Search Utility Aids in Progress

My big thrill today? Cranking up my PC Bible software and searching the KJV for “iniquity” and related terms. I got over 300 results, and I looked them over.

Robert Morris says “iniquity” means habitual sin which is hard to quit. I think he’s right, although I’m not sure every word that begins with “iniq” refers to this. I checked the Greek and Hebrew, and in Greek, the word root that usually comes out in English as a word based on “iniquity” seems to be a word that could apply to plain old sin. In the Old Testament, I generally found that the words translated this way had a Hebrew root sort of like “ah-von,” and it seemed consistent with Morris’s take.

There is really no way to know without learning Greek and Hebrew. This stuff is too ambiguous. Sometimes words can be translated very accurately and simply, but in these cases, it didn’t work that way.

The Psalms refer to iniquity having “dominion” over people. The psalmist asked God not to let that happen to him. That’s interesting, because habits and addictions have power over us. They can screw up our free will to the point where it can be said to have ceased to exist. Ordinary cold-blooded sin isn’t like that.

I noticed that the Bible often uses “sin” and “iniquity” in the same sentences, indicating that they’re different things. That supports the Morris view. And I found indications that God may refuse to grant your prayers when you are caught up in iniquity.

If this is right, it’s a powerful revelation which should change the way people see Christianity. Instead of getting salvation and trying to be good and leaving it at that, we should be receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirt and fasting and trying to get rid of our habitual sins. Things like overeating, drinking, drug abuse, habitual anger, selfishness, covetousness, self-righteousness…it looks like these things can form a barrier between you and God, preventing him from doing things for you. This would explain lines like, “Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up.” And after that, it says, “Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord make haste to help me.”

Maybe this is related to the self-examination requirement of communion. You’re not supposed to accept communion if you have a problem with another person. And the Bible says something about God rejecting your offerings when you could be using them to help your parents. It also says that if a man doesn’t love his wife, God will not answer his prayers.

The Jews believe your offerings will be rejected if you take them from money you should be using to pay debts. Seems like the same idea.

I’m starting to think Christianity is more powerful than we have been told, at least for the last 1700 years or so. It looks like there are things we can do to increase God’s action in our lives. But they involve aligning ourselves with his will, so it’s not like you can waste it all on big houses and yachts. If God will free us from habitual sin and then allow us to pray with great confidence of success, Christianity is an even better deal than I thought. I had always assumed that we were expected to use our own meager strength to resist sin. I always found that impossible. Can it really be that what God wants to give us his strength so we can resist? What a great thing that is. Talk about victory.

I’m starting to feel like I have to think before I pray. Is there something I need to do, which I put off? Is there a responsibility I neglected? Do I need to put something right? Maybe it’s better to miss prayer, make things right, and come back than it is to pray in a state that makes the exercise less productive. Today I ended up missing prayer in the middle of the day because I had to clean the bird cages, which I had forgotten about. I think this was the right move, although obviously, the best thing would have been to have had the cages ready to go before the issue came up.

I still hate fasting, but the payoff makes it irresistible. I guess if I didn’t hate it, it wouldn’t be worth as much.

It Will not be Necessary to Put my Name on a Plaque

Church was great today. Yesterday, Pastor Rich called to tell me he was back in town, and he said he had managed to put a sermon together, and he expressed doubt, saying he didn’t know if it would be any good. I don’t like to prolong conversations when I talk to him, because he’s extremely busy, and I know every minute he carves out to talk to me costs him somewhere else. Friday is his day off, and he had been working that day, and he made two trips during the preceding few days, so it was not an easy week. I tried to express optimism and confidence about the sermon, but in the short time we were on the phone, I didn’t really get it out.

The sermon was great, and afterward I went up to the front of the church, intending to say so, and instead I ended up asking if he had any idea where my Pyrex had ended up (I brought food to church a week ago) and whether he would be able to give a little time to my sister this week. I don’t know where my mind went. I should start putting Post-it notes on my shirt. I went up there to be helpful, and I ended up asking for stuff. Smooth!

I think the people who run churches spend a tremendous amount of time giving to others, and many don’t get a lot in return. Some make big money, I know, but many don’t, and money doesn’t perform the same functions as friendship and prayer. So it’s good to let them know when they do things right. I am not doing a great job of this.

On the one hand, I want to be supportive and useful. I want to take burdens off of him so he can get more done, with less stress and effort. He has put me in the company of his “armorbearers”; trusted people who assist in his work. That means I have a duty to be like Aaron and Hur, who helped Moses hold up the staff of God while the Hebrews beat their enemies in battle. On the other hand, I don’t want to be an irritating toady who never goes home and who gets on the nerves of the other people at the church. Like Smithers on The Simpsons. I’m doing okay in that I make myself available to help, but I think once in a while I need to say, “You did a good job.”

He was talking about Christianity’s big failure. If his facts are right, 1.8 billion people have never heard the gospel, and Christians worldwide spend an average of one thousandth of a cent per year to reach these folks. That’s a depressing statistic. He also said we give about 1.8% of our income to the church, which is not impressive. We are too cheap to reach the lost.

He said another problem is that we’re too legalistic. I had always thought of legalism as worrying too much about rules, but he showed it to us from another angle. He said we talk too much to nonbelievers about our disapproval and the things people should stop doing. He said he meets a lot of people who say they like Jesus fine but can’t stand Christians. When they think of Christianity, instead of love and compassion, they think of annoying people who say they’re doing everything wrong.

So now I have something new to work on. It’s amazing how my barrel of shortcomings never runs dry.

He’s usually very reluctant to offend the congregation, but today he let loose on people who go to the can during the collection. That was funny. I’m sure they thought he hadn’t noticed.

I have no idea whether people are giving as much as they should. A lot of them are poor; maybe on average, they give very generously. But if you can’t give on a particular day, going to the can is not a great idea. It makes you look guilty, even if you’re not.

He challenged us to bring new people to church next week. Appropriate, since I might be able to do that.

I think I’m going to go back to attending church on Sunday. I prefer Saturday, but it wrecks the Sabbath idea. If you go on Sunday morning, it’s easy to set the whole day aside for God. If you go on Saturday night, you can extend it through Sunday sundown, but that doesn’t work all that well for me. Jews can break a day up like that; they’ve done it for thousands of years. I’m used to days that end at bedtime.

I feel fantastic today. I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel great. It helps that the day will be an oasis, set aside for God. I missed this.

Fall Cleaning

What a night I had last night.

As noted in a previous entry, I cooked for a friend of my dad’s. This man has had a run of misfortune running back to the Eighties. I don’t want to get into it. You wouldn’t believe it. Now he’s having all sorts of physical problems. When he arrived, he was walking with two canes. He could barely get around.

I was going to make stuffed pork chops, but prime beef caught my eye while I was shopping, so I got a four-rib roast! Ten pounds of it. Overkill, I suppose. I cooked it to an internal temperature of 125º (115º next time) after rubbing it with garlic and butter and salt, and it was sublime. I also made baked potatoes and apple pie. On the side, we had garlic butter, chives, sour cream, and horseradish sauce (whipped cream, prepared horseradish, salt, pepper). My dad took out a bottle of 1990 Pommard he had been saving, and his friend is a wine nut, and they both raved over it.

The pie seemed a little dryer than it should have been. I think the crust was a little too thick, and I didn’t brush a wash on it, which would have made seem moister. Instead of a nasty egg wash, I use the liquid from the filling, and I sprinkle the pie afterward with turbinado sugar. The liquid makes it stick.

Inevitably, religion entered the conversation. My sister and I mentioned Trinity Church, and we got a few plugs in, and he said he would be happy to go with us! I never expected that. Many people respond to overwhelming suffering by hating or denying God, and it’s hard to think of anyone who has suffered more than this man. But he’s still open. So we’re going to try to get him to go next week. That would be phenomenal. Satan lets most Americans have fairly good lives, probably because they don’t threaten him much. Other people suffer misfortune after misfortune, even though their sins are not remarkable at all. Some of us are more hated than others. That’s just how it is. When you know a person like that, you feel empathy and frustration because you know what they need, and you know it may be hard to lead them to it. When you get a taker, it’s extremely gratifying.

I can’t believe it. Suddenly, I find myself able to reach people. I was never able to do that in the past. My take on this is that God has decided I’m no longer such a tremendous idiot that I should not be allowed to participate in his work.

I had a funny dream last night. I’m not sure what the difference between a dream and a vision is. I would tend to call the first part of last night’s experience a vision, because I was fully lucid and all my senses were operating, and I felt as though I were in the physical world, not a dream universe. My dreams tend to be somewhat less intense.

Whatever it was, it went like this. I was trying to sleep, and I started hearing noises in the room, as though something was there with me, deliberately waking me up and trying to scare me. Then I found myself wrestling and being thrown around by something invisible. I overcame it and found myself able to fly, and I was able to see things that did not exist in the physical realm. Some I saw clearly. Others were appeared as ripples and disturbances in the world around me. I chased them around and gathered them out of the air. Their strength was negligible compared to mine; I folded them up in my hands like limp cloths. Then up near the ceiling, all around the room, I found wispy, semi-visible beings resembling cobwebs, and I grabbed them, too. Then I saw musty, smelly objects up in one corner, like some kind of egg sacs that had been left there to hatch. I pulled them down and flew out of the room to the back door, and I went out and expelled the whole mess. Then I started to fly above the neighborhood, and when I looked down, I realized I couldn’t see all the houses. At that point, I knew I wasn’t in the real world. I couldn’t see the houses because I can’t imagine the whole neighborhood from above. It’s not in my memory.

After that, the house became the house I grew up in, fifteen miles north of here. I experienced nothing but misery and failure in that house. The same goes for my family. For some reason, it was now full of people from my church. Apparently, they had obtained it from whoever owned it. They were remaking it. And they were having a huge sleepover. The place had been divided up into temporary compartments, using curtains, and there were portable beds set up all over the place. My pastor’s son and his wife took the master bedroom. They had remade it for themselves. I think they were in charge.

I found the hole in the wall in the upstairs hall, from the shot I accidentally fired when I was a kid. I was looking at my mother’s .38, and it went off. My solution was to cut a tiny piece of wallpaper from an inconspicuous area and glue it over the hole. It worked. My parents never found it. In the dream, a new owner had painted over the wallpaper, including the patch. The new paint was patterned like wallpaper. It looked a little like a Mondrian painting. It was a product intended to cover and replace wallpaper, at a lower cost. But you can’t make paint that makes multicolored geometric patterns when you slop it on with a brush or sprayer or roller. Very strange.

The yard was full of new construction. There were areas that had walls and furnishings but no roofs. These areas were full of people, and it was as if they were preparing for an outdoor celebration.

I found a bed beside a window. I wanted to be able to see the landscape pass by. The house had become a train, and we were going to travel around the south.

At this point, someone from the church introduced me to a woman. It seemed like they were trying to fix us up. I didn’t catch her name. It sounded something like “Mickey-O.”

Then my neighbor’s dog woke me up.

It was a wonderful dream. Or vision. Or whatever. It was about renewal and victory.

Maybe the houses symbolize me. In the Bible, houses are people. Maybe the things I fought and expelled are the supernatural forces that have been hindering me all my life, ruining the things I try to build. Maybe the people from the church are the angels, Christians I’m getting to know, and the Holy Spirit, filling the space the evil things used to occupy and undoing their work. Maybe the eggs represent bad things I sowed into my future, which are now cancelled because of my faith and obedience.

A journey means hope. No one ever takes a trip unless he or she has a hope of some sort.

When I went to bed, I felt as though something was being pushed out of me. I felt as though it was resisting desperately, like someone being shoved out of an airplane. Sometimes it was mostly out, and sometimes it was mostly in. I wonder if that’s related to the dream. I know this: I feel great today.

Time to dress for church.

Mere Mortals are Undeserving

Is there anything better than waking up early, spending time in prayer and study, eating a tasty McDonald’s breakfast, and then sticking a prime rib roast in the oven to warm up? If so, it probably takes place in heaven.

I guess I went a little overboard on the prime rib. I bought 10.4 pounds for four people. I figured one rib per person. I wasn’t really hip to the practice of cutting the bones off and tying them to the roast while you cook, so you end up with an easy-carve roast when you’re done. If I had done that, I could have gotten by with a smaller piece of meat. But it’s still, what, a little over a pound per person when you get rid of the bones and the larger bits of fat? Not excessive. Well, maybe a little.

Anyway, it looks better with the bone in it, and the meat next to the bone is really good.

I think two pounds (bone included) is about right for a serving of prime rib or a rib eye steak. The rib eye is the king of steaks, but you can’t eat all of it, so a lot of the weight ends up in the garbage, not in your guests.

I have to get to work on the pie. I’m a little nervous. My recipe–I thought it was in the second edition of my book, but it isn’t–is very good, but because I make it so rarely, I’m not all that proficient with it. And I still have to get lard. The store has disgusting Goya lard, which smells like a hog lot in July. I need El Cochinito. I have a can, but I doubt it’s still usable.

If you’re in Miami and you need El Cochinito, the Winn-Dixie near Ludlam and Bird has it.

Cook’s Illustrated says to sear the the fat side of the meat with a hot pan before you cook it. That’s a lot of work. I’m sure it’s good, but I get fine results by cranking up the heat at the end of the roasting. And I have a MAPP torch.

Here’s something that will make this day a lot easier. I have an apple peeling machine. They run about $25. In a few seconds, it will turn an apple into a peeled and cored coil of pure fruit flesh. That beats spending half an hour peeling apples.

Someone emailed me about Marv and Maynard. They’re still here, squawking to beat the band. I was going to put up a new video to prove it, but I can’t do that until I locate the charger for my camera. Here’s Marv’s most popular video. Please excuse him; somebody taught him some questionable material before his owner cleaned up his own vocabulary.

I am considering getting some 6″ work boots to keep me alive the next time I try to help out with a job at church. The injury to my ankle is still not quite closed. An 8″ boot would have prevented it completely. A 6″ boot would have helped. Hard choice. In any case, the fat is continuing to slide off of me, so I won’t have to buy jeans any time soon.

The Ingredients of a Good Blog Post

My dad wanted me to cook for an old friend who is having a rough time. I went to the store to get ingredients to make stuffed pork chops. Which are unbelievable. They’re in my cookbook.

While I was there, I saw prime rib priced at $12 per pound. This is not an amazing price, but it’s not bad, and the meat was crying out to me from behind the glass, begging me to take it in my loving arms and bring it home with me.

I cracked. You know I cracked. I don’t have to tell you that.

I made the grocery guy go back and find me a new roast that had four contiguous ribs on it, and he hacked one out for me. Then he started trimming the fat and THROWING IT OUT. I put a stop to that in a hurry. I never turn down free fat. It went in the package with the beef. Just because I’ve given up gluttony doesn’t mean I’m going to cook lame food every day. Rib fat is magical. It’s the duct tape of beef.

The meat guys love being ordered around by people who know food. I think it makes them feel appreciated. There was a woman working there, and it disturbed her that I wanted a cut that wasn’t on display. The man…he understood. No surprise there. It’s a rare woman who understands prime beef.

Anyway, I brought this gorgeous piece of prime meat home, and then I was informed that my dad’s friend had not yet confirmed. After the chest pains subsided, I got on the phone and made sure this guy was coming. Although it would have been okay if he had put it off for a week, because that would have given me time to age this magnificent chunk of cow.

I’m going to go salt it down now and rub it with garlic. Tomorrow, it will be fragrant and ready to play.

This was a good move, except for the enormous expense. Prime rib is like boiling water. Anyone can do it. It’s much less work than stuffed pork chops. The pie crust is going to drive me nuts, so I don’t need any other problems.

The baking potatoes were beautiful today, so I grabbed some of those, plus a tub of sour cream.

My dad and my sister both like their meat burned. This is a tragedy, but since the roast has four ribs, I figure I can give them the outer ones. I’m going to cook the meat to 125º inside, and if the beef-incinerators complain, I’ll cram theirs in the microwave. Why not? If I cook it until it’s grey, it will be ruined regardless of how I do it.

Man, this is going to be good. And I got to send a photo of the roast to Mike, so he could eat his liver and be miserable and envious. I owed him that, as a friend.

Here’s how you make perfect prime rib. I’ve done it like twice, but it’s so easy, I’m qualified to tell other people how to do it.

INGREDIENTS

1 prime rib roast, preferably prime (not choice) beef
5-10 crushed garlic cloves
salt

If you have time, dry the beef and put it on a wire rack in your fridge, covered with a clean cotton cloth. If you can keep the cloth above the meat so it doesn’t touch it, do it. Change the cloth daily. Keep the temperature at or below 35 degrees. Give the meat a week if you can.

Three days before you cook it, salt it down well. This will not dry out the meat. Shut up. It won’t. Don’t put a crust of salt on it. I did this once, and it was incredibly stupid and made the meat too salty.

Preheat your oven to 250º. Rub the meat all over with the garlic. Use as much as you want. Butter it, too, if it makes you happy. I think I’ll do that this time! I’m tempted to cook a roast at 225º. I’m sure it would be better.

Put the meat on a broiling pan, cover it with a foil tent or something, and roast it with a probe in it until you get the internal temperature you like. I did 133º last time, in deference to my dad, but this time it’s going to be 125º, which is still higher than I’d like.

When the meat is ten or fifteen degrees below the end temperature, rip off the foil and jack the heat up to 550º. If this makes your broiler turn on, use the highest temperature that doesn’t make it do that. Or leave foil draped over the meat. Or something. Don’t burn it with the broiler. That’s the point. And you may want to do this earlier than fifteen degrees prior to the end temperature. Ten degrees worked okay for me, but as I recall, it was close.

When you cut into this baby, juice is going to pour out. The smell will summon the angels. And it won’t be tough and dry. Pay no attention to “experts” who tell you to cremate it at 325º. I tried that, and it was awful.

Just to remind you, here’s how I bake potatoes. It’s much better than using foil or greasing the skins, which makes them limp and soggy. Preheat your oven to 450º. Scrub your potatoes. Put salt in your hands and rub it all over the potatoes while they’re still wet. Bake them on the top rack for an hour, if they’re under a pound each. Big potatoes go 75 minutes. Try to have something between the heating element and the potatoes so they don’t char. I serve these with garlic butter AND sour cream. And salt.

In other news, Natchez Shooter’s Supply just put out a great sale bulletin. If you’re not a snob who won’t shoot Wolf ammunition, you can do pretty good on 7.62 x 39 and .40 S&W right now.

More

Why do I ever listen to conventional thinkers when they talk about food? The Food Network (usually disappointing) says to cook prime rib at 325º, which is ignorant and positively heinous. On my own, using common sense, I came up with 250º. Now, via Google, I see that Cook’s Illustrated recommends 225º. Those guys are not fools. They don’t pass on gossip and old wives’ tales, like 95% of the professionals. If they say 225º works, you better believe they’ve put it to the test.

Hmm…I’m checking their site, and in 1995, they recommended 200º! I love it.

I am Having a Good Day

I really think I’m getting better. I have my crabby and hostile and overly critical moments, and I am still pretty lazy by my own standards, and I am not as disciplined as I want to be. But I feel like I have my life straightened up to the point where God is willing to bless me. I guess he blesses everybody to some degree, but when people talk about “being blessed” as a state, they mean something better than an occasional answered prayer. I feel like God has given me sufficient grace to improve myself to the point where my life can go well. By “grace,” I mean an ability that has been provided to me supernaturally.

I want to be very careful not to take the credit. People always say God gives stuff away for nothing, and I don’t think that’s correct. He generally expects you to participate. But what you do can’t really earn his blessings. So what God really offers is a tremendous discount on everything. For example, to get salvation, instead of leading a perfect life, you believe in Jesus and ask him to forgive you. So I’ve done a little bit to cooperate with God, but he made all the improvements happen.

Today I had a big ol’ victory. Two, in fact. A problem in one area bled over into another area. Something I had to deal with threatened to prevent me from doing something I had promised to do. Today I got some unexpected and extremely powerful help with the first problem, so the second problem is probably dead, too. I wish I could tell you more about it. The more I think about it, the more I realize what a great story it is. Maybe later this year.

I’ll tell you something about my past as a Christian. I always got annoyed when people hollered “Praise the Lord.” First of all, I was confused by the whole notion. It still seems a little weird that we are expected to praise God, but I can see that it’s a good thing. It increases your faith and helps you to avoid crediting people with God’s actions. But on top of that, I thought they sounded insincere. Unhappy Christians are not rare, and very often, when Christians talk about how wonderful God is, they sound completely insincere to me. Like they want to believe it, or they’re saying it to fit in, but it’s not in their hearts.

The further I progress, the more sincere I feel when I talk about how great God is. And every time I hit a plateau, I look back at a previous level, and I think, “Wow, I had no idea back then. I thought I realized how great he is, but I didn’t have a clue.” And of course, I know that when I look back from the next plateau, I’ll feel the same way about this one.

It’s not just emotional comfort. It’s not just a cleaner life. It’s not just relief from guilt, or the sense that I’m doing more good. God DOES STUFF for people. He gives people jobs. He heals their diseases. He fixes their families. He helps people earn money. He guides people when they need earthly things like a good mechanic or an honest realtor. He’s better than Angie’s List and GPS, rolled into one.

It seems like God will be very obvious about helping you in two situations. First, when you’ve bottomed out and your life is garbage and you turn to him in desperation. He might instantly take away an addiction, or he might help you get released from prison, or he might get you an negative result on an HIV test. Second, when you start to get it together to the point where he can sort of endorse your life. You’re supposed to be an employee and a representative (the Bible uses the word “ambassador”). I suppose there is a limit to how much he’ll get behind you and promote you while you’re still clambering out of the mire and trying to hose off the filth.

God is just all over me these days. I don’t know what to do. I wish I had more luck getting other people to try the things that have worked for me, but at least I’m getting the help I need.

It’s a funny thing, but the more you’re blessed, the more able you are to receive blessings. I know people who do very valuable things for me, telling me about teachings and so on, and because I’ve been opened up to taking that kind of advice, I benefit tremendously. But when I try to tell them something helpful, forget it. Sometimes it sticks, and sometimes it blows right by them. It’s as if I’m condemned to be more blessed than blessing. Talk about mixed feelings. I want the good, but I don’t want to be the only one who gets it.

Get Robert Morris’s Elevate DVD series, and read the Freedom booklet. Then get Jentezen Franklin’s book, Fasting. Put this stuff together, along with your other Christian efforts, and look out. If you can receive it and benefit from it, great. If not, at least I tried.

“Could You Make That Onescore and Five?”

One of the high points of my week is getting my Winn-Dixie weekly email notice. They put stuff on sale (notably delicious pork) so I subscribe to their alerts. Now Costco is sending me ads. Lord, give me strength. Costco is hard to resist.

This week they’re offering foam mattresses for $650, delivered. I will not click. I will not. But I want to. I have a friend who has a foam bed, and I’ve slept on it during visits, and it’s wonderful. And I’ve had a lot of problems with nasal congestion at night, which makes me wonder if my old mattress has developed a life of its own.

I have to wonder if conventional mattresses are on the way out. Foam is just plain better. I’ve gone back to down pillows, because the synthetics had too many problems, but I can find no fault with newfangled mattresses.

My breathing is much better these days. I thought I fixed things when I got anti-allergic covers for my mattress and pillows, but I now think a lot of it has to do with seasonal stuff.

They also have a Toshiba 46″ LCD TV for $900. That would be a nice replacement for my 37″ Olevia, which I use as a computer monitor. But I’d have to sit halfway across the room, and the Olevia is great, except for the heat it throws off.

I have no interest in TV. I can’t remember caring what kind of TV I owned. For a long time, I only watched DVDs and the national news. Now it’s Christian DVDs, Christian TV, the national news, and new episodes of House. It probably amounts to less than ten hours a week.

If you’re trying to free yourself of time-wasting, life-eating bad habits, TV is a great one to start with. An average American probably spends decades in front of the tube. If there is a better way to spit on the gift of life, it’s hard to think what it could be. We use the TV to “kill time.” What an appropriate expression, and what a weird thing to do. Tell someone he has a year to live, and what does he beg for? More time. And if he’s a typical person, he would spend a whole lot of that extra time…killing time. Why would you want to kill the thing your life is made of?

I don’t like movies and TV shows as much as I used to. The older I get, the more I tend to see the people on the screen as what they are: actors playing make-believe. They’re not in spaceships or the O.K. Corral or, in House’s case, hospitals. They’re in studios in front of fat camera operators and grubby stagehands, repeating lines they may not even understand. If you’ve ever acted, say in a high school play, remember how it felt. That’s what John Wayne felt while he was shooting blanks in The Searchers and True Grit. Not exciting.

The more video fiction you see, the more cliches you run into. The last-minute save. The cliffhanger. The car chase which seems to be over but then starts over because of an unexpected twist. The homely girl who takes off her glasses and becomes an instant beauty. The evil twin. The character who breaks the fourth wall. There are only so many ideas which work, and once you’ve seen each one hundreds of times, they look less like real action and more like what they are: gimmicks to fool the rubes.

I feel like I’ve seen all sorts of exciting adventures in my life, but I haven’t. I’ve seen actors pretending to have adventures. I’ve never seen a pirate. I’ve never seen a cowboy. I’ve never seen a dogfight or a murder or a military battle. Most of you haven’t, either. Funny how TV and movies warp our sense of what we’ve experienced.

I’m not getting the Toshiba. I won’t be looking at TVs until one of the ones I have now craps out.

I like the Internet better than TV, because it’s less passive and it’s full of opportunity and information, but it can also be overdone, and I’ve been guilty of that. But that problem seems to be behind me. I just don’t put in the time any more. It helped when I started going to bed early. You can’t hang out on AIM when you go to bed hours before your friends.

I tried to do Twitter today. It’s hopeless. Fifteen words, to explain your boring situation to thirteen people, most of whom you don’t even know? I will never understand how it drew people. I guess I should check Facebook and see if I’m ignoring anyone.

Okay, I ignored a bunch of stuff. I have been afraid to do that, because I thought Facebook probably sent people a nasty notice saying something like, “STEVE IS IGNORING YOU SO STOP BOTHERING HIM,” but I don’t actually know if that’s true, so I’m clearing out my inbox.

Someone from my church found my Twitter account. I don’t know what to do about that. I would like to be involved in whatever Internet stuff Christians are doing, but I don’t want to do it under a pen name. In the past, I kept my real name off the web to prevent criminals and miscreants from coming after me (and they tried). I don’t want to move from a pseudonym to my real name in a way that would bring old enemies along for the ride. Maybe I should kill the old accounts, start new ones, and keep the blog separate from the whole mess. Maybe I could start a new Christian blog and dump this one entirely.

I am not all that interested in having new Christian friends become familiar with stupid things I have said and done in the past. I don’t plan to hide anything or lie, but a fresh start would be good.

Okay, I just checked my Twitter followers, and when I clicked on a link in one of their tweets, the next thing I saw was a woman’s genitalia. Lesson learned. Who comes up with this garbage? Like it’s not hard enough to avoid Internet porn.

In closing, let me point out that Winn-Dixie is selling whole pork shoulders for 69¢ a pound. Don’t get between me and the meat department today!

How Much Change Does That Hold?

This is hilarious. I was trying to find acceptable boxer briefs on Ebay, and I located something not too horrible, and I made an offer. Then I was made aware of the existence of Under Armour products, which appeared to be completely superior and not nearly as gay. Fortunately, my offer was declined.

In the email notice I received after I declined the counteroffer, there were photos of other stuff this guy sells. You have to see this. I obscured the really horrifying details because I don’t want perverted material on my blog, but you’ll still laugh yourself to death. Don’t click if you don’t want to see terrifying underwear.

Relatively breakfast-safe link.

That has to be the funniest thing I’ve seen all week, including the story about the Obama Nobel Prize.

I did order a pair, though.

That was humor.

By the way, I also received a Nobel Peace Prize. They notified me by posting on my Facebook wall. Now that the franchise is utterly devalued, they’re awarding it every week, and on Monday, it’s my turn. They’ve reduced the cash part considerably. I received a gift certificate from Burger King and a Hugo Chavez bobblehead. I contributed to peace by not poisoning my neighbor’s dog, which he releases every morning before six a.m. so it can exercise its lungs.

The medal itself is lead. I guess it’s time for me to go ahead and buy a bullet mold so I can shoot my Nobel at the range. Or I could grind it up and bake it into dog biscuits.

No, I’m pretty sure that would be a forfeiture.

Next year they’re going to award it by lottery and call it the scratch-off Powernobel. Free ticket with every bottle of Night Train.

What does a Christian do when a neighbor has screaming dogs that get released several times a day? Personally, I pray that they’ll get taken away and given to someone more responsible. I figure that’s better than praying they get hit by lightning, and it’s more realistic than praying the neighbor will straighten up. I think these things also scream inside his house, because I sometimes hear muffled barks. If that’s true, keeping the dogs inside won’t completely fix the problem.

The neighbor with the dogs has one of those disturbing houses nobody wants to live next to. It’s in disrepair, and the landscaping is horrendous, and there are junk cars out front, under tarps. The yard used to be a jungle. I guess the city made them cut down the randomly occurring trees and shrubs that filled it. I wasn’t able to get a good look at it, but it appeared to be a wasteland of sapling stumps with no lawn. I’m pretty sure the pool is where the neighborhood mosquito problems came from.

I don’t know how someone like this manages to remain in Coral Gables. The other day a code enforcer knocked on the door and ticketed me for buying French’s instead of Grey Poupon. And he mumbled something about how next month we would all be required to start wearing brown shirts and spying on Jews. Karl Goebbels, the City Beautiful.

I always wonder how this guy can afford to live here. Somebody must have left him that house. I’ve never seen him do anything but stand outside in a housecoat. I can’t help hoping he gets behind on his taxes and decides to move some place more rural, or at least farther from me.

If you turn a guy like this in, what happens? The cops rat you out to punish you for bothering them. Then you get eggs everywhere. Slashed tires. Crimes you can’t prove. An endless neighbor feud you can only solve by moving.

Something is wrong over there. Physical problems with a house and a lifestyle reflect spiritual problems. There is also a house across the street, with teenage kids who never seem to be in school and parents who never seem to be home. A young woman sits on the steps most days, smoking cigarettes. Is she a hired nanny who gets run out of the house? Seems like it.

Maybe some day I’ll be a big brave believer who wanders around the neighborhood offering to help his troubled neighbors, but I’m not there yet. Right now I’d be happy if the dogs would just shut up.

My hope is that my future compound/gun range/Bible-clinging academy/possible-right-wing-terrorist training facility will put me far enough from other people’s houses to get a good night’s sleep. But a really bad neighbor can ruin even a rural setting. Maybe God puts these people next to Christians so they’ll get some prayer.

This morning I was desperate for something new to read. I’ve run through all my Christian stuff. Then I remembered I had the booklets that go with the Robert Morris DVD series, Elevate. I started reading the one titled “Freedom.”

Wonderful stuff. It was all about habitual sin and curses that follow families.

Lots of people run around claiming a Christian can’t be under bondage, which is absurd, given that many sincere Christians are junkies, alcoholics, wife-beaters, gluttons, perverts, and gamblers. You don’t automatically get free from all your habitual sins at that first altar call. Only the Holy Spirit can get you out from under this stuff, and you won’t beat every chronic sin on the same day. It comes in stages. It’s been happening to me, with fasting playing a major role.

Reading what Pastor Morris had to say about it, I got so stirred up, I had to put the book down. It’s amazing how God tells different teachers the same things, in different ways, without any earthly communication between them.

He says the concept of freedom from curses doesn’t just apply to behaviors. It also applies to bad things that happen to you on a chronic basis, such as debt and failure. Although chronic problems are often the result of chronic sin.

Believe, give, repent, get the baptism of the Holy Spirit, fast, and so on, and you can put these things under your feet. Life won’t be perfect, but no responsible person claims that it will. Perfect living may be unnatural, but living as a junkie or a drunk is also unnatural, and it’s completely reasonable to expect to be delivered.

We’re supposed to have challenges. Does that mean we’re supposed to live in misery, fighting our habitual sins every day and losing over and over and then suffering the earthly repercussions? Surely not. I just don’t buy that. The notion that bad behavior always relapses on us–that we will always take another drink or regain weight or whatever–is a secular notion based on the experiences of people who tried to win their battles with their own limited strength. They were like the Hebrews who got routed at Ai. Jesus, on the other hand, said we would be “free, indeed.” When something goes out of you because God drove it out, when it tries to come back in, surely it finds its old room filled by the Holy Spirit. Isn’t that the lesson of the Gadarene demoniac? Sure seems that way. Our battles shouldn’t be like Ai. They should be like Jericho.

I’ve gotten to the point where I am careful about listening to obese preachers. Virtually one hundred percent of the obese are addicts, and an addict is under the control of something other than God and himself. If that thing can make you eat to the point where you become grotesque and ill, maybe it can make you teach something that is completely wrong. I don’t automatically ignore them. That would be crazy; God works through imperfect people. But I consider obesity a warning sign, just as I would be wary of smokers and drunks in the pulpit.

Obesity is a curse. I defy anyone to contradict that. Imagine yourself as lean and fit and healthy. Then imagine a genie pops up and puts 300 pounds of lard on you. Your jowls hang down. You have a flesh apron that rubs your thighs. Your face looks like a baby’s face, swimming in fat. You have huge breasts, even if you’re a man. Walking is difficult. Standing is uncomfortable. Wouldn’t you feel like you had been cursed? It’s a terrible thing. We don’t see it as terrible, because we’re used to seeing it, and it accumulates slowly. Our jaded perception doesn’t change the truth. You can get used to anything, no matter how repugnant or shocking.

Jesus criticized Pharisees who put burdens on people, when they themselves wouldn’t lift them. He criticized blind guides. If you’re going to teach others, you should be a success at what you teach. That’s just common sense, isn’t it? Are you going to tell me to fight Satan when you can’t fight a doughnut? When people come to your church fresh from drug dens or from the brothels where they work or from casinos, will you tell them to repent, when you have three hundred pounds of pizza and cookies around your waist, and you’re planning to add to it right after church?

Isn’t gluttony idolatry? Isn’t any habitual sin which you choose not to fight (or even recognize) idolatry? If not, what is the distinction? The body is the temple of God, not the temple of Mister Softee and Pop’n Fresh. It’s not the temple of the Marlboro Man or Captain Morgan.

The other day I saw a very obese preacher claiming Christians are supposed to command angels to do things for them. I heard very few supporting scriptural references, and they were not really on point. Is there a single example of this in the Bible? I can’t think of any. Seems like he was talking about commanding familiar spirits, which is witchcraft. I couldn’t accept it. Maybe he’s right and I’m wrong; as a career pastor, he ought to know more than I do. I couldn’t help thinking about his weight problem, as the message became less and less appealing to me. Maybe he’s in trouble. He’s definitely in peril from the standpoint of health. And I’ll bet his weight isn’t helping his marriage.

I think anything that controls a Christian will eventually end up controlling other Christians through him. If you’re too fat to do your job, other Christians will have to step in and accommodate you and fill in for you. If you’re too hung over to preach, your congregation may miss messages they need to hear. They may do without knowledge they need. If you’re a nicotine junkie, you may be out front desperately sucking a Lucky when someone in your church needs you. If you spoil your child and refuse to put him in his place, other people will have to put up with his whining or stealing or vandalism or hypochondria. You’ve made him your boss, and by making other people agree to your concessions, you make him their boss.

It’s funny how authority works. We’re all under it. The only question is whether we’re under the right one. Idolatry turns the world upside-down. In a family, to cite an example, authority should go God-man-wife-kid, but a doting mom can turn it upside-down so it goes kid-wife-man-God. The kid becomes god. And who is the kid’s god? That’s the real problem.

If you don’t train your dog, your dog becomes your master and your neighbor’s master. I think about that when I wake up at 5:45 a.m.

The world has been upside-down since Eden. Within this inverted world, a Christian’s life can be right-side-up. I believe it, and I intend to cooperate while God makes it happen for me. I certainly could not do it on my own.

Eat all the Fried Food You Want

The funniest thing happened to me today.

I was on the way home from the grocery store, where I managed to back the Death Star into a normal-sized parking space, much to my delight. Every day I try to set time aside for some mid-day prayer, and I often screw up and miss it, and today I was late. So I decided to get to work on it while I drove. I was praying about a conflict between me and another person, and I felt faith rush through me so hard, I didn’t know what to do. I started pounding on the fold-down console in the center seat. Then I held onto it, as if bracing myself for a strong wind.

I can’t explain it. What was it?

I thought I should document it. I get tired of hearing testimonies about things that have already happened. You know what I mean; phony psychics do it all the time. It’s December of 2008, and they announce they PREDICTED THE OBAMA VICTORY! What good is that? Do you really have to be a psychic to predict things that have already happened? Fine, I predicted…let’s see…the big 2004 tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and Susan Boyle. I just didn’t feel like telling anyone until today. I’m shy about my gifts. You know how humble amazing people like me usually are.

Here’s something weird. I had a pimply thing developing on my upper lip today, and it was really painful, and during my prayers, I mentioned it, and now it’s barely there. Like forty minutes later.

I must be the king of insignificant skin-blemish miracles. First the warts I got rid of, and now this. I’m not knocking it. I hate little nagging skin problems that cause pain or disfigurement. But this is not the kind of thing that made the book of Acts. “Hath anyone among you a zit? Let the elders come and anoint him with oil, and verily, he shall be delivered in time for the prom.”

I guess anything big enough to annoy a believer is big enough to annoy God.

I have to go take another look at this thing. This is too weird.

Feet Up, Parts on the Way

Looks like I won’t be going to Lakeland this week. I just got the word. The pastor is going to be so busy, I wouldn’t even see him.

This works fine for me. Saturday was a bear, I suffered all day yesterday working on the Harley, and I’ve been busy with something all day today, so when I got the news, I was ready for a break. Now I can spend some more time on the book.

I have some Harley parts on the way. I still wonder what killed my carb float. I think I dumped some water remover and fuel injector cleaner in the tank. Not sure. In the future, I plan to be less creative with additives. I just assumed they were all safe.

Now That I Can See Them

This morning I got on the scale. A few weeks back, after a fast, I found I had the ability to control some behaviors that were causing me problems, and one of them was overeating. The abilities have persisted, so I like to get on the scale to see how I’m doing.

I weighed myself and got a certain figure, which was very satisfactory. Then for some reason, I got on the scale again a minute later. The number was 0.8 pounds lower! Nothing had changed. There was no reason for a difference in the reading. I got on a third time, and the lower reading appeared again. I’m down nearly fifteen pounds. The number has been a couple of pounds lower after a fast, but today’s measurement was after a weekend of normal eating.

Getting a miracle is confusing. The natural tendency is to keep confirming it over and over, until you can accept it. I guess that’s where I am now.

This weekend I saw Perry Stone deliver a message about Lot’s wife. I’m sure you know the story. Mr. and Mrs. Lot lived in Sodom, which was destroyed for selfishness, sexual perversion, dishonesty, mistreatment of visitors, and other sins. God warned them to get out, and they were told not to turn around. Mrs. Lot looked back–the book of Jasher says her children were being destroyed in the holocaust–and she turned into a pillar of salt, and Josephus claimed he saw the pillar later.

It’s an interesting message.

When Lot and Abraham parted ways, Lot chose the part of the land that was near Sodom. He pitched his tent toward Sodom. Perry Stone and some other preacher whose name I forget say this meant he was expressing his interest in the Sodom lifestyle. Lot eventually ended up living in Sodom, surrounded by thieves and perverts. The Bible says their filthy talk vexed him every day. It must have been like living in lower Manhattan.

If I recall Perry Stone’s message correctly, he was telling people not to look back with longing at sinful ways they had left behind.

I’ve been thinking along these lines since the fast I mentioned above. In the past, I wanted to behave in a certain way, but I couldn’t do it, because something (whether flesh or spirit) had a grip on me. Then I found myself “set free, indeed.” But I was tempted to go back. A little voice told me that when my problems blew over, it would be safe to resume living like an idiot. I had no plans to do this, but you know how thoughts are. They roam around in your head like stray dogs.

I suspect that a person whose free will is restored can’t get away with sins that wouldn’t harm an addict much. If you’re tormented by a constant urge to overeat, maybe it’s not a big deal when you break down and have a dozen doughnuts. But what if you’ve been freed by a miracle, and then you decide to eat a whole pizza? That has to be much worse. The temptation is not as powerful, so it’s a sin of will, not weakness.

So I think Perry Stone’s message was right on target, where I’m concerned. I needed to hear it. I don’t want the thought of future lapses in my head. I don’t want to plan my own failure, and I definitely don’t want to lose this.

When I got this unexpected blessing, I wanted to tell other people about it so they could get it, but as usual, I got nowhere with it. I have a horrible track record in this regard. In an email this morning, I said my miracles tend to be boring. If you can stand up and say you instantly dropped a crack habit, people will clap and churches will invite you to speak, but nobody cares when you find yourself able to turn down pizza. There are probably a lot of churches where they’d stone you, with rocks held in empty fried-chicken buckets. Christians want to hang onto that last “acceptable” vice. Many of us are gigantic.

Freedom from food addiction is a great gift. It’s huge. If I drop another fifteen pounds, it will be like taking off a lead apron.

Overeating costs you a lot. It ruins your ability to do many things, such as sports. It cuts way back on your dating pool. Like any addiction, it can make you hate yourself. It will cause people to mistreat you. If you’re married, it can wreck your sex life. It will cost you jobs, because employers like hiring skinny people. It will put a burden on the people around you. You’ll be in the way all the time. People will groan when they see you in a narrow hallway or an elevator or a doorway. They’ll have to sit in the back seat because you’re too big. You’ll crush them on airplanes, because you flow over the armrest. It’s not a trivial thing. I’m beside myself with gratitude. I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I feel like God put a billion dollars in my bank account, and nobody else cares.

Here’s how I see it. Anything that controls you is evil. Right or wrong?

I’ll probably get stoned for saying things like that. But at least now I’ll have a chance of outrunning them.

Needle Valve Crud

I’m not sure I’m cut out for riding motorcycles.

I used to let the bikes sit for long periods. I finally learned to use Sta-Bil and make sure I got on the road once in a while. That saved me from replacing the Harley’s slow jet every time I wanted to ride.

Then last year I found gas pouring out of the Harley when I tried to start it. That required a Golan petcock. The Harley unit is complete garbage, almost intended to fail.

Today I tried to start the Harley, and black gas ran out through the air cleaner. This was new. I won’t mention the fact that I had to charge the battery in order to get this far. One month of down time killed it.

I took the carb out, stuck a new slow jet in, checked the float, checked the needle valve, and put it all back together. Miserable job. Then I realized I had left the ignition on, which means the headlight was burning. I had to attach the charger again. Now I’m waiting.

For future Googlers, here is the answer I found. Crud can get into your needle valve, holding it open and flooding the carb. Then the excess pours out onto your pipes. Call me crazy, but I think this is unsafe.

I don’t know if I fixed it or not.

I was hoping to ride to church to pick up my Pyrex. I left it up there last night.

Hope she fires up this time.

More

Now it looks like I ruined the carb float by using a fuel additive. Oh, well. At least I got to enjoy taking the carb apart several times, for no good reason.

Harley-Davidson won’t put a part finder online. If you want to buy parts, you need the part numbers. Guess what they do to help you find the numbers? They charge $48 for a manual. I’m serious. They omit the numbers from the service manual, so you have to spend more money.

I can’t find a new float online anywhere, so I posted a message on a forum. Hopefully someone will save me.

More

Harley-Davidson part number 27576-92 (40mm Keihin CV carb float for 2001 FLSTC). Hope someone else finds this useful.

More

The fuel gauge is dead. And the sender has a float on it.

I think I see a pattern here.

“Steve”?

What a day.

At first, nobody at my church realized I was alive. Then the pastor asked me to help him turn some sermons into books. Now I’m right in the nerve center. It happened so fast, it freaked me out.

I keep writing about how God freaks me out. It’s true. He does it several times a week, I guess.

My pastor and his wife have been running the church for 11 years, and it has been in its present location for maybe 6. As you can guess, there are lots of people there who have been around for years. They know each other well. They’re used to working together.

I showed up about eleven months ago. I sat in the back. I came in, gave my offerings, listened to the sermons, and went home. People introduced themselves to me twice because I made such a weak impression on them.

A month or so ago, I got some face time with my pastor to discuss some problems I was having, and he mentioned the book. I got to work on that. He invited me to join his weekly prayer group, and through that, I met some volunteer leaders. He just hired a publicist. I met with him and her this week.

At one of the prayer things, they asked for volunteers to help with a women’s conference, so I signed up. This week, they said they wanted me to help in the cafe. Then that changed. The pastor wanted me to join the “armor bearers.” These are guys who help out with all sorts of things behind the scenes. They pick speakers up at the airport. They hang out in the green room, helping speakers and musicians get their needs met. They roam around with earpieces, like CIA agents, fixing problems as they appear.

Today I showed up, dropped some desserts off at the cafe, and met up with the pastor and the armor bearers. I ended up driving the pastor and an older armor-bearer to the airport. While I was there, I picked up John Gray, a well-known speaker and comedian and singer. I took him to Nordstrom’s so he could get a shirt for his appearance. I took him to his hotel. Then when he arrived at church, I helped out with the service. That was pretty wild. There was a mass anointing, and about 90% of the attendees were women, so you can imagine how crazy it got. Some of them nearly had to be carried away from the altar.

I really enjoyed getting to know the other armor-bearer. He’s a fantastic guy. I feel like we’re old friends.

The pastor asked if I could run up to Lakeland and pick him up at a speaking engagement. I’d actually spend a night up there. I can’t believe that. It’s like I’m going from invisible to indispensable. What about all those people who are in line ahead of me? The people at the church are treating me like I’ve been there for years, proving my trustworthiness. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I want to do all I can, when I can. It’s not just because I want to please God and feel like part of the church. It’s also because this is like sitting on the couch, having valuable contacts delivered via dumptruck. I just met someone who has been in Christian publishing for years, and we’re working together. Then I met John Gray. Who will it be next week? I can’t even guess.

I keep thinking about Joseph, Daniel, Nehemiah, and Esther. Being useful can put you in the company of important people. It can change your life, or even the world.

I have made some observations.

First, I’m surprised how humble prominent Christians are. John Gray seems like a good example. In the truck, he was friendly, and he made conversation, but he was a wallflower compared to the powerhouse I saw in church. Sherman Klump versus Buddy Love. A few minutes after having hundreds of adoring women shriek at him, he was as regular a guy as you could ever hope to meet. I’m sure not all Christian personalities are like that, but it’s remarkable that any are. I also saw Robia La Morte, who used to work for Prince. I helped carry some chairs for her. Absolutely unprepossessing. I wish I had remembered that she played a character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I would have had to shake her hand and mention it.

Second, Christian women are really attractive. I hadn’t realized. I used to think the things that turned me off about Miami women and northeastern women were cultural, and to some extent they are, but tonight I realized a lot of it is the difference between Christian and non-Christian. Worldly women are hard and closed compared to Christian women. They’re jaded. Their innocence is gone. They are more likely to have stupid, hateful ideas about men. If I got involved with one, I would spend a tremendous amount of time fighting with her over my “backward” morals and values. Christian women already believe most of what I believe. Dealing with them isn’t like trying to force a left shoe on a right foot. The chemistry is healthy, not corrupted.

When a worldly “expert” talks about women or men, only half of the audience claps. Because worldly men think women are wrong about everything, and vice-versa. But in church tonight, when John Gray talked about the sexes, both sexes clapped. The men gathered in the front of the church and prayed for the women. The phrase “war between the sexes” would have sounded psychotic in that atmosphere.

One of the worst things about non-Christian women is that they put you on trial, 24 hours a day. As if they have the right. They think there is something righteous about browbeating men. As if we need to be punished. Where do insane ideas like that come from?

I know I paint an overly rosy picture, when I talk about the ease of getting along with Christian women. Divorce statistics among Christians are not good. But there are Christians, and then there are Christians. I think God makes many, many Christian marriages work. A lot of Christians only dip their toes in the water, when they should jump in the pool. So they stay caught in worldly problems, when they should be getting deliverance. I speak from experience. I think I’m starting to get some clues about leading a blessed life. Not everyone lives in misery and disappointment and frustration. Our culture tells us they do, but it’s not true.

A few months back, I said I had the unshakable feeling that something great was going to happen to me. I still can’t figure out what it is. So many good things are happening. Which one is it? Is it all of them? Is something even better, which will happen in the upcoming weeks?

I feel like I’m being promoted quickly in life. Exactly the way Christian teachers say it works.

I don’t want to encourage anybody to do anything stupid. Mistakes about doctrine are not exactly rare, and many smart people have been fooled. But I’m amazed at how things are going for me.

Food Avalanche

I was going to attend to some lingering responsibilities today, but instead, I decided to try to unwind a little. I spent a leisurely morning with the Bible, and then I decided to slap together some desserts for the church. I’ll be working at the cafe tomorrow, unless they move me, so I figured it was time to show them what I can do for them.

I was going to make cheesecake, but the berries are pathetic right now. I can get good blueberries, but they’re about ten bucks a pint, and strawberries are only half ripe. There goes that idea. So I’m making brownies and flan and banana nut bread.

The banana nut bread is mostly for my own satisfaction. I was not happy with my last (second) loaf. I changed the recipe again. I’m disturbed to see that I left sugar out of the recipe the last time I posted it. Here is what I’m using right now.

INGREDIENTS

3 ripe bananas, mashed (I used two Orinocos)
2 1/4 cups non-rising biscuit flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda
2 eggs
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans
pinch nutmeg
pinch cloves
pinch cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla

I cut the cinnamon back, jacked up the butter, and took out the coconut oil. I also cleaned the teflon pan carefully and greased it with butter. I hope the loaf doesn’t stick this time.

I’m confident this one will be very good. They’ve all been good, but this one won’t have the obvious flaws the first two had.

I guess they’ll think I’m doing too much, but this is recreation for me.

I got a letter from Perry Stone Ministries. The man does not ask for money. He says he refuses to beg, because he doesn’t like doing TV. He believes God told him to do it. I can understand that. I’d do TV if an angel ordered me to, but it must be a hassle and a complete abdication of your expectation of privacy.

The letter was a thank-you to his supporters. He says other ministries are laying off, but he’s doing fine. Is there a lesson in that? Probably. If all you do is beg and holler “SEED GIFT! SEED GIFT!” all day, you shouldn’t be surprised when people start watching and supporting shows that give them something more. Perry Stone is incredibly prolific. I don’t know how he does it. He seems to write a book every ten minutes, and if you bought every sermon series (and they’re not expensive), you’d probably blow almost a thousand dollars a year.

I think God may be sifting out a number of the less-profitable servants. Some people take issue when I indicate that I believe that the things you do here on earth can have timely and identifiable consequences, but I was thinking about it today, and they’re wrong. Look at the Bible. Achan took stuff from Jericho, and the very next time the Jews fought, they lost. Delilah shaved Samson, and the next morning, his enemies held him down and gouged his eyes out. Ananias and Sapphira lied to God, and the Holy Spirit killed them immediately. Judas died miserably shortly after his sin. Sometimes God gives you a lot of space to repent, and sometimes you get slapped down in a hurry, and you know the reason.

I suspect that the more God plans to do with you (and therefore FOR you), the shorter your leash will be. Look at Moses and David. If you’re a jerk all your life, and everything goes well for you, maybe it means there was never any hope for you. Things went great for Hitler for decades. The Bible says, “Fret not because of the man who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.” It says, “Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.”

This morning, I went back over Psalm 5, which I was no longer able to recite, and I saw this: “Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies. Make thy way straight before my face.” I used to think it meant, “Lead me around the traps,” but now I think it means, “Prevent me from sinning, so I don’t lose your protection.” God promises to guard his servants. “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.” “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.” But sin–especially iniquity, or habitual sin–is an open door through which the enemy is permitted to enter.

I feel like my behavior is being sculpted by chastisement. First in broad and painful strokes, and then in progressively finer adjustments. I’ve made changes, and I’ve gotten victories, but there has been room for improvement, and I think that’s why I haven’t seen every triumph I hoped for.

The farther I get into it, the more Christianity makes sense. People always talk like we know very little about God’s mind and his plans, but that’s not true. A lot of information is out there, if you’re willing to look. Seeing through a glass, darkly, is not the same as wandering in total ignorance. It surprises me, how much is known about God.

I can’t believe how much I’ve learned from memorizing the Psalms. I should not be surprised. Jesus quoted them to Satan when he was tempted. They’re not just silly poems. God reveals his secrets in them. The Apostles quoted them. All this stuff about actions and consequences, I put together from my knowledge of the Psalms. I just finished 91, and I’m working on 27. Take a look at it, if you want to see how appropriate it is. And I haven’t even memorized twenty percent of them. I have to wonder what it’s like to have a real Biblical library in your head. Supposedly, in Jesus’s time, Jewish boys memorized the Pentateuch by the time they were bar mitzvah’d.

I have to drive to the store to get more eggs. I can’t believe I took a list and still screwed up.

If you want to see progress in your life, try this. Get the baptism of the Spirit, pray in the Spirit every day, and start memorizing. Stuff will come together inside you. Seriously.

New Trinket for the IWhine

Here are two things you should never doubt again.

1. Bush Derangement Syndrome is a bona fide mental illness.

2. The spirit of Antichrist upholds and promotes anti-Jewish, anti-Church leaders.

If you have better explanations for Barack Obama’s unexpected Nobel Peace Prize, I would love to hear them.

This guy is starting to remind me of Al Bundy. If you don’t recall, Al was a high school superstar. A jock. He peaked at 18. Then he ended up selling shoes. Obama will peak during the 12 months following the 2008 election. After that, a legacy of abject bundicity. Which is a noun I just coined.

Now that I think about it, the Antichrist will be a lot like Al Bundy, too. A short time in the sun, and then eternity in the deep fryer. God’s shoe store.

Obama is hostile to the necessary, God-mandated, inevitable recovery of the missing parts of the Jewish homeland, and the terrorists made it clear they preferred him to McCain, but even Muslims found this award confusing and inappropriate.

When nutty things happen, look for a spiritual reason. That’s what I have learned. This explains lots of things. The housing bubble. The disproportionate success of moderately talented people like Michael Jackson, Elvis, and Madonna. Oprah’s $31 million starting salary. Israel’s military victories. Bill Gates. And the bizarre and increasingly shameless worship of a mediocre and obscure junior senator who had the White House handed to him in a gift-wrapped package.

When his fall comes, he is going to hit the earth so hard he will go clean through it and pop out in China. His new policy–this is so stupid it amounts to psychosis–of openly attacking critics in the press is likely to accelerate his descent pretty dramatically.

Last night I watched a Perry Stone live webcast. He said he always prays for our leaders to come around and submit to God, so they’ll provide a friendly environment for the church. Same here. I long for the day when Obama says he has discarded the tiny idol he carries. The pocket-sized figure of the Hindu antichrist. I want to see him throw out the two-foot-tall gilded version he keeps in the White House. I want him to admit that Jeremiah Wright is a sad excuse for a preacher. And I’d like to see him quit stabbing the Jews in the back.

I want to see him straighten up and succeed or continue in foolishness and fail miserably. The former is preferable, but anything is better than success on Obama’s spiritually dysfunctional terms. No nation has ever been blessed for irresponsibility, man-worship, and Jew-baiting.

Question: will he donate the money to charity? Tough call. It’s fairly certain that he thinks he earned it. And at heart, he’s spoiled, ungrateful, and selfish. But his ego and his image would benefit from a conspicuous donation to a cause beloved by leftists. And I’m sure he expects to earn millions after he leaves office, although he’s likely to be a one-termer, which means he won’t pull down Bill Clinton money.

Whatever happens, I’m sure he will manage to embarrass us yet again.