Freeze it, Dry it, Can it, Love it

It’s Labor Day! That means I should not be laboring. But I am. I am trying to get some work done on Pastor Wilkerson’s book. I also have to slice up and freeze the Costco prime rib roasts that have been aging here since last week. I still can’t believe I got prime beef for under eight bucks a pound.

It’s really shocking, how cheap food is when you put thought into it. The beans I fixed yesterday are fantastic, and they’re very good for you, and you can make a pot of them for maybe three bucks. The cornbread contains one egg, a quarter of a cup of grease (free, if you save it when you cook bacon), 12 ounces of milk, and two cups of meal. What does that cost? Let’s see. An egg runs about fifteen cents. The meal is something under a dollar. The milk is under fifty cents. It ain’t much.

I you buy whole pork loins at Costco, you get a giant loaf of meat for about 15 bucks. It’s something like 40 pork chops, and two of them will make a meal. Seventy-five cents per meal! And it’s not second-rate food. Pork chops are wonderful.

Ham hocks are a great deal, provided you’re willing to man up and eat the fat. Two hocks contain enough energy to make a meal all by themselves.

The pot of chili I made the other day ran me about 15 bucks, but that’s because I didn’t make any effort to get cheap meat. It was a spur of the moment idea. I suppose a smart person would get Costco beef and freeze it in one-pound bags. I don’t know what they charge for ground beef, but it can’t be a lot. And there’s no reason you can’t grind up a pork loin and freeze it. My chili is half pork and half beef, so I have to have ground pork. Maybe I should get a grinder. They’re cheap. I don’t know what Cuisinart ground meat looks like, but I’ll bet it’s not great.

Even though I paid too much for ingredients, 15 bucks is not bad for eight or ten huge portions of dynamite chili.

I need to start cooking the rest of my SHTF dried beans. After a year in storage, they’ll be too hard to cook. I suppose I can prepare one bag per month and freeze the results. Oh, boy. That would be pure hedonism. Bags and bags of frozen bean soup, full of pork chunks, pepper, and onions. Best not to dwell on it. I know it sounds stupid, but if you make bean soup right, it’s magnificent.

Because I live in Florida, I have to think about hurricanes. That means I should get real and start canning. Some day, a hurricane may take out my frozen food. What a horror. I would not lose canned stuff.

Home-canned food is great. Don’t let anyone tell you different. I’ve never had store-bought sweet pickles as good as the ones my grandmother used to make. And she used to can her own sausage, suspended in congealed grease. Best sausage I ever ate, and the residual grease has a thousand uses in the kitchen.

When you cook your own pork, you get to decide how it tastes. And you can take steps to make sure there is no gaminess in it. Most commercial sausage has at least a little boar taint. There is no excuse for it, but that’s how it is. A soak in water and baking soda kills it.

It just occurred to me that I can freeze bananas. They wouldn’t be worth eating out of hand, but you can cook with them. I can also dehydrate them and have chips. I’m going to have tons of bananas and plantains, so I have to do something.

I am trying to learn to think of the stuff I own as God’s property. If that’s true, I have to avoid frittering money away. I can’t say I’m a good steward if I buy food on impulse, at the highest prices, or if I throw out produce because I’m too lazy to preserve it. If you don’t take care of little things, you can’t expect to receive big ones. Check the gospels.

I don’t think everyone has to live like the Waltons, but some expenses don’t make much sense. For example, buying bread. If you own a food processor, a loaf of bread is almost no work, and the cost is minimal. It will be a lot better than store bread. The only advantage of store bread is convenience. I know people have limited time, but the actual hands-on time required to bake bread is about five minutes. And bread freezes with no damage. You can make ten loaves in a day and freeze them.

Costco’s freezer bags are not a great deal. Ebay is better.

It’s not about depriving yourself. It’s about not being an idiot. It’s about getting value for your money. Why spend twenty dollars and get one choice steak when you can spend a hundred and get over a dozen prime steaks? Why pay a restaurant to cook mediocre food when you can have better food at home? And if you arrange life so you have more money for yourself and your family, you’ll also have more money for your church and other people’s needs.

Maybe if I make an effort, I can do a better job taking care of my money. During these Forty Days of Teshuvah, my big aims are to get past laziness and irresponsibility. I’m not a basket case, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Your Ears Have to be Exactly the Right Shape

Church was exceptionally good today. I can’t tell you all the reasons, but it went very well, from the time I left home until I left the building after the service.

My sister and I went up to talk to the pastor after the sermon. I wanted to let him know how my work on his book was going, and I guess she just wanted to say hi. I told him I only had 3,000 words transcribed, but he seemed very happy with my progress. I asked him to let me know if I could do anything else for him, and he said, “Cornbread!”

I gave him the URL of my blog last week, and evidently, he has read the blog and also watched my Youtube videos, and one of them is about cornbread. He has ruined my plan, which was to concoct a totally phony personality and convince him I was not only normal, but extraordinarily holy. Now I guess the truth is out, so I may as well relax and be the slouch that I am, in church as well as around the house.

The other obvious problem is that he and his wife may ask me to cook stuff for them, which means they’ll be lucky to last a year without buying motorized fat carts and having multiple bypasses. It has been 20 years since I’ve had a regular pastor. I don’t want to kill this one before I can learn anything from him. He says he has diabetes, so I guess I’m the last person on earth he needed to meet.

I took a bunch of brownies to the church on July 4, for some kind of outdoor thing they were doing, but I didn’t hear back about them. I assume they were spirited away by the first five or six people who got into them, so in all likelihood, no one else at the church realizes they existed. Maybe that’s for the best. At 540 calories each, they represent the worst kind of temptation.

The sermon was almost spooky; it was as if it had been written with my family in mind. A cynic would say that was because I met with the pastor last week, so he knew what to say. But some of the parts of the sermon that seemed most apt had nothing to do with anything we discussed. The basic theme was that you need to get the little private sins out of your life before they become public problems. When you try to lead a Christian life in spite of things you haven’t fixed, it’s like letting a scab grow over an infected sore. Sooner or later, it’s going to open up, and all that filth will spill out onto the surface.

I think when Jesus talked about binding the strong man and spoiling his house, he meant that you have to fast and pray and get the spiritual bad influences out of your life, and then the Holy Spirit will grow in their place. So that fits in with the sermon. You can put on a smiley face and pretend your days as a sinner are behind you, but I think some bad habits come from the urgings of malicious spirits, and you have to do something to render them harmless. Otherwise, you’re using human tools to fight powerful spirit-generated urges, and the urges will eventually win. This is probably why we occasionally see famous preachers on the covers of the tabloids, over the word “SCANDAL.”

Sometimes the pastor mentions things God has let him know. I have to wonder what that’s like. I get all sorts of urges which, in my opinion, come from God. I get insights, and sometimes I suddenly realize I’m doing something wrong. But I can’t say for sure that God tells me anything factual, the way some people say he tells them things. Many Christians cite examples of this phenomenon. I’ve seen plenty of weird things that I know were supernatural, but God never says a word to me. Not that I can hear, anyway.

He hasn’t mentioned the Forty Days of Teshuvah, but he talked about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur today, in a way that expressed the same ideas. This is the time of year when you reflect, repent, and pray. You try to figure out how you’re screwing up, and you try to fix it. I didn’t feel too concerned about myself during the sermon, probably because I was already caught up in changing myself. I’m always leery of concluding a message isn’t aimed at me, but I think sometimes it’s okay. You can’t be wrong about everything all the time.

He asked us to raise our hands if we had ever committed sins after justifying them by saying we were only hurting ourselves. I didn’t raise my hand. It wasn’t because I was stronger than those people. It was because I generally haven’t bothered to worry about whether I was hurting anyone else. Maybe the people who raised their hands are better off than I am.

After fasting last week, I seemed to have more self-control in my life, and it appears to be a lasting thing. I’m still tempted, but now the self-control is just a little stronger than the desire to give in. That little edge makes all the difference. You don’t have to be nearly perfect to behave. After all, Obama won by only 7 percentage points, and that, unfortunately, was enough to make him the President. This is why we call him “The Iwon.”

For the last few weeks, I’ve had a persistent feeling–I would call it a conviction–that God was about to do something wonderful in my life. I keep wondering what it is. Is it the increase in self-control? That would be plenty, all by itself. Is it the new relationship with my church, which will let me do worthwhile things with my time? Does it have anything to do with helping my pastor write a book? I’ve started hearing really promising new songs in my head. I want to write those down this week. Could they be part of it? I’ve always had a problem with music running around in my head, yet I had a hard time composing original songs. Writing is extremely easy for me, but lyrics were even harder than tunes. Now that seems to be changing.

I have not made cornbread for the pastor, but I’ll be making it for my sister today. She decided she wanted soup beans and cornbread, so the soup beans are simmering, and if she ever gets over here, I’ll get out the skillet and make the cornbread. I don’t want any. She needs fattening food because of the cancer. I used some of my SHTF dried beans. You have to rotate them, because beans only keep for a year, and this seemed like a good opportunity. The beans and cornbread are going to be amazing, but I just don’t have the urge to stuff myself, so I plan to send the whole mess home with her.

I made an offer on a white Ford F150. I’m not doing any business today, so even though I know the dealer replied to my email, I’m not checking it until tomorrow. I hope he’s willing to be reasonable. The recession isn’t going away, and this is a year-old truck. I don’t mind giving him a fair price, but in this atmosphere, covering his cost plus five hundred bucks is very generous. That’s what I plan to give him. I am a sucker for giving that much.

It’s nice being old and patient. If I were in my twenties, I’d be tormented by the urge to make the deal and get it over with. As it is, I don’t care if it takes six months. Judging by the new unemployment figures, it’s completely possible that this truck will still be unsold at that time.

Christianity actually works, if you do it right. Your life won’t necessarily be perfect, but it will be right. If you’re thinking about giving it a shot, I highly recommend it.

Plus Truck Stuff

I am in paradise. I decided I had to have some chili, so I got out my book and made a pot. I had some Jamaican hot chocolate peppers in the freezer, and I thawed out a bag, chopped up some of it, and threw it in. I guess I used so much, it would have added up to more than one pepper. And these things are HOT! Worse than your usual habanero. Very nice.

I didn’t use store chili powder. I mixed paprika and cumin, and I toasted them in a hot pan. Then I added ground chipotles. Beautiful.

I guess when people see tequila in the recipe, they think it’s a gimmick, but you can taste it. I used mezcal. Seems to have more flavor. The only reason I own this stuff is to put it in chili. I remember what tequila and mezcal headaches are like. You wake up, you feel great for one hour, and then you die.

It’s wonderful to make chili just for myself, because when I cook it for other people, I can’t put any heat in it. I’ve gotten so I don’t enjoy it unless it’s roasting hot. A while back, I went to a restaurant, and when the waiter asked how spicy to make the food, I told him, “Try to kill me.”

I think the cheddar cheese I dissolve in the chili (today it was actually Double Gloucester) allows me to use more heat, because butterfat tones down the pain. I served the chili decorated with a handful of cheese chunks (in addition to the dissolved cheese) plus two or three tablespoons of sour cream.

I seem to enjoy food more these days, maybe because I have more self-control and I’m not stuffing myself all the time. I only had one bowl of chili, and I followed it with half a pint of ice cream. I could never have eaten half a pint of ice cream a year ago. Two pints? No problem. Half a pint was impossible.

I’m getting good comments on the truck question. Someone suggested the truck with the max tow package had a Dana rear end. I’m pretty sure the last time I encountered the phrase “Dana rear end,” Jimmy Carter was President. Both trucks have 3.73 gears and limited slip. The FX4 (non-max-tow) has some kind of electronic limited slip. I can’t tell you who makes any of this stuff.

Someone mentioned bigger trucks, like the F250. I don’t plan to tour the country with a travel trailer. I don’t think a big pickup is necessary. If I get an F150 the way I like it, I’ll be able to put over a ton in the bed, and I’ll be able to tow things like motorcycle trailers. That ought to be sufficient. I’ve read about the big trucks, and they sound crude, not to mention expensive and hard on gas.

It’s not so much that I want F250 capabilities. I just don’t want to find out I didn’t get the most I could in an F150. And there are big differences.

Right now, you can get a thousand dollars off if you finance. But I hate debt. I think going into debt unnecessarily is opening the door to problems. It’s a chink in your spiritual armor. On top of that, Aaron has informed me that the Talmud says you shouldn’t price-shop when you don’t intend to buy. Orthodox Jews consider it immoral. If I were to finance, it would only be to get the discount, and I’d pay the loan off as early as possible. It seems like the same basic idea as shopping with no intention to buy. Ford gives you money back. People do paperwork. A company anticipates profiting from the deal. Then you turn around and prove it was all a scam. I know nobody would be crying himself to sleep afterward. But deceit is deceit, regardless of whether the victim is a person or a company or a government.

I think I’ll make an offer on the white Lariat I found. I have to thank Obama. If he hadn’t meddled with the economy and sided against Israel whenever possible, I think we’d be on our way out of the recession now, and these wonderful rebates wouldn’t be available.

Latest Luxury

My new Bible arrived today. I will not even try to guess how excited this makes you.

I already had three Bibles. One is my mother’s old Bible. It’s a nice but well-worn leatherbound King James. This is the one I take to church. I used to wonder why Bibles were bound in soft leather covers, but now I realize they make a big difference in a book you have to carry around. I don’t want to keep carrying this one. It has no thumb indices, it’s not an easy version to read, it doesn’t have much added material, and it came from Kenneth Copeland Ministries, which is a little creepy. I also have The Complete Jewish Bible in blue leather. It’s excellent, because it was translated by Orthodox Jews (or Orthodox ex-Jews, if Aaron objects), and there are some things Gentiles just don’t translate correctly. But it has no columns, the print is tiny, and there are virtually no annotations, so it’s a pain to use. The third book is The Spirit-Filled Life Bible, in hardcover. I really like this one. The people who compiled it are pretty close to my view of things, and it’s full of historical information, annotations, references, and spiritual guidance. But I don’t want to carry a hard book to church.

The answer? The Spirit-Filled Life Bible, in burgundy leather, with thumb indices. I even had my initials put on it. Why not? It’s the New King James Version. I like this better than versions like the NIV, because (this is what I have been led to believe) it isn’t corrupted by political or secular considerations. In other words, God isn’t a lesbian, wives are supposed to submit to their husbands, there is no First Epistle of Al Gore, and so on and so on.

The thumb things are great, because some speakers just don’t take the time to let you find a book. And I won’t even pretend I know the order of the books in the New Testament. Let’s see. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans…Revelation. I know Peter and Jude are pretty far back. That’s about all I can tell you.

The Jews put the Psalms in the wrong place. I said that just to be annoying, and I’ll bet it worked. In The Complete Jewish Bible, the Old Testament is arranged according to Jewish tradition (what a crazy idea), so the Psalms are near the end, and everything is moved around. On top of that, the books have their original names, which I can never seem to memorize. They can’t mess with the New Testament, though. The books are where they’re supposed to be. Although they renamed Hebrews.

Now I have two Spirit-Filled Life Bibles. Maybe I should give the hard one away.

I met with my pastor yesterday. I thought it went very well, although the start was a little rough. The church is a fairly confused place right now, and I apparently threw the whole joint into a panic by calling and asking about counseling. It was an innocent mistake on my part. When I joined, some of the materials listed a phone number for counseling, and my family is under stress, and I always tell other people to go to their churches for counseling, so I decided to try a dose of my own medicine. But this church is full of poor people, and evidently, when you say “counseling” to the staff, they think of rehab and foreclosure prevention and emergency housing and so on. They think of referring desperate people to county agencies. They don’t think of financially comfortable middle-aged white guys who under pressure because their sisters have cancer.

Anyway, after the fuss died down, my pastor made an appointment with me, and I went in for an hour. I took some Orinoco bananas, various hot peppers, key limes, and Persian limes. That made me happy. I think it’s a good idea to share anything you harvest with your church.

I found out there are some things I can do for the church, which was a big relief. I keep showing up, giving my offerings, and going home, and that’s not really what church should be like. You should try to do something beyond that. I helped build my last church. I worked in the music ministry. I drew a cartoon for the Sunday school program. I painted their sign. If you don’t do things like that, you remain a guest forever.

I already have a writing assignment, so I’m working on that. And they may need help with things like picking up guest speakers at the airport. The Thunderbird may not be the ideal vehicle for this, but I suppose occasionally they get someone whose luggage is small.

The church is in a huge commercial building with a lot of tenants on the upper floors. The bottom floor is full of gigantic empty spaces that are being turned into various types of facilities. All sorts of stuff for kids. He took me around and showed me what they’re doing. By the end of the year, it ought to be pretty impressive. But it would be a big help if they had more members who were not struggling financially.

From our conversation, I gathered that Miami is a tough nut for a church to crack. I think just about anyone could have told him that before he moved here, but I suppose that’s what makes Miami a good place for a preacher to go. We have voodoo, Santeria, spiritism, whatever nonsense the Brazilians worship, plus godless materialism and every type of perversion imaginable. And the racial prejudice is pretty bad. Cubans don’t mix all that well with blacks or other Hispanics, and apparently most black groups don’t get along with Haitians. Now that I think about it, ordinary white people probably have fewer problems than any other group. All the other groups hate each other too much to bother hating us. About the worst thing that happens to us is that we go to stores and can’t get the Cuban price on anything. And we’re not supposed to know that.

I got some good advice regarding my own troubles, which are not that bad to begin with. My sister’s illness dwarfs anything that might be bothering me.

I don’t know what’s up ahead. I maintain faith for her healing, but I think we are kidding ourselves about what the treatment will be like. The chemotherapy has been virtually problem-free, but radiation is on the way, and it has its own side effects, and we haven’t thought much about the wild cards. By that I mean the problems which doctors expect and lay people don’t. The chemo and radiation have high monetary costs, and we know those, and we would like to think that’s what the cancer will cost. That makes us reluctant to inquire about other issues. But cancer patients get things like thrush and pneumonia. All sorts of things we can’t foresee, even after three cancer deaths in the family. And the swine flu is here, and there is no vaccine.

Stay away from cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. Have I said that before? Sounds familiar. And if you don’t care enough about yourself to quit, care enough about your family to get insurance or save a lot of money. Live or die, your ordeal will be very expensive. And when you get sick, they’ll pay, no matter what they have to do.

I’m still using fasting to attack my family’s difficulties. It seems to change me. Since I had that breakthrough last week, I haven’t felt the same way about food, and I’ve lost two pounds. It’s not the fasting itself that made the weight drop off. It’s the way I act when I’m not fasting. I am able to control myself, even on Saturdays, when I used to gorge. I want to find out what else fasting can do for me, even though I hate doing it. I am afraid to believe it, but God may have put an end to my weight problems. That would be fantastic. I want to have one wardrobe, low blood pressure, healthy knees, snore-free sleep, and no risk of diabetes. I’m not a giant mountain of lard, but I want to drop 25 pounds and keep it off.

I think fasting was ineffective in the past because I didn’t pray much when I fasted. I felt so miserable, I just laid around suffering, waiting for the day to end. I knew that wasn’t the way to do it, but I felt horrible, and I didn’t have enough character to overcome it. If you have a problem like smoking or drinking or drugs, you might give fasting a try.

I thought this time of my life was a lull, because I wasn’t writing a book. But I’m helping my sister and looking after my business affairs, and now I have some things to do for the church, so I guess I won’t be idle. I’m very glad. That was something that concerned me.

Try not eating for a day or two. Maybe you’ll get the same kind of results I did.

Life is a Peter Max Poster

My post about Ben & Jerry’s drew a few comments I didn’t post. I hope people won’t be angry. The way my life is changing, I don’t know who will show up to read this blog, and I don’t want them reading fairly broad jokes about the more off-putting aspects of gay sex.

Speaking of gay, Ann Coulter says some states ban health insurance that doesn’t cover gender reassignment surgery. Can that be true? I think I’ll call my carrier and ask if I’m covered. While insisting they refer to me as “Louise.”

I’ll bet calls like that make a customer service rep’s day. I think this is why they like to record calls. They probably have office pools, where they bet on the call of the week.

I remember reading about a person who started out as a man, then had himself chopped up and turned into a dreadful imitation of a woman, and then changed his mind and went back and became a dreadful imitation of a man. I think that’s correct. It’s confusing. He may have started out as a woman. I saw him on TV after all this was done, and he or she had a beard. Not that this proves anything. These days, gender traits that were once dispositive are merely considered clues.

Here’s what you have to wonder. What was going on in the mind of the doctor who approved the second surgery? They always claim they’re super-careful about whom they select. No, it’s not like they just run a bunch of phony psych tests for CYA purposes, while their main interest is your ability to pay. Don’t even think that. They’re experts! They have ethics! So when a guy (or whatever) shows up and says he or it wants a second surgery, shouldn’t some bells go off somewhere? And if the second surgery was okay ethically, wasn’t the first surgery malpractice or something? Maybe the doctor who approved it needs career reassignment surgery.

What did this person say to the doctor? “I’m a man trapped in the body of a woman who used to be a man…I’m pretty sure”? Did that actually fly with whoever made the decision to operate?

If life is this weird now, what’s it going to be like ten years from now? Will drug abuse still exist? Why would people pay for drugs when the world is already a nonstop acid trip?

Aaron has noted that the Talmud says the Biblical flood occurred when man offended God by sanctioning gay marriage and marriage between humans and animals. I remember writing a piece a long time ago, in which I pointed out that, absent Biblical prohibitions, there is no valid reason to ban bestiality. I’m serious. You can’t claim animals never consent, or that they always suffer. It should be obvious without proof that there are perverts who can get animals to participate enthusiastically in their pursuits. Come on, think about it. Some guy taught a squirrel to water ski. That has to be harder than wooing a goat. I defy you to make a squirrel do anything.

You can cite some goofy, effete concern about “unequal bargaining positions” or an animal’s inability to give “informed” consent. But that’s all sophistry, i.e. absurdly transparent and tendentious pretextual lies. Animals don’t consent to be turned into purses or Jell-O or soap, but we still do it. We make horses carry us around. We make elephants do silly things at the circus. Animal consent has never been taken seriously by human beings, and it never will be. Not until we can grow ham in a windowbox.

Incest can’t be banned, either. Not purely on public interest grounds. There’s a small chance that two siblings will have deformed kids, but if you think about it, that’s not a sufficient reason to ban incest. If it were, the abortion of deformed babies would be mandatory, and even Obama hasn’t suggested that (yet). People with genetic diseases would be subject to forced sterilization. And what about siblings who are already sterile? Why should they be kept apart? The reason for banning incest is that it’s immoral and perverted, because God said so. And even that prohibition was not always in place. Abraham was the half-brother of Sarah. On Father’s Day, they must have saved a bundle. “This is from both of us. P.S. Quit worshiping Nannar.”

I shudder to think of the flavors Ben & Jerry’s will be pushing in the future. Chunky Monkey Hubby. Phish Fiancee. Eric the Half a Bee Motel Six Raspberry Swirl.

That last one was a reach.

Maybe the Rapture won’t be a dramatic and solemn event, the way Christians assume it will. Maybe it will be more like stopping the ride so the sane people can get off.

I hope Haagen-Dazs doesn’t come out in favor of pedophilia or snuff films or anything. A while back, a Christian company tried to put premium ice cream on the market, but for some reason, it didn’t work out. If Haagen-Dazs starts backsliding, I may have to give up ice cream and demonstrate a little character.

I don’t think anyone wants to see that happen.

Eat This at Your Tacky IKEA Table

I just read the story about Ben & Jerry’s renaming one of their flavors “Hubby Hubby,” in support of gay marriage.

This is bad, but then I already knew these people were nuts. I remember when Ben drove around the country with a very non-green propane-powered parade float behind his gas-guzzling truck, depicting a giant pair of pants. The idea was that these were George Bush’s pants and that they were on fire. Witty. I still can’t think of any lies that were pinned to George Bush. The yellowcake thing turned out to be true, and if he was wrong about WMD, it was a mistake, not a lie. Kind of impressive, if you think about it. Anyway, it looks like I’m going to have to cut Ben & Jerry’s completely out of my diet. No more Cherry Garcia. No more Heath Bar Crunch. Sad. Not that I needed it.

This was a bad move, regardless of morality. I think it’s fair to say that most straight men don’t want the image of gay snugglebunnies in their minds when they’re trying to eat.

Haagen-Dazs is better, anyway. Ben & Jerry’s is full of chemicals, or at least it was the last time I checked. Read the label.

I wish the local pizzerias and Chinese restaurants would come out in favor of gay marriage. I’d drop thirty pounds.

Find Something to Hold Onto

If you ever have to deal with a close relative who has cancer, be forewarned. There are peaks and troughs, and you will not be able to predict their nature or when they will come. So enjoy the peaks as much as you can, and in the troughs, remember how bad you felt before the last peak. Remember how sure you were that you would never have another happy moment.

We have reached the point where doctors are taking time out to make it clear that the word “cure,” in the context of certain cancers, does not mean the same thing it means when you have strep throat or athlete’s foot. I’m sure many of you have been there. Doctors try to use optimistic language, especially early in the disease’s progress, so they say things like “cure” in a loose, deceptively hopeful way that might later be called heartless. I guess that makes me heartless, too, because I had read the statistics, and I chose not to argue.

Also, the financial burden is starting to become better defined. That’s an area where cancer patients get lots of surprises.

So far, treatment has been a breeze. The oncologist says this type of chemo is least pleasant during the first round, so a good first round is great news. But next week, radiation starts. Twice a day. I’ve seen what it can do to people.

I have been trying to come up with a good writing project, and given the changes in my life, it has not been easy to think of things. I used to think this was a problem, but I was wrong. Right now, I have free time. If I were writing all day, or doing radio or TV promotion, I would have to cancel things in the upcoming weeks so I could drive to and from the cancer center. The more help you have from your family, the less costly and stressful treatment will be. My writing lull makes me available.

It’s easy to feel as though something is after my whole family, picking us off one by one. My aunt passed in ’94, and my grandfather followed a month later. Then my uncle. Then my mother. My grandmother died at 92, which isn’t something I should complain about, but it happened to fall within the string of deaths we’ve experienced. My cousin died in a plane crash. My dad is 77, and he needs to lose weight and learn to relax. I’m tired of death, and I’m especially tired of cancer, because we never seem to get the kinds you can’t prevent. When people in your family smoke cigarettes or chew tobacco, you always feel that you’re living at the foot of the gallows, waiting for the next name to be called. And they do get called.

God keeps moving in our lives. I want my sister to take the right attitude and be here to see the end product. I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do, but I’m glad I’m better armed for this fight than I would have been two years ago.

Stupidity is not Faith

I got all excited about Jentezen Franklin’s book on fasting, and I wrote about it, and then I got this comment:

Reverend Franklin also hops on a private jet after his services on Sunday mornings in Gainesville, GA (20 minutes from me) and flies to Orange County, CA for some preaching there.

I think the guy isn’t so much motivated by the Holy Spirit as he is the Almighty Dollar. But that’s just my opinion, and I am generally skeptical of mega church pastors.

I’m not dismissing what Franklin has to say about fasting, but I just caution you to be a tad more critical of preachers such as him.

This is always the problem with charismatics. I don’t know why it doesn’t hit non-charismatics so hard. They’re just as subject to temptation. But somehow, you don’t see Catholic priests with their own jets, or Baptists with fleets of luxury cars. If there are examples out there, I don’t know about them. The Pope has pretty spiffy digs, but he can’t control the wealth of the church the way an independent preacher can.

I took a look at Franklin’s website, and he was asking people for a “seed” of one thousand dollars, to get God moving in their lives. I just can’t buy into that, no matter how much I liked the book. I think preaching prosperity and health is fine, and I think these things are linked to giving, but if I were doing the preaching, I would just say “give” and leave out the phrase “to me.” The Bible talks a great deal about giving to the poor. It doesn’t mention a single prosperity preacher, to my knowledge. It says we should give tithes and quality offerings, but I can’t think of anyone in the Bible who was asked to give a “miracle seed gift of fifty shekels” in order to receive “a hundredfold return.” And I’m pretty sure the people who received the tithes and offerings weren’t living like kings.

I like Perry Stone a lot. He has an informative, interesting show. He believes in prosperity and miracles and so on. But he refuses to beg. Every show has a commercial for a DVD or something. That’s fine. Air time costs money, and I think he really believes his products are helpful. But you never see him whining about how the devil is about to repossess his Bentley because the old grannies on Social Security aren’t sending him enough money. You never see him say “Give me x, and God will give you y.” He claims God will not permit him to ask for money. Corrie ten Boom said the same thing.

Gamaliel said it was a bad idea to oppose the Apostles. He said that if God wasn’t with them, they would fail, but if he was with them, the Jewish authorities would find themselves fighting God. Doesn’t the same sort of idea apply to ministries? Would God tell you to start a TV ministry and then require you to moan and cry for money? If God is with you, presumably, you’re going to win. If you lose, doesn’t that mean he was not on board?

I thought things were improving in the charismatic churches, and they are, but there is still a ways to go. I much prefer Robert Morris’s approach. He preaches about prosperity all the time, but he does not ask for money. And he never says he’s the person you should send your money to. Now that I think about it, I have no idea how he pays for air time. I wouldn’t know how to donate to him if I wanted to. I received his book when I joined my church, and I watch his show as part of basic cable, and my sister gave me some of his DVDs. Now I’m starting to feel sorry for him. But he has a big church with an astounding, world-famous music team.

Another point in his favor: he doesn’t claim “prosperous” equals “rich.”

If he keeps this up, he’s going to offend a lot of religious broadcasters.

I think you’re supposed to give where you see a need. Does a rich TV preacher need my money? You can give a relatively small amount to a Christian charity and immunize a whole brigade of kids for life. After you’re dead, you will still be blessing them. You can move an Ethiopian Jew from a filthy camp to Ben Gurion Airport. Change his life forever. Isn’t that better than paying to upgrade the silver faucets in some preacher’s mansion? If they showed that they were doing something worthwhile with the money, I’d be more understanding, but it looks like it all goes into their businesses and their salaries. Many charities give over 80% of their gross to the needy. That’s not bad.

I still like the fasting book.

Read This Book

I got a fascinating book today, on my sister’s recommendation. Jentezen Franklin’s Fasting. I suppose you can guess what it’s about.

Franklin runs a church in northern Georgia. Every year, his congregation starts things off with a 21-day fast. They don’t all fast, and not all of them fast for 21 days, but during the first 21 days of the year (or maybe the 21 before New Year’s; I forget), they are encouraged to fast, and many of them do.

Some of the book is about “toxins” and the supposed health benefits of fasting. I take that stuff with a grain of salt. There is a lot of mythology about mystical substances the body supposedly contains, which can be expelled via sweating or enemas or fasting or eating vegetables or drinking olive oil or who knows what else. I have never seen a respected physician mention these things, and I am not as confident in this business as Franklin is. Other parts of the book are about the spiritual benefits of fasting. This is different. This is within his area of expertise, so I have no reason to doubt his knowledge or inspiration.

I got about halfway through the book this afternoon, and it was an exciting read. He confirmed that my experience was not unusual. People who fast and pray are often delivered from hard-to-control urges. I knew fasting was associated with exorcism, but casting a demon out of another person is not the same as being delivered from your own compulsions.

He pointed out that one of Sodom’s major sins was gluttony. Look at Ezekiel 1:49-50. It’s not clear in some translations, but The Complete Jewish Bible actually uses the word “gluttony” in that passage. In addition to sexual perversion, the Sodomites didn’t do charity, they were lazy, they were arrogant, and they didn’t fast. He noted something else, which I had never seen taught before. Most charismatics are familiar with the passage from Joel which predicts a wave of Holy-Spirit baptisms (Joel 2:28). What I did not realize is that this, and other blessings, are conditioned on fasting (Joel 2:15). See for yourself.

One of the exciting things about Biblical interpretation is seeing how a passage translated with words that seem to mean one thing can actually mean something different, which is more illuminating. Franklin mentioned a Psalm passage which, in the context of his book, seems to suggest I’m not the only one who feels isolated from God during a fast. Take a look at Psalm 42:

1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

3 My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

If you don’t have fasting in mind when you read this, it sounds like purple prose and melodrama. Today, to me, this sounds like a person who is fasting and who feels distant from God during the process. If your tears are your food, presumably, you’re not eating. If you thirst for God, presumably, you feel as if he is far away. This passage reminds me of Psalm 63, which seems to describe charismatic prayer and worship.

Franklin’s book also seems to reveal a striking similarity between actions urged by the Rosh Hashanah prayer (which I have been writing about this week) and the main obligations of a Christian. Orthodox Jews believe that on Rosh Hashanah (first day of the religious year for Jews), God decides what each person’s fate will be during the coming year, and they believe he seals this fate in his book in heaven on Yom Kippur. On Rosh Hashanah, Jews recite the Unetaneh Tokef, a prayer which confirms this. The end of the prayer indicates that a year of punishment (possibly in the form of death) can be avoided: “But repentance, prayer and charity avert the harsh decree.” Franklin states: “The three duties of every Christian are giving, praying, and fasting.”

Did he have the prayer in mind when he wrote that? There is no indication in the book. But look at the remarkable similarity. “Giving” expresses the fundamental duty to be generous, which includes charity as well as support for the church. Both sentences mention prayer. Fasting is not synonymous with repentance, but I think it’s safe to say that all fasting is repentance, even if not all repentance takes the form of fasting. All fasting is a turn away from earthly concerns and toward Godly ones.

It’s even more remarkable, when you consider the purpose of fasting. When you fast, you are trying to get God to give you relief. Maybe you’re not trying to get relief in advance, as you would prior to Rosh Hashanah, but the principle is the same. You want to be moved out of your current problems or out of the path of future difficulties.

Here’s something that will disturb lots of people. He says fasting is necessary for all of us, as a normal part of Christian life. He makes a good argument. For one thing, he notes that Jesus considered fasting important for his own ministry. It would be pretty odd if he had to fast 40 days in order to do his job, and the rest of us didn’t have to fast at all. Second thing: Jesus said his disciples would fast when he was gone. He told certain Pharisees that the disciples weren’t fasting while the bridgegroom was with them, but that they would later.

I guess you can file the above paragraph under “tough love.” Sorry. Don’t shoot the messenger.

If it will help ease the blow, Franklin notes that partial fasts have value. Daniel got a lot done by refusing certain foods, for example. This may be a good time for me to announce that I’m giving up liver, cheap beer, margarine, raw oysters, sour milk, moldy bread, and soy burgers. I hope that pays off.

It occurred to me as I read this that the power of partial fasting may be one explanation for kashrut. Kosher food isn’t particularly healthy, as a quick glance around a shul will reveal. And it’s not always clear why God chose the foods he did. But if Franklin is right, keeping kosher is a lifelong partial fast, and it’s something that has to bring a certain amount of blessings. Jews say it’s primarily about obedience. If so, that seems to make it a kind of fast.

There was some very encouraging stuff in the last pages I read. Franklin says people have influenced the health and even the behavior of loved ones by fasting. That’s phenomenal, because it’s generally much harder to get healing and character changes for others than it is for yourself. And some sick people are not well enough to fast on their own behalf. I guess this makes sense. Job offered sacrifices for his children.

I’ve written a little about the significance of forty-day-long periods of self-denial in the Bible, but Franklin brings up some which I had either forgotten or never noticed. Elijah fasted forty days. The Ninevites were called on to fast for forty days. I’m too lazy to look all the examples up, but they made an impression on me.

It’s so strange that I’m learning all this during the Forty Days of Teshuvah, prior to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. What better time to get a major revelation about fasting? Especially with my sister in such need. Her chemotherapy started as the forty days were beginning. Maybe I can be of more help to her than I thought.

The TV hucksters of the Eighties and Nineties did the church a disservice by suggesting that Christians were supposed to be spoiled little gods who always got what they wanted. But they were right to think we were supposed to be powerful. There is more to our lot than suffering and forgiving and being persecuted and then dying in the gutter, broke, single, and covered with sores. Life is a war, and war brings wounds, but it also brings victories, doesn’t it?

I am going to have to schedule some fasts. There is no way around it. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being miserable when I fast. I really hate it. You will never see me write a bunch of BS about how fasting makes me feel all holy and sanctified and lightened of my earthly concerns. I can’t believe it when other people make claims like that. Are they for real? It gives me a terrible headache, my breath smells, I get anxious and depressed, and all I think about is food. There’s my inspiring testimony; hope you admire me and wish you were as holy as I am. I have never enjoyed fasting. But now I have something to motivate me. If I can change myself permanently and break out of ruts and plateaus by fasting, I want to do it. If I can help other people who are in real trouble, I want to do it. I don’t know how much I can write about it, because I don’t want to end up doing it for attention and approval. Maybe what I’ve written already will be helpful. If I can get people to look at this book, I don’t need to write anything more.

I Hope

I live for Saturday. Or at least I used to. I watched my calories all week, and then on Saturday, I let it all hang out. And I always started with a big greasy McDonald’s breakfast. It was a major event in my week. When I went to bed on Friday nights, I would lie there and think about breakfast.

This week I fasted, and when it was over with, I just didn’t seem to be as interested in food as I had been before. I tried to celebrate the end of the fast by stuffing myself, but I couldn’t finish the junk I got for myself. Yesterday, it continued. I didn’t get particularly hungry, and I didn’t feel shaky or weak or crabby. Last night I felt as if the trend would continue in the morning. I wondered if that could be true.

Today I got up and found I had no interest in McDonald’s. Instead I decided to take my dad to breakfast, and I had a nova platter. Not asceticism by any means, but very modest compared to McMuffins, oily biscuits, and deep-fried potatoes. Not to mention the large Coke I did not drink. I just used the McDonald’s website to calculate the calorie total of my usual meal, and it’s about 1600.

I’m not sure that I feel quite as relaxed as I did over the last couple of days. If I’ve lost anything, I want to get it back. I am willing to fast again. I am almost eager to do it. That’s amazing. It’s like looking forward to a root canal.

Skinny people claim fat people have no discipline, but that’s deceptive, because skinny people have no discipline, either, and they’re still skinny. Fat people are different. Something drives us. After a fat person has had more than enough, something still makes him crave one more biscuit. One more slice of pizza.

Are there spirits that cause it? Could be. They exist, and they do affect our behavior. Whatever the explanation is, I feel a lot better than I did a week ago. This is one of those blessings you hesitate to believe in, because it’s so big, it would be terrible to see it turn out to be a mirage. I would love knowing I would never have to have two sets of clothes. There are so many annoying things about being overweight, even if you’re not obese. Thin people can’t understand. It would be fantastic if I could forget about dieting for the rest of my life. I would love knowing I would never have to face the discouragement of relapse ever again. And the health benefits would be welcome. I don’t want to end up on blood pressure pills or insulin. I want my back to be strong and pain-free, and I don’t want plastic knees. I want to know that fat won’t slowly destroy my brain by cutting off my air as I sleep.

We’ll see how it goes. I hope I end up with a testimony that can help other people with their failings.

Two Items

Reader Ruth just sent this:

My grandson is scheduled to leave for Afghanistan tomorrow. If his wife goes into the hospital for their first baby before he leaves the ground, he comes home for family leave. Her doctor visit this morning showed she was in some sort of prelabor but not hospital worthy yet. Please pray this baby gets her into the hospital before tomorrow. My grandson might not make it home in time but could be there shortly after.
Thanks, Ruth

Also, reader Ed has a blog. I am trying to get something done at the moment, so I haven’t seen it yet, but I feel safe in saying you will not be offended or get in trouble if you click the link.

I am trying to get my butt in the garage and work on arranging the clutter. Maybe I can squeeze in an hour or two if I’m lucky.

More

From Ruth:

Eliot’s deployment has been put off until Tuesday! The doctor actually expects the baby to come before then. So my sister who said, lets just pray the baby comes when it is best for it, showed us the way to make it so Eliot doesn’t leave in 24 hours. Yeay!

My Unlikeliest Hobby

I thought this morning it might be interesting to ask about people’s experiences with fasting.

Fasting is a necessary part of Christian life. The New Testament makes it clear over and over. I cannot say I am thrilled about it. Anyone who has been reading my writing for more than six months knows I like food. After all, I wrote the world’s unhealthiest cookbook. In the minds of many Christians, whether or not they acknowledge it, overeating is the one physical pleasure God doesn’t restrict, so they cram the food in with both hands. And many of us fast pretty badly. We do things like going a whole day eating only nuts. That’s not much of a fast. Nuts are little packages of fat and carbs. If you want to eat something higher in calories than nuts, you pretty much have to chew sticks of butter.

I have also heard of people fasting with regard to certain foods, like meat or soft drinks. Again, not very impressive. I can go a day without meat and eat like a king. Cheese pizza has no meat in it. Neither does apple pie. Now I’m making myself hungry, and all I have in front of me is oatmeal.

I guess I cite Perry Stone a lot these days. I can’t help it. I really enjoy his work. His take on halfhearted fasting is that God notices it, but that real fasting is better. I guess that must be right. The Bible is full of things that could be considered partial fasts. Samson could not drink wine. The Jews have kashrut. And Jews have all sorts of temporary dietary and behavioral restrictions they observe during the year. I can’t say a partial fast is a bad thing, but surely, when you want real results, you’re better off doing it right.

The Jews don’t even drink water during their fasts. That’s pretty tough. The Bible says Jesus went forty days. Did that include refusing water? If so, wow. I just checked a survival site which lists 10 days as a likely estimate of the time it takes to die from thirst.

I fast on occasion, although I drink water, and sometimes I permit myself unsweetened, no-calorie liquids. While many people talk about how fasting makes them feel close to God, I find that it makes me feel farther away. My head hurts. I don’t think well. I get depressed and anxious. When I pray, I feel alone. The first day is the worst. The second day is not fun. I can’t remember what the third day is like, because it has been a very long time since I went three days. They say things get better once your body adjusts.

Am I the only one who feels this way? They say fasting is a method of afflicting yourself, so I suppose it would make sense. I find that I don’t feel like praying when I fast, because the effort of concentration is too unpleasant. I try to force myself. I often do a poor job.

My best guess about fasting is that there are two types. First, maintenance fasting. You fast once in a while, even when things are going well, just because you should. Second, fasting in order to get help with a problem. Maybe someone gets sick or your business is in trouble or you can’t get along with your wife. You fast and pray to get God to fix it. Maybe the type of fasting Jesus did is a third type. Fasting to change your character permanently and make you a better person.

I don’t like to talk about things I do which could be considered pious or righteous, except in a general way. If I do something good, I want to be sure I didn’t do it so people would hear about it and tell me how great I am. But I think that sometimes it’s okay to mention things, if I think it can help other people.

I fasted recently, and now that it’s over, I have a surprising result. I don’t feel like the same person. There are certain bad things I feel much less inclined to do, and I don’t understand it. Here’s a funny example. At the end of the fast, I got myself some ice cream, because I was very eager to put the fast behind me, feel normal again, and have a little reward. But I didn’t finish the ice cream. I ended up throwing out part of it. I don’t know if you can understand how odd it is for me to buy a pint of ice cream and not finish it. Especially after a fast. But it happened.

I feel more relaxed. More certain about the future. Less concerned about fulfilling my earthly desires. Less angry. This is the first time I’ve ever noticed any difference in me after a fast. Is this the reward we should be shooting for when we fast, or am I just having a temporary change in mood?

From reading the Bible, I get the impression that fasting is supposed to purify us. Not just fasting, but periods of deprivation, generally. For example, the Jews wandered in the desert for forty years, and when they emerged, they had been cleansed of the individuals who offended God by refusing to trust him. Jesus emerged from his forty-day fast in the desert (preceded by his baptism with water and the Holy Spirit) with new power. He started working miracles and teaching with authority. Maybe fasting is supposed to rid us of inclinations (whether our own or imposed by hostile spirits) that drive us to sin.

I’m not saying I’m totally repaired now, but I can see a difference in myself, and it’s significant. I almost hate to say this, but for the first time in my life, I find myself somewhat eager to fast again, to see what else I can get out of it. I don’t like to think about unpleasant duties, because I’m always afraid God will start urging me to do them. When I consider fasting, I find myself hoping God won’t get on board and motivate me to do it, because it’s so unpleasant. But if I can expect it to change me like this, it will be hard to resist.

As for my infatuation with food, I’m starting to wonder if stuffing myself is like getting drunk. It’s okay to have a beer. Drunkenness is a sin. Maybe food works the same way. I hope not! But it probably does. The Bible condemns gluttony over and over. The book of Proverbs says it leads to poverty.

Gluttony is a tough thing to beat, because you can’t give up food entirely, so the temptation will always be in front of you. And gluttony comes over you while you’re eating in a compelling way, as if you’re changing into another person. It’s not a mild urging. It’s extremely powerful. While you’re under its spell, it’s as if your entire personality and all your priorities have changed.

I still think it’s okay to have good food, but it would be nice if, for the rest of my life, I could stop eating when I’ve had enough instead of when I can’t jam any more in or when the waitress hits me with pepper spray. I’ve been behaving well lately, but on Saturdays I give my diet a rest, and there have been excesses.

If anyone who reads this has any input regarding their own fasting experiences, I would love to have some comments about it. This might be a very big deal and an extremely useful practice, if the benefits I perceive are real and lasting. Over and over, we are told we’re supposed to fast, but the things I’ve read about the beneficial results are extremely vague and unconvincing. If it can change a person’s character, it’s not just a good idea; it’s a gift the value of which cannot be overstated.

I believe in free will. So do most Christians. Aaron says the Jews believe you can enter a state in which you have no free will. That makes sense to me. I don’t think it’s wrong to say a crack addict or even a cigarette smoker has lost his or her free will. At the very least, they are subject to extreme temptation, the likes of which non-addicts don’t face. Perhaps one of the purposes of fasting is to rid yourself of compulsions you can’t resist. Maybe this is why Jesus had to fast for forty days before he was given real power. If that is true, then presumably, a modern Christian can get God’s power by fasting. God prefers not to hand out machine guns to monkeys. Power without self-control destroys us. Maybe we are supposed to fast in order to render ourselves suitable to receive increased strength and blessings. That would be fine with me. Fighting my own nature with my own nature is a tough battle, as is fighting adversity with my limited tools. I want all the help I can get.

I used to think the baptism of the Spirit and prayer in tongues were the main things that changed people’s natures, but I think I’ll have to add fasting to that list. I would rather add fishing or going to the gun range or eating pie, but I don’t make the rules.

This may be a big, big deal. Let me know what you think.

Funny how I happened to write this during the forty Days of Teshuvah.

Strangest Bedfellows Outside of California

I got a disturbing email today. I don’t keep up with developments in the Catholic Church, but it looks like the Pope has put out a 141-page document calling for central control–with enforcement power–of the world’s economies. And he wants it to be based on altruism, which means socialism. The document came out in July.

This is dangerous development. To people who think the Pope’s infallibility goes beyond religion, and there are hundreds of millions of them, it makes it seem as though God is a socialist. If God is a socialist, he is even more forgiving than we thought, considering how socialists have always treated him.

Whatever the Pope’s authority may be in matters of religion, he clearly is not the person to ask about economics or politics. Imagine the shape the United States would be in, if we had to pay taxes determined by the envious citizens of other nations. This is exactly what socialists and hostile Muslims in other countries want. The socialists want to harness our wealth, but they would end up destroying our power to create it. The Muslims know it would ruin us; that’s exactly why they’d be behind it. Isn’t this pretty much what goes on right now, in the UN?

He seems to think the sin of greed caused our economic problems, and he feels that “greed” equals “capitalism.” He is apparently unaware that Bill Clinton and the Democrats forced lenders to take on borrowers who were certain to default, or that these bad loans are the single biggest reason for our current problems. The free market was working pretty well before Fannie Mae wrecked it. And the damage was done in the name of social justice. Exactly the same policy the Pope is recommending. He doesn’t seem to understand that people in positions of power do not operate altruistically just because it’s in their job descriptions. Maybe he needs to review the biographies of a few of his predecessors, to understand the possible contrast between a man’s title and his actions. Popes have failed where he expects politicians to succeed.

One of the great things about Jesus is that he was never a political leader. The disciples were just like the Pope. They wanted it all now. Jesus disappointed them, and when he died, they thought they had failed. They thought religion would provide them with a perfect world government and an all-powerful king who would humiliate and punish the Romans. Jesus understood that true righteousness can’t be imposed from above. It’s strictly grassroots. He didn’t live to punish the Romans and rule on earth. He died to rule in our hearts and in heaven.

God told the prophet Samuel that it was a mistake for Israel to have a king, because kings would be very harsh. I think the message can be extrapolated to apply universally. Governments are corrupt and disagreeable, because they are human institutions. This is apparently man’s punishment for choosing secular rule. Government isn’t something to trust and rely on. It’s something to dominate, limit, and treat with the same respect–if you can call it that–you would give a rattlesnake. The Third Reich wasn’t a business. It was a government.

Satan told Jesus all government was in his power, and it appears to be true, because Jesus did not deny it. If the Pope gets his wish, we’ll just end up with UN-style corruption augmented with Soviet-style power. The result will be totalitarianism plus poverty. You can’t have freedom or prosperity unless property rights are protected. When you control the money, you control everything. Central economic control is the same thing as central government. Period. Saying you want to control a person’s money but not his life is like saying you only want to put one of his thumbs in a vise. Like the thumb, the money will enable you to control the entire man. Ask Robert Byrd or Nancy Pelosi. This is how they got control of the states.

I can’t understand how the Pope can be this naive. Is it because of his cloistered lifestyle? Does he even have a checking account? What if the prevailing government is Muslim and persecutes Catholicism? What if it’s socialist (clearly what he prefers) and continues the socialist tradition of trying to abolish religion? And if we are forced to do charity, on pain of being jailed for disobeying the law, where is the virtue in giving to the poor? Is their maintenance more important than the existence of true charity? If man’s material needs were more important than free will and the righteousness that comes from using it correctly, God would have arranged the world a lot differently. Jesus flatly stated that we would always have the poor with us. He had all of God’s resources behind him, yet there were poor people–many of them Jews–while he lived. That tells us something about his priorities.

Where have socialism and Catholicism ever gotten along? Who paid for the Vatican? Who funds Catholic charities? Who made the Catholic Church the biggest landowner in New York City? Not socialism. Not a central world government. It was God-fearing individuals, making willing contributions. Who will replace their money when the Pope’s system goes into effect and kills all the golden geese? Who will keep churches open? Who will pay for monasteries and convents? Fidel Castro used to force priests to do manual labor, because they were considered parasites. Picture the Pope holding a dirty shovel. Nobody wants to see that.

I am trying to sit on my tendency to criticize denominations, but this story needs more exposure, so I’m writing about it. Some Christians think the Catholic Church is headed in a very bad direction, much as it is widely believed (even among Jews) that Judaism was a mess two thousand years ago. Perry Stone has hypothesized that it may be moving in the very direction the Pope’s writing indicates: toward the establishment of a central authority that will enforce some extremely misguided policies.

I try not to get too excited about eschatology, because for 2000 years, it has been proven wrong about as consistently as, oh, raising taxes to end poverty and stimulate growth. It tends to be right about generalities and wrong on details. But it’s unnerving to see the Pope write something which tends to support the speculation. There are a whole lot of Catholics in the world, and it would be a bad thing if they became convinced that central government would benefit mankind and please God. To me, central government smacks of the Tower of Babel. I think there is a reason man has never managed a political unification. I think God will not permit it until the end of the world, and when he does, it will not be so he can commend it.

I would really like to know what the Pope thinks of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. That would firm up my opinion of him, whether for good or bad.

If Man Can’t do It, It Must be Big

Sometimes things that happen in my relationship with God make me laugh. One of the things I find funny is his way of doing miracles that are very, very small, yet no less valid than big miracles. God parted the Red Sea for the Jews, and it made a big impression on people, as it should have. But what if you’re eating breakfast, and God turns your pancakes into waffles? I don’t know why you would pray for a thing like that, although waffles are definitely better than pancakes, but let’s say you did, and it worked. Still a miracle, right? All the scientists in all the world couldn’t do it, no matter how much money Obama gave them to fund the research. It would still be proof of God’s existence and his ability to transcend the laws of nature. At the very least, it would prove the existence of supernatural forces.

I guess I shouldn’t use the word “miracles” loosely. Today I’m thinking primarily about something which is only borderline miraculous. God keeps telling me where my stuff is. Really quickly.

The other day I wrote about this. I keep having this happen to me: an item is lost, and as I am praying for help in finding it, and before the prayer is complete, I see the item. It’s spooky. Last week, I had a funny experience where I was reluctant to pray, because I was afraid my “lucky” streak would be broken.

Last night, my sister called. She had lost her cell phone somewhere in her neighborhood. She asked me to call over and over so she could walk around and listen for the ring. After maybe twenty minutes of this, she called and said she hadn’t found it. I advised her to call her provider and see if they could find it using GPS, but when she called them, they claimed it had no GPS.

I don’t know why it took so long for me to think of prayer. I told her about my recent successes, and I said I would pray.

I was involved in something, and I forgot for a while, and then I remembered. Maybe five minutes later, I received a call from her cell number. I asked when she had found the phone, and she told me “a few minutes ago.”

I wouldn’t tout it as a miracle, but it was pretty good.

The one undeniable miracle I have received was the instant healing of a bizarre upper respiratory problem, back in 1987. I’ve had other little healings, but no others that were instantaneous and accompanied by strange sights. When I was healed in 1987, as I have said before, I saw something dark emerge from my body and fly away. Do you have to see the Red Sea parted in order to believe? I don’t. A miracle is a miracle.

I told her today that I believed our family was under attack because we were turning back to God, and I apologized for not taking a better attitude about it. We are being pitted against each other, and if we give in to it, we may lose the battle. Sometimes when you think someone isn’t behaving the way they should, you have to let it go and count on God to make it right and reward your effort and your faith. So I’m going to try to do better.

Powerful answers to prayer, including miracles, are not all that rare. People in Spirit-filled churches get ridiculed a lot because of the excesses and failures of preachers who claim God heals others through them. That’s very sad, because while some people publicly proclaim their healings and then die later, others are indisputably healed. Or delivered from addiction or released from prison or given other blessings that can’t be explained absent supernatural action. It doesn’t always happen in front of TV cameras, and there isn’t always a preacher involved, and it’s not always cancer or blindness or paralysis. Sometimes it’s the flu or a boil or an earache. Still happens.

If I had a life-threatening problem, it would not occur to me to go to a special place like Lourdes or to make a pilgrimage to the church of a TV evangelist. I don’t think those things are necessary. That would be a little bit like a franchise operation. The idea that God only acts through “official” and “authorized” channels is very human. It does not strike me as spiritual. It seems to presuppose limitations on God, and to distance him from rank and file believers. James said to have church elders anoint the sick and pray for them. Ordinary people. He didn’t say to seek him or another famous man of God out and give a tremendous cash “love gift.” He didn’t say it was necessary to go to the Pool of Siloam or dip yourself seven times in the Jordan.

I know we are set under earthly authorities, and we’re not supposed to be anarchists, but sometimes we overdo it and try to put God in a box. We try to make him operate the way a human business operates.

For a while, I’ve had the feeling that something very good was about to happen to me. I am wondering if this new attitude toward the problems attacking my family is the thing I was expecting. I thought it might be an opportunity to use my talents for God, or some other obvious blessing, but maybe it’s just an inner change that will break me out of a spiritual “plateau.” That would be a great thing. You can’t build a house without a foundation.

We are having problems. That means we have opportunities. I have to think of it that way in order to profit.

I hate to compare Christianity to dieting, but maybe it’s a valid way of looking at it. Maybe there are plateaus.

Keep an eye on your cell phones. I’m a busy guy.

Forgot Something

The other day I wrote about the way grief works when you have a relative with a serious health problem. It comes and goes. Sometimes you can’t feel it, and I think that can be very helpful, because it gives you needed rest. Grief takes energy, and it’s unpleasant to endure. I’ve had a pretty good week, and I think my sister has, too. We have gotten sidetracked by trivial things, and while they were annoying at the time, I can see now that there was a blessing in them. The bigger issues didn’t weigh on us as heavily as they otherwise might have.

I was just reminded that she has not had a bone scan or a cranial MRI. I believe her doctor told us this last week, but I was just tagging along, and I wasn’t taking notes, and I stupidly assumed there was someone in the mix who was orchestrating all aspects of her diagnosis and treatment. That turned out to be untrue. Learn from my mistake if you have to deal with cancer. Apparently you have to be the mastermind who coordinates everything, because doctors break things down into compartments, and they don’t necessarily keep track of other people’s responsibilities. I guess this is how they end up amputating healthy legs and giving sex changes to people who show up for tummy tucks.

From what this family went through with my mother and my aunt, I know how important these baseline diagnostics are. I don’t want to go into details, but these are things that can completely change the lay of the playing field.

I told my father not to worry about it, and I didn’t go into my reasons for being disturbed by the news, and I’m going to try not to worry, either. I feel as though the rug has been pulled out from under us, but knowing a test hasn’t been done is not the same thing as knowing the result will be unfavorable.

I would appreciate it if people would pray. Not just that my sister will be healed or that the test results will be good, but that the three of us will draw closer and work together peacefully, and that we will draw closer to God, determine which aspects of our lives need to be changed, and turn away from things that interfere with our relationship with him. I never, ever pray for anyone to be healed without praying they’ll reflect and repent as well, and I wouldn’t expect anyone who prays for me to behave differently.

Something tells me this is no different from the demonic attack I put up with when I decided to return to church in 1987. I might as well be a man and call it a demonic attack, because I saw the thing that came after me. I developed a mysterious cold-like illness that lasted weeks and weeks, and one day my faith overcame it, and I saw it leave me and fly away. And I was instantly cured. If that’s not a demon, nothing is.

I think my sister and I are supposed to achieve things for God–I don’t know what–and now that we’re trying to form a relationship and get our lives working, someone powerful is very angry or very afraid, and it wants to put a stop to it and put us in conflict with each other. I don’t care if that sounds crazy. A hundred years from now, I’ll be in a different place, with people who know I was right. Someone sent that thing after me in 1987. I know such things happen. Whatever being is behind this is after my father, too. It makes me angry, thinking about it.

I feel like a nut in a movie, trying to warn people about aliens or ghosts they can’t see. But this is real. This is the nature of the universe we live in.

Thanks for anything you’re willing to do.