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.

Hold the Fries, Heathen

Man, am I wiped out. A family crisis developed, and my dad invited me to lunch to discuss it, and I ate a cheeseburger and a tiny container of mysterious “veggie slaw.” I feel like I ate a bowling bag full of greased marbles.

Two months ago, I would have barely noticed a meal this small. It’s amazing how I’ve changed. I had a generous breakfast today, because I was running behind on calories, but it wasn’t huge. Other than that, I’ve had two tiny bowls of All-Bran and part of a Lindt bar. I don’t think I could eat another thing all day.

My dad refuses to believe it’s an answer to prayer. He says fasting shrunk my stomach. I can’t agree. I’ve fasted before, and it never affected my appetite in the days that followed. I think if two cherubs flew in bearing a cake decorated with the message, “Way to go. Love, J.C.”, he would still insist there was an earthly explanation.

I feel almost sick. I could not be happier.

The 33-waist pants in the closet are calling to me. I still remember the days when I thought of them as my fat pants. Right now, I’d be thrilled if I could get into them with a crowbar. And I’m not that far off.

I’ve achieved absolutely nothing today. Started working on the book. Then I had to go with my sister so she could have her head shaved. Then family crisis. Then lunch.

If you want to start taking a woman’s cancer seriously, watch somebody shave her head. It’s very disturbing. It drives the truth home in a big way. I don’t think it would mean as much if it were a man. Men shave their heads for all sorts of reasons. They lose bets. They want to make it harder for the cops to identify them. They fall asleep drunk and fall prey to their so-called friends. When a woman shaves her head, you know something is up.

Hope this day’s supply of drama has run dry.

And None of You Deserve it, Anyway

I have been thinking about the prayer meeting I went to yesterday, in which we focused on the ill effects of complaining.

At the meeting, I felt like adding my input, but I kept quiet, because once my mouth is open, it tends to stay that way. The other guys have been building the church for years, and I don’t want to show up at this late date and act like I know something they don’t.

If I had spoken my piece, I would have said this: complaining can be truly magical. A person who really knows how to complain can take any situation and turn it into a stinking dungheap.

I’ll try to capture the pain of dealing with someone like that. I’ll provide a composite character, and I’ll call him Ned. The phone rings, and it’s Ned. He wants to talk about a situation which appears to be going quite well. Let’s say Ned’s sister’s son is having a birthday, and the party is tomorrow. The kid is happy. The sister is happy. The cake has been ordered. The guests have been invited. The weather looks good. The clown is fresh out of rehab and appears to be behaving himself. Here is what Ned says:

1. I know the best place to get a cake, but Myrtle (the sister) hates me because I was popular when we were in high school, so she insisted on going to the stupid bakery down the street, which is run by Haitians, and–God bless them, you know how I hurt for them and how much money I give to Haitian charities, unlike you–they are not clean people, and I am not going near that tuberculosis-infected cake. I hope everyone enjoys it in spite of the bad things I have a duty to say about it in front of the guests, because I am not a petty person like Myrtle. I guess somebody in the family has to be the spiritual one, and I don’t mind, because that’s how Jesus and I roll. And if Myrtle gets a loathsome disease, I wouldn’t be surprised, because God withdraws his blessings when you mistreat people. But I really hope she doesn’t, because I just don’t have it in me to wish anyone ill. I thank God I am not built like that.

2. Little Elroy (the son) is bucktoothed, and I was the one who made them take him to the orthodontist, so they owe me, but they still insisted on having the party at their house instead of Chuck E. Cheese, which would have been a way better idea. And they never thanked me, and when my gout acted up, it was over a day before they called, and they didn’t even offer to mow my yard so my toe could rest.

3. I had to go without Crown Royal for a week to buy Elroy’s present, and it’s much better than anything anyone else got him, but what can you expect, when his dad is a pothead and his mom spends all her money on tacky jewelry and Hummel figurines? I know they will never thank me for it, even though I will call attention to it by putting it in a huge gift-wrapped box next to the pathetic presents they got him, and I will make him pose for about fifty digital pictures while he opens it, because I’m the only one who cares enough to preserve the precious memories of his childhood.

4. I may be late to the party because my bursitis, which could actually be bone cancer, is bothering me, and no one cares enough about me to pick me up so I don’t have to drive. I know everyone is just waiting for me to die so they can put my model train collection on Ebay, so nothing surprises me any more. It’s a good thing I’m so spiritual. Otherwise I might resent them. It’s sad how they envy me, but luckily it doesn’t bother me at all.

5. The present you got Elroy is stupid and embarrassing, but you never listen to me, so go ahead and give it to him. I hope you kept the receipt. If not, maybe they can take it to Goodwill.

6. Let’s just try to have a good time, if you can find it in your heart to stifle your negative personality for three hours. God knows I don’t ask for much. I know you don’t think about personal sacrifice the way I do, so I will understand if you embarrass everybody and ruin the party.

And Ned wonders why his calls go to voicemail all the time.

Anyone else would say, “Oh, boy! A birthday party! Sounds like fun!”

When something is wrong, and there might be a solution, you have to speak up. That’s not the bad kind of complaining. The bad kind is a sort of reverse alchemy, which turns gold into lead. A skilled complainer can take the greatest day of your life and turn it into something out of a Kafka story.

There is also a bad kind of optimism. “This space shuttle was designed by geniuses! Freezing weather won’t hurt it!” “Icebergs? This ship is unsinkable!” “Housing prices are going to go up 20% a year for the rest of our lives! Go ahead and take that loan!” “Experience? A President doesn’t need experience! If old, experienced people knew anything, the world would be perfect by now!”

You know what I’m talking about. There is nothing wrong with pointing out that the emperor is naked. Jesus did it all the time. A smart person knows when criticism is helpful and when it is not.

If you want to know what hell is like, travel with a master complainer. “You never take my secret shortcut. This will add hours to the trip.” “Wake up. This room is no better than the last one. We have to move again.” “Take off my SHOES? I demand to speak to the president of the airline!” “Go ahead and eat at McDonald’s if you want. I’ll sit in the car, and then we can go someplace clean.” “Waitress! This muffin is asymmetrical!”

Life is full of real problems. You don’t improve it by conjuring new ones.

Back when I was in college, I had a buddy who joined the Peace Corps. I don’t know if that was a great idea. He wrote me letters in which diarrhea figured heavily, and he said the Senegalese felt that he should build their bridge (or whatever) singlehandedly, while they observed from comfy lawn chairs in the shade. But he was very game.

While his trip was in the planning stages, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Manhattan. They screwed his order up pretty badly, and we ended up waiting while things were put back the way they should be. And he told me this was the kind of thing that made travel interesting. When something goes wrong, you can whine and stamp your feet and make silly threats, or you can find the good that comes of it. Who knows? When they bring you the wrong dish, it might be something you like better than the right dish. We agreed that when you travel with another person, the smart thing was to avoid people who couldn’t tolerate surprises, because they made travel a painful experience.

Life is a journey. I suppose the principle applies to every day that we live. Don’t pair yourself up with a happiness-seeking mood torpedo.

The worst thing about pointless, self-indulgent complaining is that it makes people hate to be around you. And that makes you more bitter, so you complain more. Eventually, you decide you are the only correct person on earth, and that the reason no one invites you anywhere is that they are embarrassed by your perfection.

People don’t owe you their company. And if it brings them down and gives them ulcers, they have an affirmative obligation to avoid it.

It’s funny how Christianity improves my attitude. I expected it to drive me away from things like sexual sin and unforgiveness and so on, but it has wider effects than that. For a long time, I’ve thought that soldiers were a lot like Christians, and the more I progress, the more I think that is true. After all, the Bible calls God “the Lord of hosts,” and the word translated “hosts” means “armies.” Positive thinking. Responsibility. Unselfishness. Esprit de corps. These are all ideas that apply equally to the military and the church. No wonder soldiers make such fantastic Christians. It’s plug and play.

Probably a Right-Wing Terrorist

I just got back from my GAP (“God Answers Prayer”) group meeting, up at the church. My second visit today. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be included, and to meet the devoted men who help make the church work.

The pastor’s theme for tonight was the harmfulness of complaining. I told him earlier today that if I could not complain, I wouldn’t be able to say much at all. Anyway, it was great to listen to the ex-military guys talk about the zero-tolerance policy the service has toward complaining. When you hear things like that, it helps you realize how our military gets so much done, in spite of bureaucracy and confusion.

They talked about weather they had endured. One guy said he had seen temperatures of 166 degrees in Iraq. I assume that’s inside a vehicle or something. They both said that when the temperature drops at night, even though it’s still warm, you feel like you’re freezing. One said he had a picture of himself shivering in a sleeping bag, in front of a thermometer reading 110 degrees.

They’re not so tough. Sometimes, when I practiced law, the girls in the office forgot to buy half and half for my coffee. I had to use that awful powdered stuff. I don’t like to talk about it. It was horrible. But I keep that to myself because I’m a stoic.

I used to drive home from the courthouse or a club or a restaurant, get out of a two-seat convertible, and walk in past an empty garage. Tonight I drove home from a prayer meeting at church, got out of a four-wheel-drive diesel pickup with an eight-foot bed, and walked into the house carrying a Bible and a pistol, past a garage loaded with tools.

What a change. I feel like I’m arriving.

Church on Wednesday Morning

I had an interesting morning at church. I went up to have a meeting about the book I’m helping the pastor write. He hired a publicist for the church, and he put us together so we could talk about the project.

This lady is the daughter of a guy who had a huge church, and she knows all sorts of people in Christian publishing. She and the pastor are making plans for a whole series of books. Oddly, I’m working on the second one, before the others come out. In any case, it will be great to have someone else involved, who can put in the time the book needs. The pastor is just too busy, and it’s not really his thing, anyway. He already created the DVD series this book will be based on, so it makes sense to hand the writing, editing, and PR off to someone else.

I’m starting to feel like people there know who I am, and that I will be able to be a part of the operation, instead of wandering in, warming a chair, and going home. I hope my involvement continues to increase. It can be tough to do well in the secular world once you’ve sold out to God, so I need all the support I can get.

I went to lunch with the pastor and the PR lady, and one of the church leaders joined us, and I met a few other folks. I can never remember names, but I’m going to make an effort.

The church has a cafe. If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while, you can see the potential for hilarity here. I was telling them about my book and the horrors I have created. This weekend, I’ll be helping out in the cafe. They’ll probably have me emptying trash bags and cleaning up, but if I end up helping with the cooking, I’ll try not to give in to my natural instincts.

The food at the cafe looks really good. The pastor says people from the area drop in and eat. Heathens, I mean. Okay, not heathens. Necessarily. But not church members. I think he said it’s five bucks for a meal. Not bad.

The pastor says he wants a copy of my book. I guess I’ll give him one. After reading it, he may wonder if he picked the right guy to write Christian material. On the up side, I might make a good subject for a sermon.

I talked to him about gluttony. He agrees that it’s a sin, just like drunkenness, but you don’t hear much about it from preachers. Strange. Think about it. If you gluttonize consistently, you ruin your knees, your arteries, your heart, your pancreas, and maybe your brain. You can become diabetic and end up having your feet amputated. If you become obese, you annoy and inconvenience other people all the time. Have you ever lived with a food addict? You can’t have decent food or drink. They inhale it before you can get to it. You buy six tangerines on Monday, and on Tuesday, they’re all gone. You have to eat peanut butter sandwiches because the jelly disappears in two days. Gluttony causes a lot of problems. It’s not a trivial thing. How can a thing that makes you ugly, sick, uncomfortable, and annoying be trivial?

That being said, I do miss it. But I still enjoy food. I just enjoy it in human amounts.

There are demons around us. Christians get embarrassed when you mention them, but they surround us. Jesus and Paul talked about them all the time. I think every person has a certain number of resident demons who work to control his life and lead him to ruin. What else do they have to do? I don’t think you have to be foaming at the mouth and bending bars in your teeth to have one or more demons. I think addiction, which is less spectacular than foaming at the mouth, is generally demonic. It controls your life, against your will, like the Biblical demon that made the boy fall in the fire. And gluttony is addiction. If it were not, people would be able to control it. They can’t. Almost every person who diets down to normal size blows back up again. How is that different from cigarette or heroin addiction? You have a self-destructive habit you can’t control…isn’t that addiction?

Surely one demon will attract others. Isn’t that the way life works? If you have a serious problem you can’t control, you tend to get other problems later. If you can’t control what you eat, it will weaken your will in other areas, and sooner or later, you’re likely to have other moral problems. At least I think so.

It’s natural for Christians to think they have to have one area in their lives where they can let loose. But we’re not supposed to be natural. Shakespeare used the word “natural” to describe men who were controlled by their primitive urges. The idea that we have limited strength, and that we can only expect to win in certain areas of our lives, is probably wrong. I think we were probably intended to be hooked up to the Holy Spirit, in a way that gradually rids us of destructive urges and habits. Maybe we’re not supposed to be perfect, but I don’t think we’re supposed to dedicate portions of our lives to failure. Isn’t that what you do, when you decide it’s okay to smoke because you’ve quit taking drugs and drinking too much? How is it different if you decide you have to give up all your vices except for stuffing yourself? My diet used to work like this: 1500 calories per day, except for Saturday, which I called “fat day.” On that day, I ate everything I could carry home. If addiction is caused by hostile spirits, isn’t fat day appeasement? Isn’t appeasement just a way of delaying further aggression without preventing it? Look how well it worked in Israel.

I’m completely thrilled that I am not overeating these days, but I continue to hate fasting. It’s not as painful as it used to be, but it’s no joy, either. On the days when I fast, I look forward to that next meal. I don’t celebrate with a hoglike feast, but the first bite of whatever I eat comes as a great relief.

Life continues to improve. I assume an occasional fast is necessary to the process. I’ll live.

I think this is what Jesus meant by “free, indeed.” You can have your stomach stapled and send money to Dr. Phil, but only one power in the universe truly destroys addiction.

I could really go for a pie right now.

Will Our Grandchildren Know What a Hurricane Is?

Dan from Madison is upset that I haven’t mocked the Global Warmers this year. Usually I put up a hurricane frequency chart and then gloat about the utter wimpiness of the season.

Here is the chart:

As you can see, it peaks and centers at September 10. This is October 3, and a rough guess, by eyeballing, says 3/4 of this year’s hurricane probability is gone.

I will try to be a nice person and not gloat, but I think I should remind everyone how certain the Gore groupies were that we were going to die in a wave of killer storms. There was no room for doubt. It was a sure thing. Then we had four weak seasons in a row. This year has been the weakest yet. It’s as if hurricanes are becoming extinct.

If they were wrong about the consequences of global warming, why would they be right about global warming itself? By the convoluted logic of the left, global warming (and chiggers and leprosy and the McKinley assassination) was somehow caused by the election of George Bush, whom they all hated. Anything that tended to discredit Bush got them excited, so global warming had them doing cartwheels. This means their opinions on global warming were so colored by bias that they were essentially worthless. If George Bush had been tied to waffles, naked liberals would have been out in the streets demanding laws banning them, and liberal scientists would have linked waffles to everything from trout infertility to Down Syndrome.

Now that I think about it, back in 2004, one candidate was tied to waffles. But it wasn’t Bush.

Man does all sorts of bad things, but he is not capable of changing the weather. Not yet. God is not ready to hand that power over to us. And judging by the hurricane situation, he seems bent on proving it.

Even if we could increase the temperature by a couple of degrees, we would simply be going back to a state that has existed within the last thousand years, and if my meager knowledge of history serves, it did not destroy all life on the planet. In fact, it extended growing seasons and made winter less miserable.

Often, what a person says depends on what his reward is. This is a good thing to keep in mind when you come across nutty arguments purporting to explain things that otherwise might be considered acts of God. Rational beings have an unlimited capacity to rationalize and deceive, and they often use these tools toward evil ends. The Bible tells us that toward the end of time, we will see earthquakes, famines, perversion, wars, and signs in the heavens. Weather anomalies fall in the last category. Someone is at work, trying to explain them away. And I don’t mean Al Gore.

Last night I found I had a new Robert Morris on the DVR. His show has been featuring a series on the Holy Spirit. Wonderful stuff. This guy seems to be right on the money. Last night he explained that the Pentecost phenomenon the disciples experienced after Christ’s ascension is for every Christian, even now. He dismantled the “it only happened once” argument.

I was a little sad while I watched it. He said something that occurred to me years ago: the first mass baptism of the Holy Spirit was presaged by the confusion of tongues in the story of the Tower of Babel. Jesus has a pattern of undoing bad things that happened in the past, such as the fall of man. In the tower story, man tried to make himself all-powerful by his own efforts, and the rewards were failure and disunity, and the disunity was imposed via linguistic barriers. In the Pentecost story, men submitted to God’s will in their quest for the power to serve, and they were united and empowered successfully, and the evidence was a new common language. The connection is obvious. I knew that a long time ago, but the information was of no use to anyone but me, because I didn’t do anything with it.

Some people claim the gift of tongues is exclusively for corporate worship, and that it is always accompanied by interpretation, but that’s an assumption. The Bible does not say that. Some say the fact that the foreigners who heard the disciples heard their own languages means that the gift of tongues always manifests itself in languages already known, but that, too, is an assumption, and it contradicts the references to “unknown tongues.” Jesus himself referred to the gift of tongues when he told the Samaritan woman at the well about “living water.” The first psalm mentions it, when it prophesies that believers will be like trees planted by rivers of water. The twenty-third psalm refers to the baptism of the Spirit, using oil as a symbol: “Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” I think Zechariah referred to tongues prophetically when he wrote about Zerubabbel (“seed of Babel”) having a big role in reforming Judaism. The seven-bowl menorah in the Holy of Holies, fueled by oil (symbolizing the Spirit) is a reference to the baptism of the Spirit.

The scriptures refer to tongues over and over, both explicitly and prophetically. The reason Christians fight it is that the enemy is terrified of the Holy Spirit. After all, the Holy Spirit is what enabled Samson to slaughter a thousand idolaters in one day. It teaches you what the scriptures mean. It frees you from habitual sin. It improves your character. It tells you the enemy’s secrets. The enemy would rather face weak Christians who are not connected to the power supply. Better yet, teach that weakness is righteousness and defeat is success. Teach that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is heresy. So when you are weak and you fail at what you were intended to do, you have the crazy idea that everything is going according to plan. Our successes are supposed to outnumber our defeats, by a huge margin. You may be martyred some day, but you’re not supposed to lose consistently, over the course of your life.

Anyway, a long time ago, a few things were revealed to me, and I was probably intended to go out and spread the news, like Robert Morris, but I left the church and wasted two decades walking in circles. When you don’t do what you’re asked to do, someone else gets to do it. I wonder how much better my life would have been. This guy has a magnificent church. The music team is beyond belief. He has a wonderful mission. I think he’s doing it right.