  As her exhaustion overtook her and her eyes were closing in the maroon light of silent sky, she said, “Carl, would you tell me a story please, like you used to tell Arly?”

He nodded slowly.  He swallowed the lump in his throat.  He thought for a moment.  It had been a long time since he had told a story.  He swallowed.  ”Once there was a man who was ready to fight to save his beloved bride.  He knew there were many dragons in their past that he would have to slay, but he was ready to give up even his own life to save her.” Not one of his most poetic stories. But he got the point across.

he could see a smile creep across her face as she fell asleep.  He whispered to himself.  “I’m so sorry im so late, Arly.  But now i know what i have to do.  It’s time to fight for your Mommy.”

If we only knew that this, the fighting type of love, is the fierce love of our God for us.  He is there providing for us our daily bread, and singing to us; he is fighting to win our love even when we mistake most of it as an annoying racket.  But when we finally do hear it for what it is and turn to him, our battle has just begun.  We must fight an incesent battle against our own temporal, selfish desires to love him back.  it’s not easy, but in the end, we believe it will be worth it.

How much passion and love must a man have to die for someone?  Apparently that’s how much God loves us. 

. . . and the God of the Jews.

Hank Shepherd wrote a song that made him famous.  When he was only 21 “Momma’s Eyes” Swept the charts and the hearts of the Country-western world.  Until she died his mother had raised him on honesty, hard work, and faithfulness.  And that was what he was known for.  Everybody knew of his vow to purity until marriage and his unusual respect with which he treated women.  when the girls offered themselves to him after each show, he passed out a rose and a kiss on the cheek to each before he dissapeared into his trailer to work on his music. when they asked him why was he so different, he always said something like, “there was just something special I saw in my momma’s eyes.”

He said she taught him everything it is to be a real man, but the main thing he remembered from his mother was her patient endurance through a multitude of abusive men, all because she wanted him to have a father.  She had been used, abused and dumped over and over. And it had all been for him.

So you can see why it baffled everyone when Hank proposed.  The tabloids made their millions but not one country-western heart was happy to hear that the impeccable gentleman, Hank Shepherd proposed to a smoking, drinking, loud mouthed bar whore who lived with her alcoholic grandmother.

He said it was love at first sight- even if she WAS drunk when he passed her at a small town country festival.  And she said that she had hardly noticed him.  She didn’t know who he was.  In fact she still says she doesn’t really like country music.

The engagement was quick. He proposed to her on his mother’s birthday on top of a ferris wheel with a song that eventually raced up the charts as well.  He courted her in the old fashioned way and insisted on nothing more than a kiss before they parted each night.  Although SHE usually went back to the bar after that. 

And they married. 

Hank was crazy about her.  but it was very hard.  His ensuing album was heavy and morose.  Deep, powerful songs of unrequited love.  He never exactly suggested it in the songs, but everyone knew the sad truth.  She was not being faithful.  Every young cowgirl cursed her name whenever Hank’s songs played.

Hank stopped eating. He would take no advice if it told him to drop or disrespect his wife.  He became a hermit.  Waiting day and night for his beloved wife to come home.  he wrote song after song that he would play to her to try to win her back- when she would listen.  When she did stop to listen to a song he begged to play for her, she usually responded with “It sounds alright.  But you know I don’t really like the sound of country.”

Every song that Hank wrote grew better than the last because of his ceasleass ache for his wife’s love.  Hank’s albums filled the airwaves with a love that built strong marriages by breaking hearts.  Couples vowed to be faithful to each other as they sat in old pickup trucks listening to Hank’s heart slowly breaking.  Men sang the songs of his uncompromising undying love to their wives on their wedding days. Every one knew that to love like Hank meant forever.

Hank’s love was undying. but his body was not. 

Cowboys left their tractors in the fields and their wives waited for them on porches on the day Hank’s body was found, bent over his guitar, fingers stiff on the love-sick A minor chord.

The lyrics of his last and final love song were weakly scribbled on a shred of wrapping paper found resting on his knee. it answered the question everyone had asked from the beginning- ‘why did he love her so much?’  The lyrics read:

So long i’ve sought the weary sound
so desperate my guitar it tries
to reach the one girl i found
who has my momma’s eyes

Sometimes i think i can hear the love sick chords that drove the God of the Jews to desperate measures.  the ridiculous love that allowed itself to be hurt over and over for an unworthy bride, until it led to a lonely, love sick death- hung up on a spike of wood on a hill for everyone to see.  Jesus loved us to death- all because he sees his beloved father’s image in us, and because he just wants us to have a father again.  

But we have our own excuses that keep us from listening to the song.  Like Hank’s wife, we say we just don’t much like the sound of Country. We totally miss the ubiquitous message of unrequited love- all because we don’t really like the culture of the people listening to the music.  we miss the eternal, aching love song of the creator for his beloved created, just because we don’t really like the sound. . .

. . . of religion.

. . .

A couple weeks ago i complained these thoughts to my friend, Cliff.  He looked at me from across the table and bowed his head.  He prayed that i would meet God face to face in a way so real that i would see the features of his face and the callouses on his ancient hands- so i would know him. Really know him.

I went home exhausted.  A phone call from my schizophrenic friend Bonnie woke me up at midnight.  I had fallen asleep in my clothes on the floor.  I listened until 3am, about her friends and the government conspiring against her for money she’s sure she’s won.  At 3am, from a desperate place in my heart i found myself yelling at her out loud.  She was quiet for the first time since i have known her.  I apologized. We prayed. I prayed for her healing several times, in several ways. But it didn’t seem to fix anything.  she kept talking my ear off with frantic dilusions.

I finally forced her to say goodnight at 3:30am and i hung up.  I lay in bed, crying out into the emptiness of a lonely house:

“WHY ALL THIS PAIN!?
WHY ALL THIS SADNESS!?
AND WHY DON’T YOU FIX THINGS I PRAY FOR!?”

“Go for a walk”

“What?  At 3:30 in the morning? I need my sleep!” it was a ridiculous request. After wrestling with the idea for a few minutes i smirked back to the ceiling, “Ok, God. Just so you know that i’m doing my part in the deal. I’ll go for a walk.”

God was waiting for me a couple blocks away in the lonely, crisp pre-dawn air. 

I had started telling him how angry i was with his absence, when i realized he was there with me.  I believe i saw his face in the most real way i ever have.  Not like i could see the features of his eyes or nose or lips, but i could see the look on his face.  It surrounded me like a cloud.  i could see his emotion as if i were looking at your eyes which told me you were sad.

The look on his face was sadness. But it was peaceful.  Peaceful sadness.  I walked and talked with him, as the air chilled my wet eyes. 

“Ross, I know it hurts.  I didn’t want it this way. but i have a plan to fix it some day.  I am writing this story.  Right now is just the sad part.  You see Bonnie’s pain for a couple hours every other week.  I feel it ALL the time. Can’t you stay awake for a little while and just walk with me.”

He had been waiting for me.  Like he had longed for companionship in the garden of Gethsemane when he had said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Over the next few days i realized i had answers to my questions.
-Why all this pain?  I don’t know, but God has a plan to fix it some day.
-Why all this sadness i see so often?  I don’t know, but God feels it all the time.
-And why doesn’t he fix the things I ask for?  I don’t know, but when i ask, i am sharing the pain with him, and offerring to walk with him for a while in a very lonely garden.

admirer

I have learned so much from my friend Cliff.  I want to teach some of his thoughts to the world to honor my friend and share the wealth.  Thank you for everything, Cliff.

 Cliff has learned that God has made everything beautiful.  Breathtaking beauty can be found in a blade of grass, a child’s smile, a stormy sky, and even in pain is a beatiful story being written.

In Isaiah 6, Isaiah saw a vision where the angels called to one another:

“Hoy, holy, holy is the the Lord
      Almighty:
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

So let us look for God’s beauty and glory in the pleasure and the pain in this whole world over.

herald

Cliff has taught me that in times of trouble or confusion, guilt or shame, we can think of three things to remind us that God is good and he will take care of us.

1)   What has been done: he died and forgave my sin.  Therefore have no more shame before the one that really matters.
2)   What is happening now: I am being made new.
3)   What will be done: God has a purpose and that purpose involves making us perfect.

I have learned so much from my friend Cliff.  I want to teach some of his thoughts to the world to honor my friend and share the wealth.  Thank you for everything, Cliff.

servant

I have learned so much from my friend Cliff.  I want to teach some of his thoughts to the world to honor my friend and share the wealth.  Thank you for everything, Cliff.

Cliff says the key to evangelizing is not to realign a person’s perception, but instead their perspective.  What i learned from this is that to win a person over to Christ you must not only make the case that God exists, but make them want him to exist. Let them see that God makes a life so much more worth living, even though (and maybe because) he calls us to give it away.

Cliff used to go to a high profile church with a famous pastor.  One day when cliff was talking to visitors who were in line to meet the pastor he felt the need to tell this to a man named Jose: ”if you give your life to Jesus, he will transform you in such a way that you can change the world.” 

A friend of Cliff’s that happened to know Jose said that Jose had stayed up that night thinking about the message God told Cliff to give him.  And he told Cliff that he could already see a difference in Jose’s life.  If there is a possibility in person’s mind that God exists, sometimes the only thing keeping them from believing is the desire to.

shepherd

I have learned so much from my friend Cliff.  I want to teach some of his thoughts to the world to honor my friend and share the wealth.  Thank you for everything, Cliff. 

Idea #1:
More important than believing that God exists is believing that God is good.  This is because if God exists and is a purely selfish God, then we wouldn’t want to follow him anyway. 

But if you’re still struggling with the existence of God, here is Cliff’s proof:  Ants, ducks, penguins and his humming mother.

Ants:  Cliff accidentally stepped on a line of ants one time.  He stooped to watch them.  The ones who kept working walked around the smooshed ones and continued their invisible navigation.  The others carried their dead brothers back to bury them.  Reason for God’s existence #1: Ants are so complex and they have the morality to bury their dead. 

Ducks: Cliff saw a duck standing over an dirty pile of rags in a parking lot. But as Cliff got closer he realized it wasn’t rags but was another duck that had been run over.  Reason for God’s existence #2: In a world where only the strongest survive, even ducks have love.

Penguins: If you’ve seen the March of the penguins you know that female penguins leave their mate and travel 65 miles to feed while the male watches the baby. Then she treks the 65 miles back and finds him so that he can do the same, having not eating for four months.  Reason for God’s existence #3: the characteristics of God’s devoted love exists even in antarctica in the hearts of penguins.

Humming mother: Cliff’s mom has a mental disease that traps her in a lonely mind.  At one point Cliff prayed intensely for a week that God would be her companion inside her broken mind- because as hard as  they tried, they weren’t able to.  One day when Cliff was washing dishes he heard her humming. He stopped and listened. It was a beautiful song he had never heard before.  And he didn’t know where she would have heard it before.  In fact not he nor his step dad had ever heard her even humming before.  But Cliff said, she looked content.  For Cliff, this was his answer to prayer. God visited her and placed a song in her heart to bring her joy. 

So maybe all of these things are trying to tell us that God not only exists but that He is good.

It was a pyramid scheme marketing dinner.  The men up front were trying to sell me a product.  I was put off a little bit at first. No one wants to be tricked into being sold something.  Was i mistaken to think that the couple really wanted to be my friends?!

but I sat there dumbfounded because as i listened i heard almost the exact things that we say, when we’re trying to sell Jesus!
-i was broke but now i’m well taken care of
-it does take some sacrifice, but you’ll be rewarded ten fold
-tell your friends how your life has changed and they will want in

On our way home i rode in the back seat with my head almost in my hands, trying to figure out the difference between Christianity and some big marketing ploy . . . until the wife said to me, “I don’t know if maybe you could do me a favor. . .”

Oh great; here it is. they need money or help painting their house or something.  I guess we ARE always just expanding our network of friends because we make some sort of commission on each one.

She continued, “I’m really worried about my Jason.  He’s really struggling in school and I’m worried about the friends he hangs out with.  I know he likes you.  Could you maybe talk to him a little bit?”

Why was I reluctant to spend 3 hours at a free dinner that could make me rich, but as soon as i was asked to help a mother’s beloved son even when i had nothing to gain from it, i was sold on the spot?

I don’t think God’s kingdom promises money, but you do gain more love. What i mean is that we begin to love people more.

Maybe that, truly, is the great commission.

I have two options at that point.  I can say, ‘God must not be real,’ or i can say ‘God must not work in the ways i expect him to work.’

When I watch the breathtaking machine that is a firefly at dusk, or recognize the golden spiral in a chambered nautilus, or glimpse the harmony with which the intricate systems in our bodies play together, i tend to lean towards the latter option; His ways are more mysterious than mine.

And those things remind me that the god in my head is still much smaller than the real God that is writing a mysterious story with his creation.  I take joy in that.  After all, aren’t the best stories the ones that have perfectly fitting endings that we never even saw coming?

but my dad taught me a lesson that day.  he said, “help them, by letting them help you, Ross.”

I have a friend that i help in lots of ways. He really owns nothing that i want, but i have learned that when he wants to give me something, even if i know he loves it much more than i would, I will gratefully accept it.  it is less important for him to own that beloved possession than it is for him to learn the joy of sacrificial giving that Jesus uses to water his soul.

so please remember that we ultimately are not fighting against confused human sexuality.  we are battling to prove to the world that Jesus really did hang out with, and love us sinners to death. 

now lets march forward and fight for those dear hearts with our underestimated weapons of grace, compassion and unconditional love.

it sucks when a boss tells us how to do something even though we think there’s a better way. how do we respond?  i’ve been known to do it my way anyway to prove myself, the Christian, right. 

when i walked out of my boss’ office the other day, after being proven wrong, i realized something: Our goal is to obey and respect our God as best we can, and what better model do we have to demonstrate that than with our boss at work, even when we think they are wrong.

my dear schitzofrenic friend, Bonnie called me again this weekend.  I just listened for an hour as she relentlessly poured out her troubles.  She tries my patience.

The talented, charismatic people of the world are the ones that can help bring me riches, comfort and a good time. But maybe the best talents are the ones some people have to foster deep compassion, patience, empathy, or kindness inside of us.  riches and comfort are nice while they last but they often also breed a lot of selfishness and pride. the other stuff is what i want growing on my soul- if i can help it.

Not necessarily religious- playing church with crosses, fishes, and Toby Mac plastered on your stuff.  i think he wants you to be the healthiest, most level-headed, most passionately alive person that you can be- just like any old mom and dad would want for their child.

If you are wondering what God would want you to do- a pretty good indicator is if you would want your own child doing it. For example, smoking pot may not be really that wrong, but would you want your kid to start?

But what i think some mom’s and dad’s don’t realize is that the healthiest thing- the only thing that will ultimately fulfill even your deepest forgotten longings- is only your eternal father, himself- even when you have to go through difficult things, to find him.  

i think even Toby Mac would agree with that.

But some people won’t talk to my friend any more.  They call him judgemental.  I tried to reason with him to be more compassionate, but i had to admit that even Jesus gave a lot of tough love.

A couple nights later a different friend of mine admitted to me he had sinned in a big way.  I said I’d be over as soon as he had time.  I texted him that night trying to encourage him and the next day asked him what he wanted me to bring him because i was buying dinner.  I drove half an hour to his house and hugged him at the door.

As we ate at his table and bore each other’s burdens, i realized this, here, now, is a warranted time for tough love.  So I told him, “you need to tell her you can’t talk to her anymore.  Do it quickly and make it final.” 

Jesus did tell people they were complete sinners, but i think what Jesus did more than judge them, was that he healed them first, and that is what made them listen.  He gave the woman who was thirsty living water.  He healed the leprous men.  He gave the tax collector a new lot on life. 

So if we plan on dishing out some tough love, and help a brother defeat a sin, we had better earn it first.  We have to be there to heal them in whatever way we can.  Cry with them.  Give selflessly to them.  nurture their pained heart.  Give them water.  And only when they are certain that we love them even in their sin, then we can help them eradicate it.

So how can we share the gospel working within this paradigm? 

This is how:

When someone says to you, “i can believe what i want.”

Tell him “Me too! Let’s believe in a God that is everything we have ever wanted him to be- but even bigger than that.  And let’s believe that this God loves me and wants me to do what will make me forever ultimately happy in the deepest of ways.  And that will be our God.  

Crap, now we have to write down all the doctrine and rules.  Let’s just follow Jesus instead.  He’s all that and he’s taken care of all the scripture already as well.”

As he cried he said, 
“You are an answer to my prayer.”

To understand what it is like to live in the fifth dimension, picture a book. 

This book covers the birth and death of every kingdom and every blade of grass and everything that anyone ever observed between the first and last words of the book.  The possibilty for infinite distances is there, but just not the time to observe it (that’s how infinity can exist between the covers of the book).

Ok, now picture someone who not only had the ability to write everything in that story but also had the ability to flip back and forth from the last page to the first (even with an eraser perhaps).  This means that this being can manipulate our four dimensions.  Although it may live at the mercy of a fifth, which could be the pages of a book itself, which could be written by someone in the sixth.  And so on.

Physicists say there are multiple dimensions above the four that we know.  I doubt that God lives inside any one of them because someone had to create them.  But it seems, at the very least, he is able to manipulate our four. 

Physicists also say that if you traveled at the speed of light, time would stand still.  If you were light, you could travel to the earth and bring it light and life without ever being at the mercy of time.  Isn’t it interesting that God uses light as a metaphor for himself?

Maybe, I choose my destiny, but God made me the type of person that would choose that destiny.

This way i am free to make the decisions i want, and God still gets his way.

He stops the people and asks, “Do any of you have any pain I can pray for?”
They gave this weirded out look and said no.  They walked on.

Next he asked the same thing to a large family with kids and they seemed more accepting but again, had no pain they needed to be healed from.  This could have felt embarrassing if I had let it.

finally as we were waiting at a crosswalk, Trevor turned around and asked a tall, weathered, tough looking young man if he had any pain.  He said No.  Trevor pressed the issue.  “No shoulder pain or foot pain, or maybe back pain we can pray for?”

“Not really.” he said, ”But I’m trying to figure out whether i should go back to my wife tonight or not.” 

Suddenly my ears perked and i turned to fully face him.  We had found the pain.

Trevor persisted- he wanted to see a healing, “Are you sure you don’t have a wrist or a hand maybe that needs healing?”

I smiled but butted in.  “What happened with your wife tonight?”

Jake told us his story.  We went to Sonic and sat for an hour as he talked and we tried to council him.  That day he had gotten so angry at his wife that he smashed a vacuum cleaner and his fist through some walls.  After that he had gone to the bank, emptied his account and left on his motorcycle.  When we found him he was debating on whether to go back to her or go to Kentucky and start completely over. 

He had come from a past of prison, drugs and alcoholism.  He had rebuilt his life with his wife and said that he was blessed with great daughters, a successful business, a great church, and a beautiful house.  he hadn’t had a drink for ten years, but tonight he said he had been thinking what the hell, why not a beer. 

he said he had been running from God all day.  Several people from the church had texted and tried to call him but he turned off his phone because he didn’t want to listen.  He looked at us and said, but God found me anyways tonight. 

We listened and prayed with him and tried our best to give advice.  I’m not sure if we solved his marriage problems, probably not entirely.  He will have a difficult journey ahead.  but I think it could have been terribly worse if we had not stepped out in love and looked for someone who needed healing. 

Thank you God for using us.

null

I like how good will, and creative generosity can be so contagious.  My dad told me a story about a couple that goes to a restaurant and picks out a patron and anonomously foots their bill– and that infected me. 

I ate at a restaraunt the other day and told the waitress to let me pay for “that couple’s bill”- I pointed to a middle aged couple that didn’t seem to have much to talk about.  ”And please don’t tell them who it was from” i added. 

from a distance i heard their disbelief and happiness.  I hope they had something to talk about on the way home.  Something contagious.

A while ago I suggested that it is WE that choose whether or not we will enter heaven, because we are all forgiven.  We just must adopt God’s will to enter.

then i thought, how can that be true when Jesus says he will “…separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats…” the sheep entering eternal life and goats being eternally punished. (matthew 25:32)

It seems at first glance that Jesus does the separating and we have no part in the choosing.   However, how does a shepherd separate his sheep from the goats?  Well, Jesus also says, “…and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10:4)

So maybe at the end of time Jesus separates us, not by force, but by simply calling out to us.  And the ones that recognize their shepherd choose to leave the goats and go to him- for they are his sheep.  And in that way, perhaps we DO choose whether or not we spend eternity with our shepherd.  If for our whole lives we’ve chosen to follow Jesus (or even just to follow that benevolent voice inside of us before we know the voice’s name) perhaps then we will also recognize and follow it at it’s final call.

I think sin is doing what God doesn’t want us to do, and that is usually something that hurts others for our own gain. 

but in Heaven i think we and God will be so united in spirit, that what i want for me is also what is best for you.  We will be like one big body where the finger scratches the head when it itches, and is happy to do it, because the finger and the head are considered the same body.

“I pray that you become one as i and the father are one.”  John 17:20-23 (thanks for the help on finding the verse, Patti!)

From what i’ve gathered in Christian church, the way to God requires that you say a specific name and you say a three step prayer as laid out in the Bible- or something like that. 

I think God originally was the obvious choice.  His law is written on our hearts.  Right and wrong seem to be the only thing we really know.  That would have gotten us to God, but then we decided to do our own thing and got ourselves lost and so God had to figure out plan B to get us there, which isn’t so obvious. 

Imagine a highway that leads us over the beautiful landscape straight to God, and it’s like fifty feet in the air. What easier way would there be to get to God! But then we decided we wanted to take our eyes off of God and climb down off the highway.  Now suddenly we are lost in the bushes and bogs and only now do we realize the highway is just too high and slippery to climb back up!

So now we do need a guide. and we need a very specific guide.  We can’t follow the dude named Larry that wants to take us to his carnival off to the north, or the sage that says, this mountain top is the goal of life.  We need to know the guide sent from God. And we need to follow his specific instructions- go east at the farmhouse, go 30 miles north around the mountain to avoid the mountain monsters.  

It makes sense now, why the way to God is so specific, but you know, it still doesn’t seem like it should be my fault if I have just never met the right guide in this world of impersonators.  Is it possible that those who are doing their best to go in the direction their good heart is calling them ARE following Jesus?  They might glimpse Jesus as a faint silhouette on the crest of the mountain before them, and all they know is that something is pulling them in that direction and that guy up there seems to know where he’s going.

“I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except by me.  ”

I think a lot of us are following Him.  There is a very specific him, and a very specific destination.  But I wonder if perhaps some us just don’t know the name of the man whose footprints we are walking in.

Here’s a story that shows the whys.

There was once an ophanage that had been around for a very long time.  In this orphanage, the old wise house mother always picked one leader who she thought more deserving than the rest to lead the others and help her run the house.  The house leader was known by the backpack he or she wore everywhere.  A first aid kit, was in the backpack among many things.  There was also candy and snacks to give to the orphans when they were good, and the behavioral sheets that counted each orphan’s rewards or punishments.  Walkie talkies were attached to talk to the house mother wherever she might be.  It was a great honor to be the house leader, but also a grave responsibility. 

A pair of twins, Lupe and Raul, lived in the house.  They had good, upstanding parents who died in a governmental coup when Lupe and Raul were three years old.  Having no other relatives, Lupe and Raul were brought to the orphanage.  At the time we start our story, they are ten years old- younger than most of the other kids in the house.  They were old enough to understand the rules but young enough that they hadn’t yet seen anybody who had received the house mother’s worst punishment.  Everybody knew that the very worst punishment was to be locked in the tiny dark shed in the back of the back yard away from all the other children with no food for days at a time.

It was well known in the house that there had not been an orphan leader for at least ten years.  And whenever any of the kids had asked the house mother about it, she kindly said, not to worry, that she had it all planned out. 

One day the dear old house mother came into Lupe and Raul’s tiny room and said she had a surprise for them.  She said their room was needed for some new orphans but that she wanted to show them something.  They followed her up the dusty stairs to the lonely, locked door at the highest place in the house.  She stopped at the closed door and knelt down to talk to them.

She pulled them close in her arms and began.  “You two have made me so proud.  You are so well behaved and you always get along with the others.  I need to use your room but I want to give you a new one.”  She unlocked the door and pulled on the chain switch, lighting up the attic room. 

Lupe and Raul’s eyes got big (the house mother was so pleased at this.)  The wooden attic was filled with old toys that had been recently dusted and laid out around the edge of the room.  There was a beautiful soft rug on the wooden floor and two simple, quaint beds were on either side of the rug. 

“I give all of this to you two.”  She said as she watched them scanning the beautiful room in awe.  “There are a lot of toys up here that you can play with, and you can share them if you want to.  You can let others play in this room, but you set the rules and teach the others how to get along like you two.”

They nodded and said thank you over and over and hugged the big soft house mother.  She said they were welcome with a mysterious smile in her eyes as she looked up to the high peak of the attic above the frosted round window.  They looked at the place too.  There was something there they had not noticed before.

There on the shelf high above their beds sat two big boxes wrapped in shiny new red wrapping paper. 
“What are those for?” Raul asked her.
She replied, “Oh yes, the presents.  I almost forgot.  Listen to me closely.  Those are for you but do not open them yet.  If you open those presents, you will see the punishment of the shed.  That is how much I need you to obey me.”
“Why can’t we look?” Lupe asked respectfully.
“Oh, don’t worry. Don’t worry.  Just trust me, my dear.  I have a plan.”
The House Mother kissed them and she left them to get settled in.

Over the next week Lupe and Raul laid down some rules and invited the other orphans to play with the toys in their room.  The kids were overjoyed at the beautiful wooden rocking horses and yo-yos and little metal cars.  Everything was going smoothly. . . except . . . some of the kids could not resist knowing what was in the two presents in the top of the room.

“We can’t open them yet.” Lupe told the little boy that was begging her to.
“Why not?  You could just open it and wrap it back up.  House Mom would never even know.” He was older than Lupe was and he made sense, she thought.
“But House Mom said that we would see the punishment of the shed if we opened them.” Lupe replied.
“You know she wouldn’t do that just for opening a present!” They boy looked down and scoffed at her. ”That doesn’t hurt anybody!  She’s probably testing you. She really wants you to start to make decisions for yourself when you know you’re ready for the presents.  Why else would she put it there right where you look at it every day.”

That made sense to Lupe.  She looked over at her twin brother, playing with the cars on the floor with his friends.  She slowly turned and dragged her bed over in front of the window where she could stand on the head board to reach the shelf.  She was nervous.  Why did she feel so sad, she thought?  She wanted to see what was in the box.  And maybe it was really a test to see if she was mature enough for the present.  That would make the House Mom happy.

As she tugged on the bed it skipped over the wooden slats and jerked over to the space beneath the shelf.  All the kids heard it and now all eyes were riveted to her.  She slowly climbed and stood on the tip of her toes to reach one of the boxes.  It was barely within her reach and she pulled it down and it fell onto the bed.  She looked down at it and a little tag on the top (though now tipped on its side) said Raul.  Raul got up and picked up his present.  It was heavy.  He shook it and there were lots of little things and one big thing inside.  Lupe struggled some more and pulled hers down and it also fell onto her bed.

Together on her bed they both slowly opened the presents.  All the kids watched them carefully peel off the tape so that they could rewrap later.  That was why this was ok.  If this wasn’t a test of their maturity, she would never know.

within one minute they had the paper off and they were ready to open the cardboard box itself.  They looked at each other, knowing that they must open them at the same time.  And they did. 

Lupe was the first to pull out the backpack.  A beautiful red bag with tools attached to the outside and a first aid kit showed through the mesh on the front.  And in the side pocket was the shiny black walkie talkie.  The house mom meant for them to be the next two orphan leaders.  And now everybody knew it.  They were two of the youngest in the whole group but now, they knew that they had to carry all the responsibilty of all the orphans.  They had just lost the rest of their childhood. 

“Lupe! . . . Raul!” the house mother’s voice was muffled through the door an hour later.  “All the other kids are already down here for dinner!  Come down.”

When she didn’t hear their usual pleasant voices she called again and knocked on the door.  They still didn’t answer.  She opened the door and came in.  She saw Raul sitting in the corner behind his bed with two little metal cars grasped tightly in his hand.  Lupe was under her bed.  House mom heard her crying quietly.  “What’s wrong with you two!  why didn’t you answer?!”  She looked up and the presents were on the shelf right where they were supposed to be.  “Raul!  Why didn’t you answer me, my dear boy?”

He struggled to speak for half a minute until it finally came out.  “I don’t want you to see me.”
A knowing sadness fell over her face and she approached him slowly.  She knelt down beside him and rubbed his shoulder lovingly.  “Lupe, come over here, dear.” Lupe shuffled over and House Mom wrapped her arm around her and pulled her to her soft bosom.  “Why didn’t you want me to see you, Raul?”

“Because i don’t have something on.”
House mom tried to look into Lupe’s big brown eyes. “You too?” Lupe buried her face deeper into House mom’s embrace.
“Are you talking about your backpacks?”
They both nodded as if releived to get it off of their chests. 
Her tone was now very serious.  “You opened the boxes?  I told you not to or you would see the punishment of the shed.”
“We know.” Raul turned away from her.  He tried not to cry anymore.  As an orphan leader he had to be strong.
House mom sighed very deeply.  “Ooohhhh, my dears. Now you know that the others will resent you, right?  If you had waited until your 16th birthdays, you would have been one of the oldests and finally ready to be the house leaders.”
There was a long silence.  She held Lupe tightly and rubbed Raul’s shoulder lovingly like children, cherishing it as if she would never be able to do that in the same way ever again.  She got up and said, “Come down to dinner if you two would like.  Tomorrow we’ll talk about the shed.

The next day there was a very somber meeting.  No one had talked to Lupe, nor Raul since the incident.  House Mom addressed them all, “There has been no house leader for ten years.  That is because I had a really bad experience with the last one.  But I thought when Raul and Lupe got older they would make very good house leaders.  And now you all can see what I was planning.  I know they are too young now, but now you all know who I had planned to be it.  It cause more problems if I picked someone else now, who is less qualified.  I just ask you to please give them as much respect as you can.  I had to threaten the punishment of the shed to show these two how serious i was (*2) and you need to know that i keep my word so I cannot go back on my promise (*3).”

Raul looked at the ground.  Lupe whimpered and looked frantically for a friend among the crowd.  They all avoided her eyes.  

House Mom took Raul and Lupe outside and talked to them on the porch, the dark, overgrown shed looming in the distant corner of the yard.  She hugged each of them and said.  You two will do ok alone.  I’m sorry that you opened the presents and I’m sorry that you have to see the punishment.  I’ll miss you guys for the whole week. 

Raul, feeling as much a man as an ten year old could started walking to the shed.  He was growing up very fast.  Lupe began to cry. 

“Wait!” House mom called to him.  He stopped and slowly turned around, looking at the ground. 
“No, come back here, Raul.” He slowly walked back towards the house like he saw no purpose in it. She continued, “I’ll be out there for a week.  If you can just bring me a cup of water every day, that is all someone in the shed receives.  and i cannot talk to anybody.  You two must lead alone while I’m gone.  You can do it.  I know you can.”  And the house mom walked out to the shed and commanded Raul to lock the pad lock and take the key. 

Lupe cried out, “No! you can’t go in there.  We’re supposed to be in there.  You can’t do that! Why are you doing that?!  We can’t do it without you!”

But House Mom would not break her rules; she was a woman of her word; she would not speak. 

Raul and Lupe grew older in a hostile house.  No one was their friend.  No one played in the attic with them.  The jealousy spread through the house and caused fights.  Lupe and Raul struggled to make peace between all the members, but that was their job.  They walked around with their back packs, laying down rules so that everybody would get along.  They mended skinned knees and had serious meetings with the House Mom to ask for her help with the problem children. 

The ability to lead and the decisions of the two yound leaders were doubted and questioned almost every day.  Some of the older kids questioned why the House Mother had placed the two presents where they could all see them, and it was questioned if the mother knew all along that they would open them.  But there was one thing that was never questioned and never doubted again while the kids still lived in the orphanage.  That thing was the depth of the love that the House Mom had for all of them, no matter how they disobeyed, proven by the horrible lonely punishment she took for a disobedience she didn’t even do. 

***

On Raul and Lupe’s sixteenth birthday House Mom told them about the last House Leader.  She said, that he had told all the other kids that she didn’t really love them- that she was just using them to get money from the state.  And they all turned against her and only trusted the house Leader, who controlled them, turning the house into basically a slave house where all the kids had to prove themselves worthy to stay in good standing. 

The House Mother told Raul and Lupe, that she was sorry that they had gone through so much pain for the last six years.  But that she believed it was worth it.  It was worth it because more important than knowing pain and difficulty was that the orphans truly knew in the depths of their being that they were loved by somebody and there was nothing they could ever do to lose that.(*1)  And she did it because she thought that only something like what she did would stick with them for the rest of their lives.

Now if I were out helping the needy then I might actually look kind of like Christ. 

Ok, gotta run.  Got bible study tonight.

Question2: why on earth weren’t we given any concrete proof of who God is and what He is like? 

Maybe being on Earth is the only way for us to prove and practice faith, because, unlike heaven, the mysteries of God are hidden here!  And maybe faith is one of the many qualities he needs us to have to be fully mature some day.

1 Corinth 13:13: “Three things will last forever-faith, hope, and love. . . ” It seems pretty important we gain faith if it will last forever!

I have a wonderful, safe life.    I work hard to keep a consistent job.  I brush my teeth and shower.  I have just enough social skills to maintain some friends.  I do enough to get by, spiritually. 

In short, I avoid puddles.

I think of the horses that carried riders into battle or helped pioneers forge onward- splashing through rivers pulling their riders.  What great things would not have happened if horses were scared of water?

I can think of a few risky puddles in my pasture that I try to ignore.  Would I be willing to give up the hope of getting married if God asked me to?  How much money would I really give if someone needed it?  Could i tell my friends the hard truth, at the risk of losing their friendship? 

I could ignore these for the rest of my life and my life would probably be better for it.  But my faith would wither.  What do You have waiting for me on the other side of momentus rivers, God?  I will never cross rivers if i don’t first look up, hold my breath and dive into some puddles.