Here I Am – The Story of Me

    I am again worn out, ground down tired. A jigsawed puzzle missing pieces. Neverlast. First time, last time blind. Struck from behind by unseen hands. A humble opening of deliberation and doctrinal concern.

    I am once more hardly born, escaping, yet expecting to be remembered. Drifting first to myth then vulgarity. Off by a mile or more of deathbed prophecy. But put the story in context. Tell them who I am. Tell them I belong here.

    Here I am – confessing into the dark - the story of me. Though not remotely viable. Complicated and asking for help. More than ornamental. Less than helpful. Striking at confrontation. Reveling in the little and revealing little more. You can’t ask for more than that. I just don’t have it.

This Is not the End

    And here we were, tied to them, hands behind our back, face down in the dirt. Streams of snot blown from our nose. Tied to the turncoat betrayals, to the obstructionist shareholders burning down the house, to the controlling voices parroting Nazi slogans and championing collective punishment against American citizens.

    Can you imagine it? See it solid? Feel the binding cuffs cinched tight and the ball gag shoved deep? Suck it. Our adrenaline, their Adderall. Our conscience – trampled. Overruled. We ain’t doin’ that constitutional, due process shit anymore.

    Sell and buy. Bought and sold. All there for the taking. Soulless. They have no doctrine of American poverty. They don’t build. They don’t create. Buy and sell. Trading up Turning and selling out. Ruled by moneylenders and creditors. Exactors and tyrants.

    Our supplication, our salvation burning through the burring chemical fumes and acrid haze. Our eyes plucked out bloody and thrown down. More missiles fill the sky. Chaos and housing complexes collapsing.

    What’s the problem here? What’s the warfare now? Encircled and besieged at the outer edge of hell with klaxons and alarums every night. Degradation without catharsis. We are living among the dead on the red line limit while the war machine throttles through urban streets.

    Righteous Branch and Jesse’s Rod, Son of Man and Son of God, where are the shining lights? Where is the rising brightness? The hope of glory? Where is the Morning Star of Dawn?

    All these things must come to pass. Do not ask for an end. This is not the end

Do You Even Pray? - The Troll Returns

    The troll rolled up at my house a few seconds after I got home from work myself. I knew it was him by the roar and rumble of the damaged muffler on his pickup truck. He pulled up to the sidewalk just past my house and I saw that bumper-sticker of his, “Luke 23:46 Still Applies!”

    “Hold up there, Carter,” he bellowed as he stepped out of his truck. “I’ve got a question for you.”

    ‘This should be fun,’ I thought to myself as I got out of my car and turned back to him. “What’s up, Gunner?”

    He stepped quickly up my driveway. “I just want to know, do you pray, Carter? Do you?”

    I sighed and closed my car door. “Listen,” I said. “You can come in and insult me all you want, but I need you to help me with something.”

    “What?” he asked taken aback. He actually took a step backwards as he said it.

    “Simple. Just what I said. You can come in and sneer and snarl at me all you want, but I promised my wife that I’d put up some shelves for her and I need some help holding things level. If you want to continue your… discussion, you’ll have to help me with that project.”

    I pushed the lock button on my key fob and the car alarm honked twice, then I walked to the front door. “Are you coming?” I asked him.

    “I’ve been watching you,” he said as soon as we were inside the house. “You’ve been holding out. I’ve been listening and you’ve been keeping secrets.”

    “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” I said. “Let me change my clothes and get my tools and we can continue the fun.”

    “Here you are, struggling in deep water,” he shouted up the stairs to me as I changed out of my work uniform. “Fire burning, smoke grenades exploding all around you. War. Disaster. Unrest. All of your modern scientific life. And all I can say is, why not just accept the providence of God? Why not just let God open your mind?"

    I came back down in jeans and a t-shirt. “Keep going,” I said. “I’m just going to grab my tools.”

    “Strong delusions,” he said. “You’ve believed the lies. The lies of the government, the lies in your church – which we should talk about. You need a better church. A Bible believing church…”

    “Right. Hold that,” I said, handing him the shelf.

    “God’s laws are resolute. Not open to debate,” he continued.

    “Uh-huh,” I nodded as I measured and marked the studs with a pencil.

    “Admit it,” he said.

    “Hold that,” I repeated.

    “Admit it. You don’t even know what the truth is.”

    “You’re probably right,” I said, handing him a handful of screws.

    “So again: Do you even pray, Carter? Answer me this. Do you actually believe that God hears and answers prayers? Tell me you’re not one of those…”

    I drew the line. “Is the bubble in the middle?” I asked him and handed him the level.

    “Are you even listening to me?” he asked but I was already running the drill to secure the brackets to the wall and I couldn’t hear him.

    It’s the smugness that gets me. The unwarranted confidence that God hears his prayers as an unquestioned absolute. And not only hears but responds. Answers. And answers positively. Does he pray for and miraculously find a parking spot in the grocery store parking lot? Do I pray? Sure I pray. Of course, I pray. But does God hear? Does God answer? I don’t know; it’s a blur and a wonder. I pray like a man giving up the ghost.

    I finished with the drill and wiped a bit of plaster from the wall. Together we secured the shelf to the brackets. “That looks pretty good,” I said.

    “Oh, yeah. That’s going to be pretty secure there,” he said.

    “Yeah,” I nodded. “She’s going to be happy. Thanks,” I said and showed him the door.

An Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll 
Another Conversation with a Real Troll: I Will Not Fight the Argument
A Third Conversation with a Real Troll: Supermarket Wrestling

This Should Not Happen

    Lament, lament
    the suffering of our name
    it is too much, too long

    Counted as rebels, disloyal
    made to wander and to die
    not welcome turned away

    How can we survive
    passed out, collapsed
    weak water heart remembers

    We have waited
    we have waited
    but we are so small

        (Amos 7)

Atmospheric Echoes

     I was traveling to Newark when I heard the first reports of the unidentified aerial phenomenon. Strange visions in the sky – coming from major metropolitan centers. I’d been on the bus for six hours and I still had two more hours to go. A long trip toward what? Work or consolation? I would have taken whatever was available. Starting over was starting over.

    In the early days of saucer sightings (Ezekiel 1, 2 Kings 2) there were numerous cases of a UFO or other UAP causing anxiety among the saints, far from home. Lonely. This happens far less often today – with advanced technology and complete memory recovery systems. Radar and full restoration still being perfected. Reports this week of shooting objects in the sky over Beijing. Random images maybe, but the reports made something of them.

    “Marvel not at these atmospheric echoes,” came a voice.

    I stared out the window at the lights in the distance and counted the minutes. How long had it been since… How long would it be until… These were calculations I couldn’t complete. I no longer understood the calculus of human interaction. Addition became division and she was gone.

    UFOs often create electrical force disturbance affecting not only people and animals but sophisticated electronics as well. Injury and short circuits. Rashes. Burns. Depression. Sleeplessness. Heartburn. Aerial sickness. Even radiation poisoning requiring prolonged hospitalization. Death and hell. Extremely dangerous. Technological overload. God and technology reversed and reordered. This could kill you in two to three days and, what is worse, corrupt the data. Context requires more detail, of course (160 GB – do not exceed capacity).

    “What it carries can give you new purpose in life,” came the voice again.

    I dug in my rucksack for my notebook. My notes. Conversational sketches. Character outlines. Parents and stuff. Histories and obscure words forgotten. With pen and paper I could write anywhere. Low-tech. Simple. At home (home no longer), on the bus (for another hour), in Newark. Put down the words, any words, all the words. Order would come later.

    In March of 1978 a man from Beijing reported a secret rapture – not preceding (better than “preventing” as the KJV has it) a “beam of light.” Hit me. Hit me. A hit waiting to happen. In 1977 a dog died in Salto Uruguay. Coincidence? How many others were carried away and never seen again?

    “Rise now. Right now,” said the voice again. “All over the world the prospect of being taken to heaven rises higher and higher. Are you one of the chosen?”