New Shorts

I went to Old Navy. Got four pairs of size 30 cargo shorts. I am not happy with the new belt I got at the Gap, and it’s too messed up to return, so I looked at belts. Found the perfect item marked down to $8.99. Size? “S.”

I am wearing the belt and a pair of the shorts now. This is fantastic.

Now all I have to do is settle on a garlic roll recipe, so I won’t have tempting test batches lying around.

Evangelism is Taunting

Christianity is an irrational offshoot of ancient Jewish tribal rituals, and none of it has any basis in fact. I hope everyone understands that. When God seems to do something in your life, it just means you’re primitive and superstitious, and you probably don’t even believe in proven concepts like Global Warming and Marxism.

But…

Yesterday, a blogger who befriended me years ago sent me an email, saying his life had been turned around. He had given up some harmful vices, and he was working on rebuilding his family, and he happened to see my blog and read about the changes in me, and he had questions for me.

I emailed three Christian friends with the news. It was pretty exciting. You know how wee-weed up superstitious people get.

One of those friends is a rep for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. She emailed me back and invited me to some IFCJ functions which will be taking place in DC in the month of May. It all happens during the week of the National Day of Prayer. She couldn’t guarantee me a seat at the IFCJ function that takes place on that day, but I would be able to go to an IFCJ dinner and visit the Holocaust Museum with them.

Hmm. Do I know anyone in DC? Anyone who has been drawing closer to God lately, and who might want to tag along during some of this stuff?

Only Mike. Only the oldest friend I have.

I got on Orbitz, figuring the flights would be insanely expensive. No, sorry. They’re practically paying people to fly to DC that week.

I got back in touch with my friend, and I mentioned Mike. She emailed me back, and she said she was “pretty sure” I would be able to get a seat at the prayer event, and that I would definitely be able to invite Mike to go to the dinner and the Holocaust Museum. He might even be given a seat at the prayer thing.

Okay.

Man, it’s amazing what God can do. Being imaginary and all. Global Warming is imaginary, and it can’t even drown a polar bear.

Here’s more fun. I checked Sondra K., and I happened to see this: some federal judge has decided that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. Oh, man! Good thing I haven’t booked that flight yet!

Obama is actually defending the National Day of Prayer. He may not go to church, but he knows voters go. I’ll be praying he resigns, but I do appreciate his effort.

More interesting news: college football players are about to be forbidden to put messages in their eye black. This is something I know almost nothing about, since I would rather eat tofu on Castro Street with a witch than watch football. Evidently, Christian players have been putting things like “EPH 2:8-10” on their eye black. The NCAA has decided to equate this with standing in the end zone doing dances simulating sexual domination of the opposing team.

It’s pretty much the same thing. Clearly. If you can’t see how a discreet expression of faith is bad sportsmanship and a form of taunting, I can’t hope to explain it to you. It’s one of those things you should understand automatically, like the need to be ashamed when you carry a Down Syndrome baby to term.

When are we going to stop treating Christianity like pornography? It’s amazing how hard we work to hide it. If you’re a homosexual, you’re supposed to be proud and march in parades. If you’re a Christian, you can’t even write it on your face. How did we get here?

We live in a country where public school lunchrooms are banning pork on account of a few Muslim students. I think we can make room for Bible eye black.

Maybe the NCAA is worried that the drunkenness and betting that drive football will suffer if fans are reminded of God’s existence during games. If it weren’t for beer and betting, there would be no such thing as a professional athlete. No one would be able to sit through a whole game, awake.

I wonder what Ephesians 2:8-10 says. Let’s see.

Ha! Check it out:

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The central message of Christianity. The thing that makes the gospel “good news.” I’m sure glad little children won’t have to see THAT on their TV screens any more.

I have to go do my Orbitz thing. I can’t believe this is happening.

More

More fodder for superstition: I told my dad I was going to DC, and he said he wanted to get me the ticket for my birthday.

COINCIDENCE!

Add Your Brick to the Wall

Richard from It Baffles Science! is changing his life for the good. He is turning over a new leaf and turning things over to God. He and his wife and daughter have had some trials, and he has decided to ally himself with God in order to get himself and his family healed.

He says:

please pray for my wife’s depression, fibromyalgia, anxiety disorder and PTSD. her name is Beth. pray that the spirit of forgiveness will be opened to her, not just for me but for the other’s who have hurt her in her life.

pray for me and my growth and to strengthen my walk and as spiritual leader of my family and the renewal and transformation of our marriage.

If you are a Christian, you know Richard is in for a renewed assault, so if you have time, please intercede for his protection. I am asking God to send him powerful spirits to war on behalf of his family.

I can’t believe what my blog has become. It may finally be useful for something.

Chewy and Tasty

Okay, try this. Make garlic roll dough, but leave the yeast out. Keep oil away from it. Dump the yeast on a flat surface and knead the dough into it, folding the yeast into the dough over and over.

You don’t have to make the blending perfect. Just get it in there pretty good. Like 90% mixed. Make sure it’s instant yeast, not active yeast.

Make the rolls, using the recipe I gave you earlier.

It will take a long time for these rolls to rise. Maybe three hours. That’s okay, though, because they’ll be very good.

I don’t know if this is autolysing or what, but the baked dough has a nice leathery, chewy quality, and the flavor is better. I’ve added yeast late to pizza dough, and it works fine, even without a significant interval between the mixing of the dough and the addition of the yeast.

To make sauce, use about a quarter-cup of garlic cloves. Add around a quarter-cup of oil, a teaspoon of parsley flakes (dry is fine) and a lot of salt. Oops. Before you add the parsley, grind the garlic and oil in a tiny processor. I suppose you can nuke this stuff to cook the garlic, but you don’t have to.

I made rolls using this recipe, and I ate them. All six. Man, they were good. I wish I had time to use this recipe at church, but the day would be over before the crusts rose.

I would post photos, but there is nothing left to photograph.

MAN, I can cook. Pizza and rolls, at least. This is amazing. God will give you some strange and unexpected things. There has to be a reason for this.

Healing Testimony

Richard at It Baffles Science! has a wonderful testimony up. Came as a big shock to me; he emailed me today out of the blue. There is more to it than what you will see on his site, but here is a start: CLICK.

I’m in Here Somewhere

I have to run a fairly joyful errand today. It’s time to give away these huge, baggy, size 32 cargo shorts and get some in 30.

Pick your jaws up off your keyboards. I don’t know what the real size of these pants is, but it’s not 32. It’s probably 34. Manufacturers mislabel clothes because they know fat people like wearing small sizes. Still, this is pretty great.

This weekend I had to go to the Gap and get a 32″ (nominally) belt. That felt nice.

I was worried about my weight because Mike came to town. We did all-you-can-eat ribs at Sonny’s. We tried Five Guys. You can imagine the carnage. But I’m okay. I may have picked up a pound or two, but the crisis is past, and the trend is still downward, as far as I know.

I should have realized: only fat people have to worry about occasional excesses. I’m not a fat person. To a fat person, a visit from Mike would be a pivotal event leading to disaster. To me, it’s a speed bump and a pleasant break. The miracle God gave me is not going away. I will not be brought down by a few days of good eating.

Listen to me and try to get this for yourself. Don’t let me sit here and blather about it, to no constructive end. Put it to use. Fast and pray. In particular, pray in the Spirit every day, for a good long time. Cast your little visitors out. I’m free. You should be able to get free, too.

Don’t assume it’s limited to food. Do you have allergies? Depression? Chronic illness? Unforgiveness you can’t shake? Anger? I would think that any problem originating in the flesh or the spirit realm would be vulnerable to attack. God gives us the fruit of the Spirit (strength of character) to beat the flesh, and he gives us faith (a fruit of the Spirit and also among the gifts of the Spirit) to beat demons.

My nighttime allergies have disappeared. Can’t figure that out. I didn’t do anything. The other day I awoke and realized I had been sleeping on my back. That’s new. Allergies and a fat neck make sleeping on your back difficult.

Perry Stone said something interesting. Demons like to try to come back after certain amounts of time. He mentioned six months as one such period. I can’t recall the others. They were shorter. I think one interval was two weeks.

This makes sense. Satan is called the Lord of the Flies. What do flies do when you shoo them away? They buzz around and then return. And Jesus informed us that demons like to go back into their hosts.

Some believe “Lord of the Flies” is a corruption, and that the original term meant something like “Lord of Poop.” I am not an expert on the devil’s names, but I saw a spirit stuck to the wall of my house, and more than anything else, it resembled a winged insect. More like a beetle or roach than a fly, but it had wings, and it flew.

And like demons, flies are attracted to rot and death. Some types bite and sting and suck our blood. So I think “Lord of the Flies” is probably correct.

I think it makes sense that as you grow in the Spirit and drop chronic sins, certain negative things will start to fall off without explanation. The other day it occurred to me that increased righteousness will make you “slippery” to Satan. Sin is like a handle he can use to control you, so the less you sin, the harder it is for him to get a grip. And the spiritual power that grows inside you probably drives a certain percentage of your tormentors off, even if you don’t address them intentionally. To a demon, it must be like living next door to a poorly shielded nuclear reactor.

I really look forward to driving all of my giant pants to Goodwill.

Book Recommendation

I want to recommend a book. It’s called A Warrior Culture, and the author is Donny Prater. It’s about the militant attitude Christians should be taking toward Satan’s kingdom. When I say “militant,” I am referring to supernatural warfare. I mean things like prayer and Bible study, not forming a militia to shoot up federal buildings. Let’s not put me on a no-fly list, okay?

Not that I ever go anywhere. To affect me, you would need a “no sit” list.

If I had to sum up the book quickly, I would say it’s about the need for Christian men to get off the couch, go to services, form groups, and stop forcing their wives and daughters and mothers and sisters to do all the work at their local churches. If heaven is anything like the church, there will be three women there for every man. Imagine how miserable it will be. The TV channels will all be about decorating and sewing. The food will be salad. There will be no gun ranges. You won’t be allowed to put your feet on anything. Come on. Are we going to stand for that?

How did the church get so feminine and fruity? Look at the Bible and tell me that makes sense. The Apostles carried swords–on orders from Jesus–and Peter whacked a guy’s ear off. David put a rock through a man’s skull, into his brain, and sliced his head off. Then he carried it home. All of this was God’s idea. Elijah had 450 defenseless idolaters held down and slaughtered like pigs. The temple in Jerusalem could be described accurately as a combination barbecue joint and slaughterhouse; the blood ran like water, all the time. Prophecy says it will run again, so let’s not make up a false vegan New Testament ethic that has no scriptural basis.

Christianity and Judaism were never intended to be built on feminine models. Authority has always been a masculine concept, and God is at his most masculine when he exercises his authority. This ought to be clear to any conservative. Leftism is a perversion which feminizes government, and look at the misery it causes. A leftist nation is like a family where the husband has abandoned his responsibilities and forced his wife to lead.

Evangelist John Gray put it well. He said, “I don’t HAVE a feminine side.” He said God removed man’s feminine side when he opened Adam up and used his flesh to create Eve. We have the ridiculous idea that sensitivity, compassion, and caring are feminine traits. That’s just not true. Women seem to be designed to nurture and comfort and support, and they do those things better than men do, but that doesn’t mean every type of love or unselfishness is feminine.

We have been taught that Jesus was an emaciated little guy who should have had “Push me in the Mud” tattooed on his forehead. A person who would have made a fine wedding planner or hairdresser. Mind you, we are talking about the guy who sent an angel to kill 185,000 Assyrians in one night. This is an all-powerful being who, according to prophecy, will personally massacre so many of his enemies that his robe will be drenched in their blood. That’s one tough florist.

As Donny Prater points out, Jesus was a carpenter, and he worked without power tools. Think about that. A typical table saw runs at 3600 RPM and has something like two hundred carbide teeth on the blade. My saw has a 5-horsepower motor. Imagine trying to do that saw’s work without electricity. Imagine cutting mortises and tenons by hand. Imagine shaping furniture legs and planing boards. Six days a week. We’re talking about a fit, muscular man who worked with razor-sharp tools. Jesus was not a wimp, and he does not expect us to be wimps.

We need to meet regularly and acknowledge God together. We need to admit we can’t do it all on our own. We need to summon our determination and grit and start doing supernatural warfare together. This is what I took away from the book.

When I read about the lukewarm men’s ministries Donny Prater had been part of, I realized how blessed I am. Every Saturday, I meet with a bunch of men. We have breakfast together, but that’s not the point of the gatherings. We open and close with prayer. Our leader presents scriptures and other materials (like A Warrior Culture) for us to discuss. We give our testimonies. We encourage each other. We do exactly what we should be doing.

The book has stories about men who get together, make small talk, stuff themselves, and leave. Prater talks about the difficulties he experienced, putting a real men’s ministry together. Thanks to God and the faithful leaders at my church, I’m not dealing with that.

I also belong to the Armorbearers. We support the pastor from behind the scenes, and we keep the church safe. Some of us carry arms. We just got our first female member, but the organization is primarily male. It’s fantastic.

Every church should have men who work together the way we do. And we’re not the only ones. We have lots of male volunteers in other areas, and there are other prayer groups. The women are way ahead of us, but I think my church is doing better than most.

We have to remember that Christianity is a war. Very literally. It’s the only real war there is, and it’s the oldest and largest war. There are beings we can’t see, attacking us day and night. And we are not independent. Each of us has others depending on him. We need to think about things like that when we’re tempted to slack or give in to sin. The dumb things we do hurt others. You can’t sin against yourself or against God without harming someone else.

Check the book out. You can find it on Amazon. It’s short; you can knock it off in a couple of days. It will help you remember what you were intended to be.

Tic Tac, Please

I’m dying, here. I just made more rolls, and this time I pretty much got it right. I had to eat SIX GARLIC ROLLS. I could not stop. This is the way I usually become aware that a recipe is out of the conception stage and ready for public consumption and fine tuning.

I’ll just tell you what I did. Why keep this from the world?

INGREDIENTS

1 cup high-gluten flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
3/8 cup water (roughly)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar

I do not know why, but it seems like bread tastes better when you make the dough without yeast and then knead the yeast into it. If you have the patience to do that, go for it. Mix everything but the yeast, using whatever method turns you on, and then fold the yeast into it. It’s okay (preferable, in my opinion) if the yeast is distributed in the dough a little unevenly.

As for the water amount, you want dough that is wet enough to work but not too sticky to handle. You’ll figure it out.

You can go two ways from here. You can make a dough ball, oil it (cheap olive oil, not green) and let it rise, or you can roll the dough out, make it into rolls and then let it rise under a sheet of plastic. The second way is how I just did it. The first way may be a little better, since you get two rises and more yeast flavor.

Either way, you will eventually want to flatten the dough into a rectangle about 9″ by 14″. Cut it down the middle, the long way. Cut each half into three strips. Pick a strip up. Double it back on itself. Tie the resulting double strip in an overhand knot and put it on a seasoned pan. Repeat with the other strips.

Cover the pan and let the dough poof up until it looks ready to bake. Put the pan in a preheated 550° oven. Rolls this size will bake in about 5 minutes.

SAUCE

3 oz. (weight) peeled garlic cloves, pureed or pressed
3 oz. oil
salt and parsley to taste

You don’t have to cook the sauce. Mike taught me that. Just dump the hot rolls in a bowl, pour the sauce over them, and toss. Use lots of salt.

If you can use less yeast and let the dough rise for a day or two, it may be a lot better. I will never have the patience to find out.

I truly stink. I have probably eaten an ounce and a half of garlic today. I love it.

Make sure you let the rolls rise enough to prevent them from being heavy and hard. Do NOT put oil in the dough. It adversely affects the flavor of the rolls.

I am dizzy with pleasure. And I can quit making rolls now, since I have the puzzle beaten.

God helps me with this stuff. I am convinced of it.

No photos. I ate the rolls before I could get the camera out.

Stank

I am working on garlic rolls, in hopes that I will be able to produce a recipe that in some way compares to the one Mike uses. My church NEEDS garlic rolls.

I made a couple of batches today. The first batch came out great, but I was not satisfied. They tasted wonderful with the sauce, but without it, they were pretty ordinary. That’s no good. I don’t want mediocre rolls made great by sauce. I want great rolls and great sauce.

The second batch was about the same, except for two things. I cut the dough in thinner strips and doubled them before tying the knots. That makes the rolls more complicated, which is a good thing in rolls you pull apart. I also sprinkled them with kosher salt before baking.

The kosher salt was a really bad idea. It was too much.

Now I’m working on a third batch. This time, I made dough by hand and then kneaded dry instant yeast into it. This makes wonderful pizza crust, so it might be good for rolls. I also omitted the oil from the dough. In the first two batches, I used one tablespoon per cup of flour, and I thought the flavor was inferior to that of the pizza crusts I usually make with this dough.

I can make great garlic rolls already. But what’s the point in making great rolls when you can make rolls that make people faint? That’s a much better goal.

I smell incredible. I wonder how long that will last. I bet chicks will dig it. Yeah.

So Far

These are the rolls with kosher salt. I omitted parsley because I didn’t have any.

He Will Nail You if You Spill the Beans

I have this feeling. I can’t shake it. The feeling tells me that today, I have to WORK ON MY GARLIC ROLL RECIPE.

Can the feeling be right? I better go to the kitchen and see.

Sunday was not a good sales day at church. A young man showed up to be instructed in the black art of pizza-making, and it turned out that the teaching made the process so slow, we missed part of one rush. But I did make progress toward the day when I don’t have to be in the kitchen every single minute, and I helped a young person learn a vital and rare skill.

Jesus the crazy parking lot volunteer showed up and told the young man that if he revealed my secrets, he would be hunted down like a dog. So I guess he won’t be blabbing.

Down here about 25% of the men are named Jesus. This particular Jesus is a lot of fun. He’s not really crazy, but he can easily convince you otherwise. And he has a tattoo.

Go Away, or I Shall Taunt You a Second Time

God is freaking me out again.

I went to my weekly prayer meeting this morning. The other guys kept talking about scriptures and ideas that had been on my mind in recent weeks. They talked about things I have been thinking about over the last couple of days. Over and over, they seemed to read my mind.

I told them they had to knock it off. That was humor, however.

I keep thinking about the concept of strongholds, and more generally, about doing to Satan what he does to us. He has strongholds, so we should have strongholds. He uses plagues and blights and locusts to ruin our lives, so we should be his plagues and blights and locusts and ruin his life. He lures people into false religions through the promise of supernatural power, so we should fight him with God’s greater supernatural power.

For all his pride, he has never had a thought of his own. We can learn a lot by looking at the tools he stole. We can take them back and use them against him. Turn yourself into a stronghold, and fire into Satan’s kingdom from cover.

God is a creator. Satan is just an imitator. Hey, let’s put that on a shirt.

My newest Cafepress thing is a T-shirt with the world “STRONGHOLD” in the pocket area. That says it all, as far as I’m concerned.

Finish the Day on a Positive Note

Two things.

1. Peg Kaplan lost her pet budgie, Sunny, to an accident the other day. Sunny was perched on top of a door, and Peg closed it. You can imagine how she feels. If you would like to offer a prayer and comment on her blog, she could use the help.

2. Shepherd’s Gate, a California charity which shelters abused women and their kids, found a donor who will give them $5.00 for every Facebook user who becomes a fan of their page. Here is the page.

Fill Your Barn Until it Bursts

Have you ever had a day that started on a perfect foundation? It happens to me more and more often. If you get up in the morning, pray in the Spirit, take communion, pray with your understanding, and do a little Bible study, it will put a base of granite under the rest of your day.

I’m sorry to say I fail to do a good job when I get to bed late the night before. I hate the idea of abusing my body with sleep deprivation. Maybe I need to get used to the sacrifice.

This morning, I did fine. So now I feel like I’m ready for whatever comes, and I know that today’s events will work out to be a blessing.

I have some stuff that seems to be worth repeating here.

I haven’t studied scripture today, in the usual sense, but I still feel pretty good. Why? Because I’ve memorized a bunch of psalms. This morning I spent a long time going over them in my mind.

This is a tremendous blessing. It’s fine to learn a paraphrased verse or two (if you don’t screw it up or take it out of context), but there is no substitute for having the actual scripture handy. Approximations and snippets just don’t compare.

The Psalms are very powerful. They are not just idle words. The New Testament quotes them a lot; the authors knew God spoke these words directly through his servants. The Psalms contain many promises and explanations, and if you’ve memorized a psalm containing something you need, the Holy Ghost will remind you of it when the right time comes.

Let’s see. “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” “Blessed is he who considereth the poor . . . thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.” “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.” How many do you want? The supply is huge. I only know something like 20 psalms, and I never run out of material.

I actually had to correct two of those after I typed it, but I got the essence right.

Today I was thinking of my needs and picking out psalm verses to “remind” God of his promises. It seems pretty clear that he expects us to do this. It’s for our own good. He knows our needs, and he knows his promises, but he wants us to know his word and use it.

While I searched my mind for material that would help my prayers, I realized I felt as though I were walking in a garden, picking fruit from trees. Every psalm is like a tree, and every helpful verse is like a fruit you can feed on. Isn’t that strange?

For a long time, I’ve believed that we are supposed to live like Adam. He made his living by managing the earth and serving God. It wasn’t a struggle; the toil and frustration came after the curse. When Adam had a need, he didn’t fill it by his own might, which would have led to pride. He took it from a tree God had planted for him. His living was a birthright; an inheritance. It wasn’t something be built up by burning the midnight oil and straining his back.

Psalm 127 says, “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he giveth his beloved sleep.” In The Complete Jewish Bible, it says he gives believers good things while they sleep. Life isn’t supposed to be perfect. We face persecutions. But where does it say we’re supposed to be slaves who live in penury and defeat?

Scripture, including the Psalms, is an inheritance. We receive it as welfare recipients receive their checks. We did nothing to deserve it. Like the trees of Eden, it was provided for us before we were born. If you don’t learn at least some of the Bible by heart, you’re throwing away a fortune. You didn’t have to plant the trees. The least you can do is harvest the fruit and store it.

Wow, I feel like an ingrate now. But I am an ingrate. It’s impossible to fully appreciate what has been done for us.

Isn’t that the usual curse, for an heir?

I had some other thoughts this morning, which, I believe, came from God. Here’s one: preachers often describe us as though we were battlefields, where we fight Satan and the flesh for control. I don’t think that’s quite right. I think we begin as battlefields and end as fortresses, or “strongholds.”

Think about it. Before you accept Jesus and get filled with the Spirit and clean up your life, you have no walls. Any spirit can enter and raise Cain. People can defeat you. Diseases can have their way with you. All sorts of misfortune came come your way, and you won’t have the weaponry to deal with it.

Afterward, there is a battle. There is a process during which you fast and pray and give and do good works and study, and the spirits start leaving, because you defeat them. Your habits and inclinations improve. Your thought life gets purified. You sin less. Your prayers get answered. Curses end. Blessings come. Your walls rise up to protect you. You begin as an open battlefield, but you finish as a protected, heavily armed enclosure. Maybe it isn’t completely clean, but instead of sewer rats breeding in your pantry and sleeping on your couch, you have timid ants hiding in crevices. Ants are better than rats.

When I thought of this, I thought of monks. Back in Europe, they used to build walls around their monasteries. What did they do once the walls were up? They grew things. They studied. They wrote. They created music. I’m not endorsing a monastic lifestyle. I’m just pointing out one characteristic of strongholds. They often contain gardens. In fact, Eden probably had walls. When man was exiled from Eden, God protected it with cherubs stationed at the east. If it had no walls, they would have been all around Eden. There must have been a gate at the eastern side, and “gate” implies “wall.”

The stronghold concept is fascinating. Temple, fortress, “walled city,” whatever you want to call it; a stronghold is a good thing to make of yourself. And if you pull it off (by God’s power), your children are likely to pull it off, too. Describing the children of a God-fearing man, Psalm 127 uses the term “arrows” and says, “They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” They will speak–presumably prayer and God’s word–to keep enemies out of their strongholds. A flashing sword guarded the path to the Tree of Life after the fall; the sword of the Spirit guards the path into our hearts. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

A funny thing has happened to me lately. Increasingly, when I find myself thinking thoughts I know I shouldn’t think, I see a door in my mind. A steel door. It’s just a plate, like the brown steel plates you see over holes in roadways. The wall around it is green, like the green of a pool table, only darker and with less blue in it. I see that door, and my thoughts change direction. That’s a good thing, because I know that when I open the wrong door to go out, while the door is open, someone else can come in. And that being won’t be a good guest.

If you like hearing the promises of the Bible, you might consider buying some of Wayne Cochran’s CDs. They’re really neat. He recites Biblical promises, over soothing music. He has divided them by category. Some are about protection. Some are about overcoming fear. You might have concerns about the “Word of Faith” flavor of this material, but my guess is that it can’t harm you if you take it the right way. Something to think about.

One of the reasons I loved The Book of Eli is that it encourages people to memorize scripture. I can’t explain that without spoiling the movie, but I can say that there are scenes that show how a knowledgeable believer can have his access to printed scripture taken away, without missing a beat. Some day Bibles will probably be outlawed. It has already been done in some places. They can take it out of your carry-on, but they can’t take it out of your heart.

Right now, Robert Morris is challenging people to spend 40 days memorizing and meditating on a scripture. Got a notice in the mail this week. Funny coincidence.

Set your feet upon a rock, and let God establish your goings. That’s my advice.

Oh, Wait. Was He a Great Big Fat Person?

I did a very bad thing today. I hit GFS on the way home from church.

I’ve been making pizza for our Tuesday night services, which are enormous, but they lock the cafe during the services, so instead of selling 20 pizzas, I’ve been selling 8. That seemed like a waste of time, and I need to free myself up so I can work as an armorbearer once in a while, and I recently learned they’re opening during the week for lunch. So I went in today and cooked.

I don’t think this was a great idea. I sold 5 pizzas. They scared me by talking about a lunch time rush, so I made 12 dough portions, but I ended up throwing 6 out.

At least I got on the road to go home early.

The kitchen was very low on olive oil, so I decided to visit Gordon Food Supply. I went to the one in Little Havana. For some reason, they have an exceptional selection of pizza products.

I bought Sinatra brand Italian tomatoes, on a gamble. I thought they might be like Cento Italian tomatoes. I don’t need them. In fact, they’re too expensive to use at church. But I got them anyway, because I JUST HAD TO.

I bought a can of Escalon 6-in-1 tomatoes. I tried them a long time ago and decided not to use them, but I couldn’t resist refreshing my memory.

I got a 25-pound bag of GFS Primo Gusto flour. It’s supposed to be sort of like All Trumps, which makes excellent Sicilian. I got bags so I can freeze the excess. I know this is crazy, but it beats paying a much higher per-pound rate for dubious grocery flour.

I picked up FOUR GALLONS of pomace oil for the church. Now I can relax for a while. And I bought my new secret sauce ingredient. Which is a secret.

I got a can of Saporito sauce. I use it at church, so I think it’s best to use it here when doing research. I also got some Primo Gusto 50/50 mozzarella/provolone. That was stupid, but it had been so long since the last time I tried it, I could not resist.

I had to make a pie with Sorrento cheese today, because we ran out of Costco cheese. I have to say, it’s very good. Nothing wrong with it. Just as good as Grande, as far as I can tell. But the flavor is as mild as Grande. If you like that, buy Sorrento. It’s the real thing. It’s just not Kirkland!

Now this stuff is sitting here, staring at me. I can’t make pies and stuff myself. All I can do is make test pies and eat tiny amounts, possibly even spitting the food out before I swallow it. My intellectual and artistic curiosity will be satisfied, but nothing else will be.

I can’t make thin pizza because I blew up my stone in an experiment worthy of Beavis and Butt-head. I need to get to Bed Bath and Beyond so I can buy a new one.

When I left GFS, I took a photo of the food I had bought, and I sent it to Mike. This is what male friends do. We make each other suffer. I had no choice.

I actually ate pizza for lunch. These days that rarely happens. I had a slice and a half. I feel like a glutton. The first slice was mainly for sustenance and partly to test the Sorrento cheese. The half-slice was just a test. My lovely beverage? The usual. Water.

Even though the pie had sat on top of the oven for a long time, it was sublime. I am sure God’s hand is in the recipe. Who else could make me love pepperoni?

I’m glad God has given me control over my diet. Thrilled and amazed, actually. But when I describe what I eat, it sounds pretty boring.

I’m thinking I’ll have wings for dinner. They’re fairly harmless from a caloric standpoint (if you go easy on the butter and dressing), and I could use something tasty and light with lots of meat in it.

Today at church, one of my friends ordered two slices and dipped them in a mixture of wing sauce and ranch dressing. I couldn’t believe it. It was a little gross. But brilliant.

Deep in your heart, I know you agree.

Here’s an unexpected reward that came from watching him eat: I saw how beautiful the underside of the pizza was. I don’t get to see much of that when I’m eating, since I hold the slice right-side-up. It was breathtaking.

Have to go Make Pizza

Reader blindshooter says:

I feel like a prayer bum asking again but please add my Dad to your prayers, he is getting a heart cath today.