A Story Using Words I Have Mispronounced

(The words are in all caps and spelled phonetically in the way I used to pronounce them or read them in my head. The context should hint at what words they really are. I've also listed them at the bottom, correctly spelled. Check out www.howjsay.com to hear official pronunciation of these and other words)


About this time last year at the docks an old sea merchant MY-ZULD me into thinking I could hitch a free ride on his skiff. What luck, I thought, as my lips curled upward and I grinned out toward the frothy chop at two distant bumps, one obscured by clouds, the other lit green by the sun's favoring ray. Now I would be one of the first traders this autumn to do business with the natives of Norsen Island.

We set sail and I secured myself at the stern, counting the bills I had saved that summer and sheltering them from the wind with my frock. This free trip would allow me to buy twice as many ivory carvings as I had planned, and might even afford me an extra day or two to cavort with the sunny natives.

I should have seen from the start, however, that my fortunate circumstance was bloated with Yang, and suspiciously lacking in Yin. Ten miles out, something seemed AWE-REE. I stood up, still clutching the rail at the bow, and stepped carefully on my way toward the sinewy old man at the tiller. I reminded him that he had said he would take me to Norsen, not Durth, where it appeared we were headed. I waited for a reply; the wind shifted momentarily but his mouth moved not. Instead, from his eyes came the same impelling charisma with which he had lured me onto the boat hours earlier. A simple steady stare convinced me that my fears regarding Durth were nothing but a TCHIM-ER-AH, and that the natives there had carvings of equal quality. Something like black magic must have been at work because up until that short moment I had always known that not only were Durth natives a conniving lot, but their carvings were terribly BAY-NUHL.

It wasn't until he beached the skiff on the foggy island that my trance broke and I realized the leatherfaced prune had deceived me with a FAY-CADE. I glared into his squinty Mis-CHEE-VUS eyes, then shot a glance at his gray chin, where I caught evidence of an ancestral mark between erratic hairs. No doubt now, the knife-shaped mole proved he was a native of Durth Island himself.

Looking back, I wish I had read Captain Joseph Narwhallis' bestselling PRY-MER on maritime etiquette more carefully. I could have avoided what the Captain called an “Inevitable DAH-NEW-MENT.” He was referring to Sea Rule number 13, which warned against accepting something for nothing from a boatman. According to the captain, the final result of breaking that rule is that you will always lose something worth more than that which you accepted at no cost. It may even be your life.

Thankfully the Durth natives let me keep my life, and my coat, but it irks me to know that three months of sweat-bought salary now help fund the trifling trinkets they carve on that worthless chunk of ARCHIE-pa-LAW-GO. Still, rather than LAM-BAST that old wrinkled sea-merchant, I humbly concur with the lesson he and Captain Narwhallis taught me: nothing is free.


Mispronounced Words:
Misled
Awry
Chimerah
Banal
Facade
Mischievous (emphasis on “Mis”, not “chie”)
Primer
Denouement
Archipelago
Lambaste

Photo Essay for RedFence Magazine

Here's the link:

http://www.redfenceproject.com/NewDesign/art.pl?ghost=1

Toying With an Internet Scammer

A month ago I posted a couch for sale on Craigslist and received the following fishy reply from one “Micheal Stone”:

Hi, is the item still available for sale?

Giving “Micheal” the benefit of the doubt, I wrote him back:

Yes it is. Let me know if you're interested.

Mr. Stone soon responded:

Thank you for the prompt response to my mail enquiry am quite satisfied with the condition of the item and price.Am very much interested in buying the item from you and i would like to make an outright purchase immediately so i will advice that you withdraw the advert from the web, I will be paying with a certified check. Furthermore my mover will be coming over for the pick up as i might not be presently am not chanced to do that but am OK with the information from the ad.I will need the following information details to make payment arrangement. available for the pick up myself i would have love to come and look it up but
1. Your full name to be on the Payment.
2. Your postal address.
3. Your phone number both land and mobile.
4. Your postal code.
Send me the following information as soon as possible, So that your payment can be mail out to you asap, I hope to read back from you soon.
Regards,
Stone

A friend recently told me about an elaborate, well-acted scam she had fallen for at the mall. Fortunately, she didn't end up buying the “diamonds” from the “poor migrant worker who just needed a bus ticket back home.” Had I indulged Mr. Stone's requests, it likely would have become clear after several emails exactly how he was planning to scam me. Instead, I decided to nip his plan in the bud and just have a little fun with him, which included giving him the address to my home at the city dump.
The reply:

Sure!

My full name is Vincent Jonas Harvebinder, but my best friends just call me Jon. I live at 14747 San Fernando Road in Sylmar, CA 91342. It's kind of a stinky neighborhood but I still like it.

Unfortunately I can't give you my phone number because the CIA has wiretapped both my cell phone and my land line! In fact, I sure hope they aren't reading this email!!!

Why don't you just give me your phone number and I'll call you from a phone booth?

Vincent
p.s. I am also trying to get rid of my mosquito collection. Might you be interested??

For some reason I still haven't heard back from him.

Do They Have These in Other Languages?

This amused me enough to post it here. The following is a bona fide, acceptable sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Making Sense of Word Associations

Some words are onomatopoeic. They sound like what they mean: crush, pop, sniffle, click, to name a few. Is there a category for words that look like what they mean? Words like Belly, Round, or Orb? And what about words that both look like what they mean and whose rhythm—or something else—further enhances their meaning? Taurus—the bull—is one of these. The T sports bull horns, at least in some fonts. Yet "Taurus" goes even beyond that, at least in my head, and I don’t know if I can explain it. It’s overarching and dominant. It’s the subconscious mascot of a Raider’s fan, a stoic Mexicaucasian male who wears dark baggy colors. And strangely, there’s something father-ready about the Taurus. Could it be because there’s a T in Testosterone? Perhaps much of it is just based on my own associations from my life experience, and therefore it isn’t shared by anyone else. Either way, these associations are certainly there, and this is my attempt to figure out why.

Christiancheese

What does it mean when, before a meal, we pray, “Bless this food to our bodies”? Are we asking God to miraculously protect us from any harmful germs or bacteria that might have infected the food? Or are we asking Him to nullify the effects of the junk food on the table (do we somehow hope He’ll turn that Big Mac into a bushel of leafy spinach as it travels down our esophagus?). Or are we simply asking Him to cause the food to nourish us? If the latter is the case—if we feel that speaking those words to God is necessary to ensure nourishment—then I want to ask, do we really need a prayer to make food become nutritious? Isn’t that the way God made food in the first place? And I don’t think anyone should expect special treatment by virtue of their being a Christian—in other words, if you excel in fast food consumption, you should not anticipate the health benefits of a good diet. I’m afraid that many of our packaged pre-food prayers have lost their meaning, if they ever had any to begin with! It’s enough to thank Him for abundantly providing for our needs.

Expression's Great Destroyer

As a writer, I realize that Insight is the soul of writing. I must have it if I am going to communicate something worthy of reading. It helps me do my job of organizing Life into words for those who cannot verbalize Life as easily. It helps me stimulate the reader to think new thoughts, or to think old ones more deeply. It allows me to share unique reflections of reality. It also presents a great opportunity for Pride to take root.

My prayer to God is that He keeps me from ever seeking my own glory in the area of Insight. I've lived long enough to suspect that I see and think things that are unique to me, and many of these things I cannot describe in words. To me, they're wonderful hints at Heaven and tastes of unimaginable pieces of infinity. Perhaps they're God's way of uniquely and personally ministering to my soul. Randy Alcorn's book, Heaven, has really helped me better understand these thoughts and feelings and inklings, which I've had all my life.

In order for my prayer to be effective, I must not forget that any ability or insight I have is God's undeserved gift to me. If I'm honest with myself, and if I search deeply enough, I can find evidence of the subtle pride that makes me take pleasure in thinking that I'm "in-tune" or smarter than others. I ask God to forgive me of that pride, and to remind me that there are many smarter, more in-tune people out there. In fact, each person on this planet has abilities, thoughts, and insights that I do not—many of them probably just don't feel the need to write about it! I am nothing special, and yet I've noticed that a big temptation writers and intellectual types face is the temptation to think they are profound. It's good to remember that God educates and exalts the humble, and brings low the proud. I believe the Lord set up a great irony in that at the very moment anyone takes pride in their gift, that gift diminishes.

What I pray is that I can use my gifts and insights to humbly yet passionately express what God has allowed me to see, for His glory and for our enjoyment. We are all gifted in different ways and deficient in others. That's why we need each other. I never want to think of myself as being needed more than anyone else. My desire is to gladly and humbly enjoy the privilege of doing my part in reflecting God's glory, and to enjoy other people's parts even more than my own.

The Link

The following thought was inspired by these words from Randy Alcorn's book on Heaven: "What possible effect could our redemption have on galaxies that are billions of light years away? The same effect that our fall had on them."

Here is a dialogue that I feel could very well have occurred within the divine Trinity before the creation of space and time:

"While they yet live on earth, let them feel the unfathomable gap between them and the galaxies. Let their observations cause them in their souls to define space as a lonely infinity, with unreachable nebulae and impossible distances. Let that be the Universe's reality in their minds—that of an untouchable, disconnected expanse. When they have become convinced of that reality, let Us surprise them and give them not only the world, but the whole Universe."

God is our link to everything, since He intimately knows us while simultaneously intimately knowing, for example, the farthest star, and each of its atoms—where they are, what they're doing, their weight, their speed.

The Creator bridges the gap between any two things, since He is everywhere. Each of us is only one Person removed from the farthest point in the universe. I can literally say, “I know Someone who's been there.” And, as resurrected humans in a resurrected universe, I think it's likely we'll journey there too one day. How then can outer space be lonely if we have an omnipresent God? It isn't lonely, but perhaps God allowed us to adopt that impression so that our heavenly surprise would be that much greater.

God is quite the Bridger of chasms, come to think of it. Light years pose no challenge to Him, great though they be. But even greater than the distances in our universe is the distance between sinful beings and a holy God. Time and space are nothing to Him; but that He would condescend to Earth as Christ, and suffer torture and humiliation is something. More unfathomable than the wonders of our universe is the wonder of His sacrifice. Without that, we, along with the universe, would have no redemption, but would languish in the outermost of nothingness, eternally devoid of God. For those who have trusted in His sacrifice, though, verse 12 of Psalm 103 records the most glorious distance of all: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

A Thought to Rekindle the Awe

I am eternal not only because I will live forever, but also because I existed in eternity past. I existed, as did all humans (as did all created things) in the mind and plan of God. He knew me and chose me before the foundation of the world. We, Creation, are a part of God, and have always been. We were never foreign to Him. He never suddenly thought us up the way we might suddenly think of something that before had not existed in our imaginations. In that sense, we have always been a part of the Infinite.

Electronic Childhood and the Beginning of the House Kids

It’s strange now, to think of the Eighties
When the era of outside childhood was close to death

but had not yet died
Three years on Oak Street and two in the steep Raymond Hills
The outdoors, though in the dusky suburbs,

still owned our utmost enchantment
We formed our gangs, walking the sidewalks with plastic rifles
and making teepees from palm fronds after windstorms
A swimming pool never had such appeal as then,

and so long would we swim
that night lights became fuzzy

and our eyes burned in bed at night,
leaking chlorine as the crickets chirped.
Sitting on skateboards we’d careen down hills

and crash in the grass, and do it again.
Outside with lemonade and pizza

we braved the bathwater currents
of summer’s Santa Ana’s.
It seems there were more neighbor kids then,

all members of secret clubs
Yet this childhood was incomplete
Old pals abandoned their trees,

now tantalized by Nintendo
It was hard to beat Double Dragon

or Mike Tyson’s Punch Out
This challenge now chosen over making a tree house
Or breaking into the apartment basement
I was only seven or eight when I heard

the last whisper of that age of creative play
How lucky we were

to splash in the last of its ancient shallows
How long it must have survived—up until these Eighties
From Creation, for centuries
From little Charlemagne with his sword in the forest,

to a pack of boys exploring the
recesses of a Builder’s Emporium
The death didn’t happen at once, though,

but started undercover, mid-century
and like a seed it worked slowly,

laying the plans for later decades
I know, from my folks’ stories of model cars

and of day treks on the railroad tracks
These things they did,

yet in their homes there too lurked a television
It was a slow death for this era,
caused by the very same electricity

we could not now do without
But perhaps the era is not dead
For there are still some with the outdoor itch
I see them on skateboards or playing sports
Refusing their veins viscosity
Loosening electricity’s grasp
They truly live

Fame and Familiarity

The sun really is a star—it’s a celebrity. And today I drove through an especially glitzy display. Its reflection ricocheted off every windshield, bumper, license plate and pair of sunglasses directly into my own sunglasses. I realized that all the TV billboards, bus-side ads, and magazines combined still couldn’t offer their patrons as much fame as our cityscape offers the sun. The sun is famous. I often don’t see it that way. I usually just think of it as this blaring thing, if I think of it at all.

Inklings of Immortality

I'll never forget these words from my college writing professor, Jack Simons: "I have more to say than I have life left to say it in." I feel the same way—and I don't think I'm alone in this. I have more to express than I have life left to express it in. This includes thoughts, feelings, ideas, songs, new forms of art, my reactions to beauty and earth's metaphors, thoughts on God and reality and the ramifications of infinity, and so on. I yearn to share and discuss these facets of God's infinitely-faceted beauty with others and develop them through interaction and communal enjoyment. But I cannot—at least not to the degree that would do them justice. For example, I've heard music in my head that I cannot express because my fingers aren't trained and my memory can't retain it long enough for me to go out and learn how to recreate it, and even if I could recreate it, I don't know which instruments would make some of the sounds or even if such instruments exist yet. Add to that my unimpressive singing voice and you can see how the frustration could mount.

Lost inspirations and ideas, songs and inventions, feelings I couldn't describe and that left as quickly as they came—all of this used to make me sad because I assumed they would probably never come again, and it felt lonely because I felt I would never be able to share them with anyone.

We supposedly use only 10% of our potential brainpower; I feel that I express only 0.001% of what is in me, and if I work really hard, then maybe at the end of my life I will have bumped that number up to 0.01%. Imagine all the potential for regret there—"I could have been . . ." "I could have done . . ." "I could have created . . ." After all, it is all there in my mind and my soul.

I have to admit that if I were more of a doer than a dreamer, I'd certainly have more works to show for it. But even if that were the case, I'd still be limited in such a way that I would never be able to fully unleash my God-given potential this side of Heaven. The great limiter here is Sin and the curse that accompanied it—the curse that made humankind just a shadow of what it was meant to be. This causes manifold symptoms in our being to the degree that we truly are sick. With me, these symptoms are ideas and feelings lost in a flash because they were too big and beautiful for my fallen mind to handle or even begin to figure out or make sense of. I just do not have the means, the time, or the sustaining mental and physical faculty to carry them to fruition. And even if I were privileged with all of those, the hardships of this life would certainly hinder it (yet ironically I do realize that such hardships are often the catalysts by which wonderful works of art come into being in the first place).

There are of course those times that I do flesh out a vision, either in poetry, prose, or song. But it never quite matches the original, core "thing" that struck me in the first place. Its expression is imperfect.

Now, by God's grace, I have come to see such occurrences as the Muse opening my soul for a foretaste of the things I'll do for eternity, things that will come to pass—and things that I will do well. It's hopeful now, and I must give much of the credit for this outlook to Randy Alcorn. He has written a wonderful, biblically sound book that I can't recommend enough. It's simply titled, "Heaven." The issues I'm dealing with here (and have dealt with all my life) are addressed in Chapter 41, entitled, "Will Heaven Ever be Boring?" In that chapter Alcorn quotes some notable authors and pastors. The first is Victor Hugo, who wrote:

I feel within me that future life. I am like a forest that has been razed; the new shoots are stronger and brighter. I shall most certainly rise toward the heavens the nearer my approach to the end, the plainer is the sound of immortal symphonies of worlds which invite me. For half a century I have been translating my thoughts into prose and verse: history, drama, philosophy, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song; all of these I have tried. But I feel I haven't given utterance to the thousandth part of what lies within me. When I go to the grave I can say, as others have said, "My day's work is done." But I cannot say, "My life is done." My work will recommence the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes upon the twilight, but opens upon the dawn.

The hopeful news continues further on in the book. Alcorn writes:

In The Biblical Doctrine of Heaven, Wilbur Smith suggests, 'In heaven we will be permitted to finish many of those worthy tasks which we had dreamed to do while on earth but which neither time nor strength nor ability allowed us to achieve.'

This is an encouraging thought. It saves us from frantically thinking that we have to do it all now, or from giving up in despair because of the limits of time, money, and strength, and the duties that keep us from certain things we'd love to do.

James Campbell took comfort in this same idea:

'This throws some measure of relieving light upon the painful mystery of a life brought to a sudden close in the fullness of its power. In the presence of such a tragedy we instinctively ask, Why this waste? Is all the training, discipline, and culture of this choice spirit to be lost? It cannot be; for in God's universe nothing is ever lost. No preparation is ever in vain. There is need up there for clear heads, warm hearts, and skilled hands. . . . If some kinds of work are over, others will begin; if some duties are laid down, others will be taken up. And any regret for labour missed down here, will be swallowed up in the joyful anticipation of the higher service that awaits every prepared and willing worker in the upper kingdom of the Father. . . . He will allow no heaven-born hope to be put to shame, but will bring to realization life's brightest visions.'

Later in the chapter Alcorn quotes Bruce Milne:

The one who is Lord of the whole of life was never going to bring us at the end into an eternal existence of mental constriction, or of emotional and creative impoverishment. Creativity will surely be valued, for such an anticipation must be in keeping with the nature of him who set the morning stars a-singing when he created them at the beginning, and whose joyful, uninhibited cry echoes across the battlements of the new creation. 'See, I am making everything new!' . . . What creative possibilities await us in the unfolding of the eternal ages no present imagination can begin to unravel.

Lastly, Alcorn quotes from pastor Mark Buchanan's book, Things Unseen:

Why won't we be bored in heaven? Because it's the one place where both impulses—to go beyond, to go home—are perfectly joined and totally satisfied. It's the one place where we're constantly discovering—where everything is always fresh and the possessing of a thing is as good as the pursuing of it—and yet where we are fully at home—where everything is as it ought to be and where we find, undiminished, that mysterious something we never found down here . . . And this lifelong melancholy that hangs on us, this wishing we were someone else somewhere else, vanishes too. Our craving to go beyond is always and fully realized. Our yearning for home is once and for all fulfilled. The ahh! of deep satisfaction and the aha! of delighted surprise meet, and they kiss.

Now everything makes sense. I have more to do and express than I have life left to do it in. But let me adjust that sentence: I have more to do and express than I have life left in this present body of death to do it in. I am immortal! Unquestionably, I have more in me than 70 or 80 years could ever allow. Even if those years were graciously unhindered by physical and mental limitations and the general hardships of life that often force us to take stifling paths, and even if one had every creative tool and opportunity at his disposal every day of his life—even if all of those things were the case, a normal human lifetime would still not allow enough years to express God's image in oneself. I don't think even a million years would be enough. Like all humans, I am made for eternity. Therefore, by nature of what God has made me (an immortal), I must be filled with desires, passions, and skills that are able to be developed to the degree that eternity won't outlast them. Not to mention those aforementioned unexplainable inklings of future desires, passions and skills as yet unimagined because we have not yet seen the new colors, the new sounds, the new ???s, the new objects and concepts and realities to which these new and ever-increasing desires will be attached.

Mortality, not immortality, is unnatural. Death is unnatural. Sin brought death into this world. We were made for something far greater than this fallen universe allows. We are so much more than short-lived earth folk, because our Creator made us in His image, and He is infinite and unfathomably good, deserving eternal expression. We are vessels for that expression, each one uniquely tailored by God to reflect His glory and enjoy Him forever. And I am here only explaining the manifestation of this reality in my own soul—little me, one of billions.

Those who tell themselves that this life is all there is consequently come to life-limiting conclusions and world views, adopting humanistic philosophies all of which, upon slightly closer examination, turn out to be so sadly empty. Here's a common one (often the moral of a movie): "It's enough to know I lived a good life and made the world a better place. I can die now." It's certainly commendable to make the world a better place, but is that all that this life is about? You die and cease to exist, but at least you made the world a better place (too bad you won't be around to enjoy the improvements). Even the good feelings you would have about yourself and your magnanimity would vanish the moment you died. You would have nothing—you would be nothing except a memory to those still living, and you'd be lucky if that memory lasted more than two generations. Frankly, if this life is all there is, your end is dirt.

Even though these humanistic philosophies are more hopeful than, say, nihilism, they are all ultimately still hopeless. It always depressed me when I felt that group pressure—the kind that insists that you settle for their "good news." I remember being indoctrinated with it in public school, and I still see it in the banal messages of many films and other media. In light of God's reality, their good news is not only bad but awful, and their philosophies are oppressive, and always vain. They glorify man instead of God, but ironically they also devalue and dehumanize man because they don't allow him to be the eternal, God-imaged being that he is. Look at communism and Nazism, and what their atheistic conclusions led to.

Here's the liberating truth: All good things will receive expression. It fits with God's character. That Christ died to save sinners is certainly The Good News. However, that Good News encompasses much more than we often realize: when Jesus died, He not only redeemed sinners, He also redeemed the currently-cursed universe. It will know this redemption only at the end of the Age, when He refashions the universe and creates a new heavens and new earth. John Wesley sums it up: "The best is yet to be." For more on this, read the Bible. Oh, and need I plug Alcorn's book again?

To Ask Mr. Alcorn

Will Heaven have room for silliness? Banter? Pulling someone's leg? What about practical jokes, or bagging on each other? Will good-natured heckling ever echo from Heaven's sports arenas? Will any of these sorts of things exist? What about Electronica and Ambient music and the strange feelings sometimes associated with them? Where else can we take this line of questioning, and how might the answers to these questions affect our lives as we now live them—how might they affect our choices in music and humor and amusement?

Nerd Thought

Thinking of outer space makes me realize that we define so much of life using ourselves and earth as a reference point. Doing so is certainly practical, and even necessary, but it's not so much true as it is convenient. Really, there is no true below or above. Only that which a planet’s gravity defines. Leave that planet, escape its gravity, and suddenly “underneath” doesn’t exist. Indeed, the vast majority of the universe does not recognize such terms. In outer space, position is relative.

Confidence

Are you insecure? Only in total dependence is there total freedom from insecurity. That total dependence must rest on something that cannot be taken away or destroyed. Obviously, that something is God. If the reason I'm confident in front of others is because I have a fit body and a good hair day, then my confidence teeters on a thin thread. If the reason I don't fear man is because I've never lost an argument, then the confidence that rests on my own quick intellect has no guarantee, as I could have a stroke or develop Alzheimer's disease. The great paradox is that before I can feel secure, I must admit that I have nothing to offer toward my security. God is my anchor. He is my Rock.

Creative Blasphemy

On my way to Camarillo last December I saw a pickup truck in front of me with three Jesus fish in a row facing down with the bottom ends of the tails cut off. The resulting design was a clear 666. Then, in the corner of my eye I recognized the ubiquitous Calvin decal on his rear window. But, as was the case with the Jesus fish, this decal had been specially altered. It now depicted a somewhat bewildered but still trustful Calvin at the foot of a cross, and the cross was peeing on him.

What a commentary on Christendom, or perhaps religion in general. His car had no other decals or bumper stickers. It seemed solely dedicated to making its one point. This was the only message he wanted to send. I wonder what bad experience, if any, he might have had in the name of Christendom.

Where is He?

If God were to answer our demands that He reveal Himself, how would His manifestation look? How would it sound? Feel? Taste? Smell? Could our finite senses even begin to analyze the Infinite?

The atheist or agnostic who says he won’t believe until he sees God doesn’t know what he’s asking for. God is everywhere. If God were to reveal Himself, He’d blot out the universe. And even then, would it do Him justice? If He were to appear, then to be visible, He’d have to, for our sakes, condescend to a narrow spectrum of colors. Then the atheist, upon sizing Him up, would probably say, “Well that doesn’t impress me much. I don’t see any new colors.”

There is a form that did God justice. Jesus grew up and walked the earth, disturbed physical laws, healed, and came back to life from death. Yet Judas traded Him for 30 pieces of silver. Pilate traded Him for a murderer. Those who had seen Him do magic spat on His face and pierced the very hands that wrought compassionate miracles. True, He didn’t impress anyone with fireworks—that’s for later—but He did something much more God-like, much more beautiful, much more convincing: He died for you. He loved sinners. He was the God-Man. John MacArthur puts it succinctly: “If God came to earth, He would have been Jesus. And He was.”

In what form would God have to appear to appease the atheist? I doubt a satisfying one exists. It can always at least be explained away as a hallucination. The Pharisees took it a step further, saying Christ performed His miracles by the power of demons. Clearly, He wasn’t the God they wanted, so they conquered their consciences and “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1:25).

A caterpillar must become a butterfly before it can understand the way of wind under wings. What must we become to perceive God for all that He is? Certainly it would have to be a creature with innumerable, unimaginable senses. And even then the mystery would remain, for He is unfathomable.

Ultimately, God’s fireworks won’t save you. More likely, they’ll scare you. His character is the convincing, drawing factor. For now, we can be content that Christ is enough. Where will we find Him today? He has risen. He is alive. We find Him in His living Word, throughout both the Old and New Testaments, as well as in the hearts of believers worldwide.

This Smacked my Face Today! But it's good

"The insignificances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. It is in our most unguarded moments that we really show and discern what we are."

-Andrew Murray

Suicide Sobriety

From last year:

Today I got home from work and found in the mailbox Tiger News 2006, my high school alumni newsletter. I skimmed the bright orange booklet until coming to the list of “Tigers who have been reported as no longer with us,” titled “In Memoriam.” I looked for the years nearest my own. It stopped at 1997, a year before I graduated. There, only one name laid claim to the freshest death. Michael _____. Suddenly, I remembered. He had ended his own life. Whether or not I was still in high school at the time I don’t remember. But it had seemed so dark. I knew who he was.

That same day, a few hours and a thousand unrelated thoughts later, an old friend from high school called me. Alice had found me on myspace weeks prior, and we had been emailing with promises to reconnect. Strange that it would happen this way—that the first time I hear her voice in 7 years is so that she can tell me news of Kris _______.

“He took his own life last night,” she said.

I was shocked but didn’t have much time to express it. Her call was urgent. She needed the phone number of a mutual friend whom she thought ought to know. I gave it to her and we commented on the strange circumstances under which we were reconnecting, and then promised to catch up soon.

Life has convinced me that coincidence is not random, but rather, some kind of display of God’s involvement in our lives. So I naturally wondered why the news of Kris’ suicide came up on the same day as the reminder of other schoolmate suicides. I also thought about the newsletter. If it had been printed only a few days later, then Michael would no longer sit last on that list. No doubt, November’s edition will list Kris.

Sobered, and curious, I took some of my yearbooks from the shelf in the corner of the garage. Here is Michael’s senior quote: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” And Kris’, from a fortune cookie: “Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned.”

Were these hints at what was already going on in their minds? Or were they just innocent quotes? I don’t know, but I wonder if God is telling us to pay closer attention.

Some of the most beautiful lines ever written

Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
Or loose the cords of Orion?
Can you lead forth a constellation in its season,
And guide the Bear with her satellites?

-Job 38:31-32

Excerpt from a thank you letter sent out to supporters of my November mission trip to Fortaleza, Brazil

What were 11 gringos doing several thousand miles and one hemisphere away from home that they couldn't do in their own town? Here are a few thoughts:

-Giving a needed boost to the hard work of the long-term missionaries.

-Showing love to kids and adults who can't get over the fact that we "clean, wealthy Americans" would not only spend time with them, but touch them and hug them and play with them and get dirty working with them. They couldn't help but wonder why we weren't spending our two weeks on one of their beautiful beaches instead.

-Expanding our view of reality by seeing God at work in another culture. I like what Brian, our team leader, said: "God is a Brazilian." Obviously, He's far more than that, but that statement did a good job getting the point across.

-Learning what true Christianity is by seeing what it is not.

-Fulfilling the Great Commission.

All of the above began on November 5. We escaped an encroaching autumn and entered a land of year-round summer—at least by North American standards. The rainy season had ended a few weeks prior, and we found it hard to believe that Fortaleza had been even greener than it already was when we arrived.

Our bus driver, Cesar, took us from the airport to the home of Bill and Erika Moore—six walled acres in the middle of a favela (slum). That was to be our headquarters for the next two weeks while we went out to many slums in Fortaleza and did our ministry.

Here's how a typical day of ministry looked: Wake up at 6:30. Take a cold shower (which we welcomed in the equatorial heat). Breakfast together at 7:00, which included fresh fruits and fruit juices that have now spoiled me for even the best farmer's markets in California. My favorite juices were passion fruit and cashew. After breakfast, we would board the bus and Cesar would skillfully avoid potholes, bumps, dogs, pedestrians, motorcycles, and families on bicycles as he took us to ministry areas such as Projeto Graca, or Grupo CEO, or Maracanau, or Creres. The eager children often arrived before we did. Most didn't attend school, and where their parents were, we could only guess. Some mothers, we learned, were on the streets, selling themselves.

We usually began our time with the children by singing and dancing with them. To my surprise, the song-accompanying hand motions I had feared learning actually came rather easily (once you know three or four, you just about know them all). In addition to that, here are some of the stations we set up every day:

-Hair Washing

-Lice Treatment (I suspect I may now need that myself!)

-Hair Cutting

-Tooth Brush Training, complete with chocolate candies to simulate dirty teeth

After all of those things came the Puppet Show, which the kids always loved more than anything else. In our best Portuguese, we would deliver the gospel message from behind a curtain with Sesame Street-esque puppets. The puppets would explain the significance of each colored bead on the "Pulseira de Boas Novas"—the Bracelet of Good News. Gold stood for Heaven. Black stood for the barrier between humanity and Heaven, which is Sin. Red stood for the Blood of Christ, which serves as the means by which Sin can be conquered. White stood for Purification, which comes as a result of trusting in Christ's sacrifice. Green stood for Growth and new life as a new creation in Christ. After the presentation, the kids would line up for bracelets and we would tie them on their "sweaty little wrists" (to quote Brian again).

I have never seen poorer children. Neither have I seen happier ones. Perhaps their joy was in part due to the novelty of being with foreigners, and perhaps it waned once we left, but I can't help but think there was something more to it.

I especially knew the trip was worth it during our second week in Brazil. We had spent two days at Lar Da Paz (Land of Peace), a rehabilitation center run by a married couple. The original intent was to use that space as an area to continue doing our ministry with local children. What we didn't expect was that the Lord would use us to impact the lives of older men. After two days with a group of 20 or 30 you-name-it addicts and former criminals, one of them, speaking for the group, said to me in broken English, "All of you tattooed our lives." He meant it with the kind of sincerity that makes you want to glance away lest you become too emotional.

We had had the privilege of doing construction with them, playing soccer with them, worshiping the Lord through dance together, and even washing their feet. Apparently, this made a significant impact. However, what everyone on our mission team realized was that these broken men had inked an equally significant tattoo on our own lives. Each member of our team rejoiced that God had taken these men and changed their lives in such a way that only a supernatural explanation would suffice. Yet with each testimony, we saw ever more deeply the significance of our own salvation. Most of us weren't former criminals, but we were all once slaves to sin, and God delivered each of us with an equally miraculous act.

During our time in Brazil, the Lord timed it so that we saw the seeds of salvation sprout in five different people with whom we had contact. We may hear of more fruit in weeks to come, but the bulk of it probably won't be known until Heaven. Though you weren't physically there, I know many of you were "there" in prayer. That means a lot to me. God is so powerful that He can connect us in our service by means of prayer. You produced fruit, and one day, if you are His, you will partake in that with indescribable joy.

Kindness and Cowardliness

One difference between a kind person and a doormat is that a kind person is meek. He has power that he could wield, and yet he often tactfully restrains it. He exercises self-denial, and when he does choose to wield his power, he proceeds gently. He humbly defers to the other person. The doormat is the one who doesn’t trust any power with which to be meek in the first place. He’s simply afraid. He’s a coward.

Faux Flatulence and How to Exonerate Yourself

(June 2004)

As Ben crosses one leg over another, the rubber sole of his shoe catches the vinyl chair in front of him, vibrating at a pitch that might make those sitting around him consider putting their shirts over their noses. But they won’t, of course. That would be too embarrassing—not necessarily for them, but for whoever was responsible for the public no no. And, if someone in the drop zone does put his shirt over his nose, or exclaims, “Eww, who did that,” then he runs the very real risk of being thought the dealer who dealt what he heard. So, what is Ben to do? First of all, he’s not sure if they even heard the noise, because if they did, no one would reveal it. Therefore, he can’t simply break the silence and blurt, “That wasn’t what it sounded like. It was just my shoe rubbing against the chair.” He might be thought insane. His only course of action is to do it again. Again?! Yes, again. Perhaps three or four more times. But they will all have to be subtle, like he didn’t intend them. And he’ll have to make each successive one less similar in sound than its predecessor. This will assuage the listeners’ ears by guiding them through the transition from the original sound to the new, less flatulence-like and more vinyl-meets-rubber-like sound. Then they’ll make the connection, and all will be okay.

When Pests Become Friends

(April 2004)

As I was preparing to teach a class today, I saw an ant on a paper towel that I had taken out of my pocket and placed on the desk. I wondered if it had hitched a ride in my pocket. I wanted to play with it, this lone small creature, many ant-miles away from any kind of food, surrounded by desks and chairs and computers and carpet. I let it scurry onto my hand, and all over my arm, quickly navigating what must have been to him a heavily wooded forest. He was moving too fast for me to relax and have any fun with him, and I didn’t want to let him disappear up my sleeve and give me a surprising bite during class, or crawl into my ear beyond the point where my littlest finger can fit. So I had to make the decision: Do I kill him, or do I let him go? Normally, if I’m inside and I see a lone ant, I quickly roll it to death between my thumb and forefinger. I use my left hand for this deed. I consider it my duty to kill lone ants, because they could very well be scouts, and even if this particular ant wasn’t sent out as a scout, he probably had the potential to become one, even in new territory. I decided that he could easily be the harbinger of our office’s first ant infestation, and so I gently transferred him to my right hand and then rolled him real good with my left.

And it hurt to kill him. I felt like I murdered him. Sort of.

While he was still alive, and had been crawling on my arm, I was strongly reminded of an old feeling. In my past 17 years as a student, during a boring class, an unexpected ant could become a most welcome pet. It would be a relief from the boredom, a living being on which I could concentrate, something with a will of its own, subject to my will. Because of the circumstances, it would suddenly become my pet, instead of my enemy. Any classroom was like a foreign embassy, granting immunity to the wandering ant.

As I sat at the chair in the office, I suddenly had that feeling all over again, of how I could be intrigued by watching this little intricate creature zip around my hand and defy gravity. Something that normally held little value to me became valuable in an instant. And it’s not that ants just held little value before, it’s that in a usual setting, I would kill one on the spot. I have killed hundreds of thousands in my lifetime, so much so that I can easily recognize the smell of the formic acid from their ruptured abdomens.

Now, an ant is an ant. The fact that this one was alone and happened to provide a respite from boredom didn’t make him any more of a virtuous insect. He was just there. And when it came to my decision, I still killed him. But then why the small flash of remorse, when all other times, there is none? Perhaps it’s because having him alone, I was forced to contemplate the complexity of God’s small creatures, and to realize that God is mindful even of that ant, and He even loves it, in a way. However, that doesn’t make it wrong to kill an ant, unless perhaps the killing is done out of malice.

I think there may have been another reason for the remorse I felt. Perhaps it stemmed from the illogical sentimentality to which most of us can fall victim, the kind of thinking that would endow that ant with qualities it does not have, simply because it belongs to me, even if only for the moment. He was my little friend, even though that’s not the feeling that went through his mind (if he has a mind, and if he was even a he). He was my friend, simply by circumstance, and only because of what went on in my mind.

Godincidence in Hollyweird

(January 2004)

Tonight, as I drove home from a chiropractic analysis in Hollywood, I decided to amuse myself in traffic. I wanted to do something weird and unusual. Perhaps in the back of my mind I wanted to fit in—they don’t call it Hollyweird for nothing. So I took my guitar from the case on the passenger seat and put the case in the back seat to make room for my elbow when I played. I rolled down the window, stuck the neck partly out into the cold air, and started to play, hoping that the temperature difference wouldn’t detune the guitar. At every stoplight I positioned the guitar with the neck and left hand out the window, and played a melody. Most only lasted 15 seconds or so, because by then the light would turn green and the herd of cars would begin to move. Strangely, I didn’t feel out of character doing this. Normally, I’m not the kind of guy who willingly makes himself look like an oddball or eccentric. But I was just doing what I wanted.

To my surprise, I found myself hoping to have to stop at red lights! That goes against everything my driving personality believes. To me, driving is always a game. The object: maximum distance in minimal time, which means to be vigilantly looking (up to 300 yards ahead) for drivers who could throw a wrench in my plans or ruin my envisioned route. This game entails that I avoid red lights at all costs (within the reasonable bounds of common decency, of course). With the guitar in hand, however, driving was no longer a game. It had become a silly, fun, avant garde art form called drive-by music. And red lights no longer stressed me.

So I started to wonder, what does this look like to other people? Does anyone else do this? Not a second later, there came the answer to my question. I looked to my right and saw a man in a parked car two lanes over, playing his guitar with the neck sticking out the window. I noticed his license plate, which simply said, “JEWISH,” and then I saw the familiar long beard and yarmulke. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I like to look at these incidences, which seem to happen to me quite often, as God’s fun way of reminding me of His sovereignty. Perhaps the Holy Spirit moved me to take out the guitar, knowing that I would drive past and see the Jewish man doing the same a few minutes later.

February 2006

Winter’s insurgent winds,
subtle as breezy strength,
snuck past the sun rays
and slunk among the oaks
to disrupt this February summer,
and chide bare skin everywhere