Pass the Perrier

My big mouth has gotten me in real trouble.

Last year, after a two-day fast, I found I had been delivered from overeating. I lost between 25 and 30 pounds, with virtually no effort. I kept telling everyone at my church, hoping I could get them to try to get the same kind of miracle.

This week, a friend called me up and said he was sick of his weight problem. I told him what I knew, and I suggested he pick a couple of days to fast and pray. And a horrible realization came over me. I was going to have to fast with him.

Arrgghh.

I notified my pastor, purely for selfish reasons. I knew people would hear about the fast, and if it worked, they would want the same thing. Then I’d have to fast with THEM. I figured if I notified the pastor, he would spread the word, and we would get people on board now instead of later, saving me fasts. Instead, his text response went like this: “I’m in!”

Okay.

I let the Armorbearers know, figuring some of them might have bad habits they wanted to drop. Now I have a total of five people (me included) doing the fast. We quit eating last night, and we won’t eat again (except for communion) until Friday morning. We are allowed ZERO calories. Our pastor has to quit at 6 p.m. on Thursday due to social obligations.

Each of us has to pray in the Spirit for at least three consecutive minutes both days. We have to spend at least half an hour alone with God on each day, confessing that overeating (or whatever we’re trying to beat) is a sin, and that we can’t defeat it on our own, and that we repent and want his help.

I hope this works. Although that would pretty much guarantee more fasts in the future.

I went to our private forum and posted this:

Romans 6:5-14 (New King James Version)

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

I think God is more willing to bless people who have self-control. Giving good stuff to people who can’t control themselves is like giving loaded pistols to three-year-olds. I got free of gluttony, and suddenly, I found myself cooking in a big commercial kitchen and getting lots of recognition for it. My guess is that God is more likely to give good spouses to people who have conquered lust, and that he is more likely to give prosperity to people who have beaten covetousness and greed. If these ideas are right, fasting is pretty important.

Wish us luck, and get on the bandwagon if you want.

On Second Thought, Don’t

I can no longer keep up with the good stuff God does in my life. I just don’t have time to blog it all.

On Saturday, I cooked for our church’s Rhythms Lounge event. Young people come to the cafe and perform. Some play music, some recite, and others sing. This weekend, we had a guest performer: Zach Freeman, the son of two of our pastors. He plays guitar and sings.

What a show we had. We have a regular house band composed of church members; oddly, it’s not the same band that plays during worship. They jammed with Zach for maybe an hour. We heard a lot of blues and even a long funk session.

I can’t describe the quality of the playing. I had no idea these kids were this good. They were so tight, you would think they had been playing together for years.

Zach started off with his Strat and some effects, and he created an ambience you could almost swim in. I wish we had recorded it. Ordinarily I’m not a big fan of reverb and sustain pedals, but he used them to draw us into a world that did not exist before he started playing.

When the other players got going, we heard bass licks that started and stopped the show at will. The keyboard player, who claimed he couldn’t play blues, performed gymnastics that had everyone gasping. When it was over, the whole crowd started yelling and crying out. A friend of mine leaned over and said, “They’re praising God in Creole.”

I couldn’t ask for a better end to my first week of renewed guitar practice.

It gets even weirder. I have a new guitar! For a long time, I’ve wanted a thinline Gibson guitar with single-coil pickups and a Bigsby, but doubting that I would use it, I never gave in to temptation. This week I started reading up on Epiphone guitars. This is Gibson’s Asian line. Ordinarily, I won’t go near an Asian instrument; Japanese dreadnoughts sound like cigar boxes and have actions that tear up your hands. But I kept reading reviews, and I thought to myself, “If I get one of these things, I have 30 days to try it out, and if it works, it will be a fantastic asset, and the price will be so low, even if I get a better instrument later, I’ll be able to drag this one when I travel without worrying about what happens to it.”

I drove down US1 to buy some bird seed, and I was praying in the Spirit while I drove (good way to redeem the time), and I started thinking about Guitar Center. I felt I couldn’t stop myself, so I decided to go with it. I went in and found an Epiphone Riviera on the wall. I still didn’t intend to buy it. I asked the salesman a few questions, looked it over, and told him I would take it. I felt like I had to do it. I think he nearly fainted. I didn’t even ask to play it. There was no point.

This guitar was made in China. They get spotty reviews that go in two directions. Some instruments are written off as junk. Other buyers say they can’t understand how Epiphone can sell such gorgeous instruments at this price point. It looks like I’m in the latter group. This thing is virtually flawless. It sounds good. It plays well. So far, I’ve only been able to find one tiny imperfection in it. And it cost about 13% of what a new Gibson would cost. I could put a thousand dollars’ worth of upgrades into it and still be way ahead.

I don’t know what the story is. Maybe it was God. Maybe I just like shiny new stuff too much. But I try to walk by faith, and this felt like God’s urging, so I didn’t want to screw it up.

On Saturday, the music materials I ordered arrived. I got a copy of Tony Rice Guitar, plus Dan Crary’s Flatpicker’s Guide, plus a giant tablature book called The Big Slab of Tab. I used to play things from these books, many years ago. Back then, I had some trouble with a little bit of the Tony Rice stuff, but as I noted the other day, my practice habits were completely wrong. Fifteen minutes a day.

I got these books because I feel that God is restoring my life and undoing past failures (and also because I owed Tony Rice a royalty).

I’ve been working on the tunes, and it’s crazy, but there is a big long Tony Rice lick I could never conquer in the past, and after two days, I nearly have it beat. I figure I should be able to play coherently, with the correct super-heavy Dunlop pick, within a week. Maybe I’ll upload an MP3 when that happens.

To get back to church, I cooked for the first two services yesterday, and then I served as an Armorbearer at the last service, and I attended a meeting at which we welcomed four new ABs. Guess who one of them is? Zach Freeman. He goes to college in another state, but he’ll be here all summer. I spoke up and informed him of the rule that ABs have to give each other free guitar lessons, and he said, “I GOT you.” Ha!

I keep meeting remarkable people at my church, semi-ghetto though it may be. The background of the people is totally unrelated to their potential and the contents of their hearts. Some are from the neighborhood, which is pretty depressed. Some are from areas that are more affluent. But there are incredible human beings there, from all sorts of different areas.

When I met Zach on Saturday, I was looking forward to meeting a young man everyone admired so much, but he treated ME like a celebrity. He kept talking about my cheesecake and how great it was. I’m just the guy in the kitchen. He, not me, was the talk of the church. It’s wild, how God raises up powerful people and keeps them humble. With his help, an camel really can go through the eye of a needle.

I may have to make him pay off on that lesson thing, although when he sees how hopeless I am, he may wish he had kept silent.

Another new AB has a wonderful trait we needed badly: he’s Cuban. That means he can FISH. And we need that, if we are going to keep angling for my dad. We talked about dolphin fishing, and he told me a few things even I didn’t know. So I’m hoping we can get him on the boat in a few days. He’s also a professional photographer, so maybe we can preserve a few images.

We don’t get very many Cubans in our church. Strange. I know a bunch of Puerto Ricans, though. God tends to recruit from the bottom of society, and Cubans are at the top.

Today I got up, hoping to rest after a busy weekend, and what did I see on Drudge’s page? The Supreme Court has INCORPORATED THE SECOND AMENDMENT. At least, that’s my understanding of it. I don’t think I’m exaggerating, but I haven’t read the opinion. I’m sure liberal judges and lawyers will do their best to interpret incorporation out of the decision. Anyway, Wayne LaPierre says firearms bans can no longer be enforced anywhere in the US. This is gigantic news. God has worked a real wonder.

For a long time, I’ve believed God was going to preserve and expand our gun rights, even as our government pushed farther and farther in the directions of sexual perversion, anti-Semitism, military weakness, weak boarders, and socialism. It looks like I was hearing from God, and not from my own limited mind.

An evil time is coming. When it does, people will remember the Jewish names Madoff, Stearns, Goldman, Sachs, Bernanke, Emanuel, Frank, and Geithner. I think these names will be used to justify a wave of anti-Semitic barbarism. In that day, Christians and Jews who have armed themselves, bought rural land, and learned how to use tools will be way ahead of the game. I strongly suspect God is getting us ready. This decision will certainly help.

What will God do next? I can’t even guess. The spectacle is exhausting me.

King of the Closet

Yesterday I had a major guitar breakthrough. I think I connected with an amp and electric guitar.

I already had two amps. One is a Fender Blues Jr. (tubes) and the other is a cheapo solid-state Crate. The Crate is just unforgivable; I only got it because it gave me some hope of getting distortion at low volumes. The Blues Jr. sounds fine but doesn’t do much until you turn it up (or maybe I don’t know how to use it).

I picked up a Vox AC4TV (tubes), and I cranked the power down to 1/4 watt, which is 1/60 of what the Blues Jr. consumes. It didn’t sound all that great. I had the tone control up pretty high, because I thought this would fuzz up the tone, and I had the volume control very low, because…silly me…I thought this would reduce the volume.

I decided to try it the other way around. The amp only has two sound controls, so it’s not like I had a big choice. I turned the volume way up and turned the tone way down. What did I get? Neat fuzzy distortion, like Otis Rush. Actually, it’s more like his voice than his guitar. It sounded wonderful. I couldn’t put the guitar down.

A long time ago, when I was shopping for an electric guitar, I found an ES355 (or was it an ES330?) which had a similar sound. This is the sound I like.

Don’t try to help me understand why “volume” means “tone” and “tone” means “volume.” I don’t care. It works.

“COINCIDENTALLY,” I’ll be cooking for my church’s Saturday-night Rhythms Lounge event tomorrow, and guess who the guest is? Zachary Freeman. He’s a jazz and blues guitarist. His mom is a pastor at the church. Pretty cool. I haven’t heard him, but people at church rave about him.

IT’S COINCIDENCE! DARWIN! DARWIN! SOCIALISM! VIVA CHE! OBAMA WILL SAVE US!

Whatever. You believe what you want. I’m going to stay connected to the power supply.

My miracle weight loss is continuing. I put on a few pounds while I worked on desserts for my church, and I also discovered Five Guys, so I have been concerned. Today I weighed myself, and it appears that the weight loss is progressing again. Fantastic. Only God could do this. I don’t diet; I’m not gifted with perfect willpower. I’m just not a fat person any more. It’s as if I had been born to be thin. I hope I knock off ten more pounds, so none of my pants will be able to intimidate me. I wore my super-thin black jeans to church on Wednesday. I still need to lose an inch to make them comfortable. I bought them for riding motorcycles; grease and dirt don’t show up much on black jeans.

I got to the range yesterday and chronographed some 10mm ammunition. I don’t have the results before me, but it looks like 12 grains of No. 7 powder will give me good results, and 12.5 might be ideal. At 12 grains, I get 1200 fps, and I want 1250. One disappointment: my Wolf primers seem hard. Two out of twenty failed to go off on the first try. This is fine for target practice, but for self-defense, I’m going to need something like Federal. I am told Federal primers are the softest.

The primers and cases looked okay after firing.

The gun shoots great. My accuracy was affected by the way I had to contort myself to fire through the chronograph, but I shot more than well enough to splatter an assailant’s brains. The recoil tires my hand a little, though, so I think the gun would tend to lose accuracy after a dozen or two dozen rounds. Not enough to matter in a self-defense situation, but it would be annoying in practice sessions.

The consistency of the handloads (especially the low-powered target rounds) was very good. I plan to load defensive rounds one at a time, for total confidence, but for routine target shooting, I think I can rely on my powder measure.

I also tried my Bill Springfield AR trigger. It’s better than the stock trigger, which is not exactly a surprise. I’m not sure I love it, though. Still seems a little balky.

I had to buy cheesy PMC .308 ammo, because I left my Radway Green at home. I don’t know how good PMC rifle ammuntion is, but their pistol ammunition is the worst I’ve tried.

Yesterday, I was shooting into an area the size of a baseball at 100 yards. Acceptable under the circumstances, but I would like to do better. A range officer who shoots .308 says reloading is the only answer. If I start reloading, I think it will be time to consider a .260 Remington upper, which was my real goal anyway. Maybe the .308 upper was a mistake. It looks like I can’t do precision shooting with cheap ammo, so the money I save may be a hollow blessing. Still, if times get really hard, cheap ammo in large quantities may be a real asset, and I can’t get that in .260.

The Leupold scope is a dream come true. I don’t even understand all the knobs yet. The field of view is gorgeous, and everything is sharp.

Speaking of hard times, a man named Hank Kunneman appeared on Sid Roth’s show yesterday, claiming to be a prophet. He said God had showed up a couple of things. First, the next couple of years will be pretty rough, and it will seem like Obama is doing very poorly. Second, God intends to reverse some of the bad legislation Obama has signed, and he intends to change the Supreme Court.

He reminded us to pray for our leaders, and he was right about that. I think Obama is an embarrassment and an obstacle to God’s work, but I have resolved to pray, daily, that God will change his heart and the hearts of our other leaders. The Bible tells us we have a duty to pray for our leaders, so I’m going to stay on it. I also pray that God will take down leaders who refuse to change, replacing them with godly men. So I’m covered either way!

I hate to say it, but I feel bad for Obama. I believe he is in for a long stretch of humiliation, and if he doesn’t get right with God and the Jews, there probably won’t be any end to it. Remember Nebuchadnezzar, wandering around on all fours, eating grass.

I don’t know if Hank Kunneman is the real thing or not, so caveat emptor.

I’m out.

Cheesecake Rejection

I got a call from Mike yesterday. He has been on the road with his son, who is a hot football prospect. They were touring schools. I got on him about going to church, and he swears he is going to try. It can be very discouraging, trying to get people to attend. After a while, you feel like letting the issue drop and devoting your attention to something else. But I think he may get serious now that he has time.

While I was on the phone, we talked food. Here is the idea that hit me: pineapple upside-down cake made with banana nut bread. You make two cakes and put the pineapple stuff between them. Then on top…carrot cake icing.

Is that sick or what? I can’t wait to try it. It’s the most beautiful cake idea I’ve ever heard of. I think Mike levitated when I brought it up.

I’ve been having trouble baking for my church. They keep wasting the food I make. I baked three cheesecakes last week, and today I found out they weren’t putting them on display. I made raspberry sauce, and I bought red and yellow raspberries to scatter on the cake, and I guess it’s all ruined now.

I don’t want to be a pain, but I informed the pastor who runs the cafe that I don’t want to bake any more until I know they’re going to sell the food. It’s stupid to show up at two p.m. on a Saturday and bake for four hours when you know they’re going to throw the food out later.

In other news, I have been fiddling with music practice for two days now. Yesterday I installed Dunlop Straploks on my electric guitars. I don’t know why electric guitars come with such useless strap buttons, but my Blueshawk has a nasty dent in it, which it got on the day I learned I needed locking buttons. I don’t want that to happen again.

Why don’t they use steel eyes instead of buttons? It’s so obvious. Put a spring-loaded connector (like the one on a dog leash) at each end of the strap, put a fabric sleeve over it to prevent scratching, and you’re all set. The Dunlop things work, but the concept is incredibly stupid.

I researched amps. It looks like the best amp for practice is a tube amp with virtually no power. Like four watts. I have a 15-watt amp, and it’s tough to set the knobs so it sounds good but doesn’t blow me out of the house. Wish I had known this back when I got it. Vox makes a 4-watt practice amp which can be driven hard at power levels as low as 1/4 watt. Maybe some day I’ll try one.

The practice went way better than I expected. I picked things up surprisingly quickly. I’m devoting part of the time to studying the workings of the fretboard. I have a book called Fretboard Logic, and I’m doing the exercises. Maybe this will open the instrument up to me. In any case, I have to have some kind of music in my life, and guitar is convenient.

Guess I should get rid of the cornet.

New Steel Cheaper Than Old Tanks

I will never understand tools and technology.

A six-foot length of 1/4″ angle iron costs over $40 at Fastenal, and it’s not that exciting to work with. You can make braces and legs and frames and supports from it, but that’s about it. A 4′ by 8′ sheet of 14-gauge steel, which is much more exciting and useful, costs under $30. How can that be?

This is interesting to me, because I have been trying to find a used propane tank to turn into a smoker for my church. You would think an old tank would cost nearly nothing, but the characters who sell them think I should pay about 80% of the cost of a new tank. I can spend a hundred bucks on a tank that will make a smallish smoker, or I can buy a couple of sheets of steel and make a giant and amazing smoker.

I guess I was stupid to build the Hoginator from a Char-Broil grill. It worked out, but the grill alone was a hundred bucks. For sixty, I could have had enough sheet steel to make anything I wanted.

I ought to quit fooling with this idea. A steel smoker needs shelter from the rain, and my church does not have a suitable enclosure. And if I make the smoker, I will be the only one who ever uses it. If I quit, it will sit and rot. And we have a lot of people who have a pork phobia. Wish I could do it, though. It would be great to have the versatility of a smoker.

If you want a phenomenal high-capacity smoker, and you have an understanding wife, I may have the perfect solution for you. The idea hit me the other day. Go on Craigslist and look for a “warming cabinet” or “proofing cabinet.” These things are used to warm dough while it rises, or to keep food hot until it can be served. They heat to 225, which is perfect for smoking. They come fitted to hold pans, and you can put wire racks on the shelf supports. Put a hole in the bottom, plumb smoke in, put a hole in the top, plumb smoke out, add a pan if you want beer or water in the bottom, and you have a killer smoker. At least, I think so. I see no reason why it wouldn’t work.

These cabinets can be over six feet high, so you need to try to find something that isn’t too big. I found one with an asking price of $399, so my guess is that persistence will produce something one or two hundred dollars cheaper.

Taters Nearly do me In

Costco is selling prime beef again! I love it! Rib eyes for $8.00 per pound! You can’t beat that with a stick.

Blueberries are also very cheap. On Wednesday I plan to buy a load of them, turn them into cheesecake goo, and freeze it for church.

I tend to see Costco prime beef as an indicator of the economy’s health. When it’s there, things are not going well. Not a very scientific measure, but the availability does seem tied to the Dow.

Had a crazy experience yesterday. On the way home from church, I hit Five Guys. I skipped lunch–delicious pizza, rolls, and cheesecake–so I could have a burger and fries. I made the mistake of eating an entire Five Guys regular order of fries. They’re not that great, but they’re way better than any other fast food joint.

When I went to bed, I started feeling very hot. I couldn’t get cool enough to sleep. And I had to have ice cream! I felt like my life depended on it. I got out of bed and ate a few blueberries and drank some water, but it was no good. I got in the truck, drove to the drug store, and bought a selection of junk food. I thought maybe the sudden craving meant something, so I decided to go with it.

I bought ice cream, a Chunky bar, cookies, and Gatorade. I figured I’d watch Breaking Bad while I ate it. In the truck, I ate three cookies.

When I got home, the craving was gone. I thought about the delicious goodies I had on hand, and I thought about Breaking Bad, which I love. But the craving was gone. I put the food away and got in bed.

What does it mean? I don’t know. I do know my gall bladder is acting up a little.

I honestly think potatoes are poison. I love them almost as much as I love life, but I never feel good after eating potatoes, and Five Guys gives you about two pounds of them. I don’t like peanut oil, either. Animal fats seem to dissolve in a very natural way when you eat them, becoming part of your body. Some plant fats seem to resist assimilation, as if they were industrial chemicals. Peanut oil (used by Five Guys) is one of those fats. I just don’t like it.

Anyway, the next time I eat at Five Guys, I’m going to throw all the fries out except whatever the cup holds, or I’ll avoid fries entirely and get something else. They’re not good enough to justify the aggravation.

If You’re Ever in Thebes, Drop by the Palace

Just got back from church. I should be more precise: just finished eating a burger from Five Guys, which I bought on the way home from church.

The weekend was a blur. On Friday night, we had all-church prayer, which was fantastic. On Saturday, we had a Marketplace Ministry event where we heard from Brian Klemmer, a well-known motivational speaker. I drove home, bought food and cooking equipment, drove back, and made two cheesecakes and three loaves of banana nut bread, and then I hung out at our cafe for Rhythms Lounge, our Saturday-night youth event. It’s sort of like a beat bar, only with no drugs or alcohol (that we know of).

Got up this morning, drove to church, made six dozen garlic rolls and dough for 12 pizzas. Worked through two services. Sat for the third service, taking a brief break to assemble and bake two pizzas. Got out my rotary hammer and drilled some giant holes in the floor of the kitchen to see if I could remove some old angle iron supports. Went to an armorbearer meeting. Went to Five Guys.

Today at the cafe, people were eating my brownies, cheesecake, pizza, garlic rolls, banana nut bread, and pineapple-cream cheese spread. All on the same day. I can’t believe all the crap I can cook now, and how fast I can do it.

People kept asking if I was the food guy and telling me how great everything was. It was hilarious. “Try the cheesecake.” “I don’t like blueberries.” “I know, but trust me, TRY THE CHEESECAKE.”

It’s wonderful to do well at something and get a little recognition. I’m positive God gives me recipes, but I still get to prepare them, so I’m in the chain of success somewhere.

I was thinking about it yesterday. I’ve been involved in several things at church, but the only authorities who have followed through with the things they’ve involved me in have been the Armorbearer and cafe guys. The Armorbearer guys don’t have all that much advancement or opportunity to provide me, so there has been a limit to what I could do for them. The cafe guy had more problems I could fix, and he gave me support and got out of the way, and now I’m paying off for him like a slot machine.

The pastor involved me with a book he wanted to write, but then he hired a PR chief to be in charge of all writing jobs, and the Haiti mess popped up, and suddenly, the book was not a priority. Piles of dead bodies were rotting in the streets of Port au Prince, so the book had to be put on the back burner while charity logistics were worked out. I did some writing for the Haiti relief effort, but the PR boss hasn’t asked me to do anything in months. I guess someone else is doing the work.

It’s a little weird. Given my unusual set of skills, I could have done a lot for them, had I been included, but God has his own plans, and I ended up doing security and making food. As far as I know, nothing is happening with the church’s book-writing plans, but because I got so much support in the kitchen, the cafe is blossoming like a rose.

I assume there was a purpose in the way things worked out. It has been fantastic for me, so I can’t complain. I love what I’m doing.

Sometimes I wonder whether the folks at church are truly aware of what I can do; I could have gone to Haiti and created a blog about it and gotten a lot of traffic, and I could have done photography and written books about it. These things would have been very easy for me, and I don’t think anyone else at my church could get it done. I’ll put it this way: they haven’t done it. But ideas that make sense in the natural are often wrong. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Things are probably going exactly as they should be.

I’m meeting all sorts of people, which is good for me. On Saturday nights, twice a month, I’m in a cafe full of kids in their teens to early twenties, mostly of Haitian descent. As an Armorbearer, I get to meet various speakers and teachers. I’m going to be doing krav maga again, and I may conceivably exercise. I’m learning all sorts of things about running a restaurant, and I’m becoming a very efficient institutional cook. I even get to use my tools sometimes. I’ve done welding for the church, and now I’m working on removing old steel from their floor.

It’s not bad.

God puts people in authority over us, and he helps shape their decisions. Look at Joseph and Jacob, in their dealings with Pharaoh and Laban. I’m not comparing the good people at my church to a couple of heathens, but the same principle applies. You will not always understand the decisions your authorities make, and sometimes they will seem crazy, but you should not be quick to react with rebellion and disrespect, because sometimes, a crazy decision has a supernatural cause contrived for your benefit.

Weird stuff keeps happening to me. Since the Rendezvous conference last month, I’ve found that when I pray in the Spirit, I’m actually singing, because there is a melody to it. And I generally seem more musical. I used to hear all sorts of musical variations in my head, but I was frustrated because I didn’t hear many completely new tunes. Now I’m starting to hear entire melodies. I need to start writing them down. And I used to have a funny problem when I sang in church: I couldn’t harmonize, which is usually pretty effortless for me. I thought it was because the music was so loud I couldn’t hear myself, but that was wrong, because now, all sorts of harmonic variations are coming out. There’s more to it than that, but that’s all I feel like saying. Something supernatural is definitely going on.

I have a pretty wild testimony. Nutty things are going on, but generally, the people around me have almost no interest whatsoever. Sometimes I have the strange sensation that I’m invisible. I tend to think my testimony is like a cake in the oven. I want to take it out now, but God wants it to stay in the oven until it’s completely ready, so for the moment, nobody wants to hear it. As a result, people who read this blog know more about it than people I go to church with.

Maybe Joseph felt this way when he was stuck in Egypt, forced to live in luxury and power while his relatives were still dirt-farming in Israel. I feel like I’m being restrained for the present, but even though I’m not doing anything impressive or significant on the grand scale, life is very, very pleasant.

I am considering turning my banana-nut bread recipe into doughnuts and adding coconut glaze. Thought I’d throw that in just to horrify everyone before posting this entry.

More of All the Good Stuff

Yes, I have too many bananas.

I stuck some banana and plantain trees in the yard. The plantains don’t do all that well, probably because I am too lazy to go buy horse manure. The bananas do well enough to cause me problems. I don’t know what to do with them.

Today I’m baking banana nut bread, to see if I can make it good enough for the Trinity church cafe. I started with the same old stale recipe everyone thinks their grandma invented. I added allspice, and I jacked up the other spices. I also used Mike’s secret ingredient to make the cake moister and tastier. And I substituted brown sugar for white.

I think it should be very good. I’ll know pretty soon. After that, I have to figure out what to put on top of it.

More

The banana nut bread is pretty amazing. The added spices woke it up, and Mike’s mystery ingredient improved the texture a great deal. The outer crust is a little chewy now, and the whole thing is moist.

Photos:

This is good enough for church. I can double the salt and maybe make the loaves smaller, so there’s more crust, but other than that, it’s ready.

I’ll have to figure out a topping.

What will I do if people get hooked and the banana trees crap out?

Problem for another day.

More

Oh, man. This stuff is too good. I may have to throw it out in self-defense.

Thanks for the recipe, Lord. Now save me from it.

His Price is Far Above Rubies

Went to church tonight to do some work on the kitchen and work security for the Tuesday service. While I was there, THREE women stopped me to tell me how amazing my cheesecake was!

I knew this would happen!

More

I got my press ready for 10mm today. Problem: since the gun isn’t here, I can’t check the ammo to see if it chambers and ejects. I made five rounds without powder or primers, and when I get the gun, I’ll see if the external dimensions are okay for the chamber. Once I have it working, I don’t think I’ll need to adjust anything but the seating die.

I have relatively cheap Laser-Cast bullets for practice. I plan to use a recipe that gives about 1060 fps in a 5″ barrel. Internet sources say I’ll only lose about 5% of optimal velocity with a 3″ Glock barrel. When my Speer Gold Dots arrive, I’ll be using a 1250-fps recipe, so I should come in at about 1200.

The modified primer feed on my press is working great. There is nothing like having your own machine shop.

RETRACTION

Lots of stuff to do today.

Tonight, I serve as an armorbearer at church. Before I go, I need to weld the church’s handtruck back together. Now that I’ve seen a few Chinese welds pop, I am a little nervous about trusting welded products.

I also need to make 10mm ammunition before my new pistol arrives. I have the makings, but I need to get the press set up and start cranking the handle. I looked around for 10mm practice ammo, but it’s hard to find here. Some people would recoil in horror at the thought of endangering a Glock warranty with reloads, but I think that’s stupid. For a single repair, which is all you’re likely to need over the life of the gun, the warranty has a maximum value of about $500. In reality, you probably won’t use a Glock warranty, and if you do, it will probably be a repair you could have gotten for $20. You save at least $12 per box with reloads. Over $200 per thousand rounds. Let’s see if we can figure out the right choice! DUH!

Good defensive rounds cost about $45 per box, delivered. I can save something like $30 per box. And I can run them through a Chrony and make sure they’re right.

They wouldn’t even be reloads. I found new Starline brass online. Probably a mistake. I think I should use it to make some defensive rounds and buy once-fired for everything else.

I don’t know why people get so spastic about gun warranties. You have to weigh what you’re getting against what you lose.

I also have to order some pots for the church. I have to take care of Father’s Day. And I should take my angle grinder to church and remove the 24″ piece of 5/16″ angle iron protruding from the kitchen floor. Maybe I should take my rotary hammer and try to remove the stub from the concrete.

It’s too much for my tiny brain to handle.

My cheesecake and brownies are selling really well at church. I’m thinking I should put an oven in a warehouse and see what I can sell to bakeries and restaurants. How hard can it be? I already have an empty warehouse.

Bye.

Mouse Poop Rearranged

Went to church today and helped the team REVOLUTIONIZE the kitchen. Stuff was moved. Crap was discarded. We only nearly set the place on fire once.

I have an entire room for pizza production now. Sort of. Part of it is dedicated to storage. But basically, it’s my own pizza empire.

Found out they sold one of my cheesecakes today. Every last slice. They have one left for tomorrow. And now we have a beautiful refrigerated display case for my desserts.

God is great. Food is pretty good. Using big tools to pulverize entropy in a disorganized church kitchen is the bomb.

And they sent a busted handtruck home for me to weld together. I love it.

Cheesecake Assault

I had an incredible weekend.

First, I made three blueberry cheesecakes for church. I stuck two in the walk-in cooler, and we sold the third. People were oohing and ahhing. If I could only get the women to quit dieting…

It’s no wonder they want to diet. They refuse to drink diet soda. Must be an island thing. We don’t even have diet soda in the fountain. I guess all those Pepsis add up, and then you can’t have cheesecake.

Second thing: I got a key to the church kitchen. FINALLY. I was driving the guy who passes out keys crazy. I even went to his Facebook page and posted “Isaiah 22:22!” Now I can get in there and DO things. Today a bunch of us plan to tear through the kitchen and utterly abolish the disorder. I’m going to take some tools so I can hang a clock.

Third thing: I was feeling frustrated and sort of unappreciated because I could not get a key to the kitchen, and it seemed like the Armorbearers were in a rut. I couldn’t help them get them to communicate so we could organize to do things. But I got the key, and then the Armorbearers had a fantastic meeting after church. We managed to get a couple of things worked out. We’re planning to bring a guy in to give us krav maga lessons, and we’re gearing up for paintball. One of the younger guys suggested it. He said it builds unity. I don’t know about that, but it sure builds welts.

I had dinner with some Messianic Jews on Friday. They want to form an AB squad for their synagogue, and they want to go to the range with us and get CCW permits. Hopefully, we can work that out.

I talked with one of my chefs yesterday, and we made some tentative plans about equipment and food. I’m checking stuff out at Instawares. I plan to take some of my beautiful Chinese cookware with me today so people can check it out and see if we should order some, and I think I’m going to donate some of my useless, overpriced Japanese knives. They have gathered dust for three years, at least. I don’t like giving cast-off stuff to the church, but these are too good to throw out, and I refuse to use them here.

Life is sweet, thanks to God.

More

This is from a friend named Celeste. Found it on Facebook.

I cry out with my whole heart; hear me, O Lord! Psalm 119:145
Family, PLEASE I am asking for urgent prayers for my brother Jim who is in the hospital. They are running tests and we are praying for a miracle. Thank you. xo

Not by Sight

I should finish writing about my trip to Washington, DC, for the National Day of Prayer. I left you at the National Holocaust Memorial.

After our tour, Mike and I were stuck in the city. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews had a dinner scheduled, and we did not have enough time to go home and shower. We made our way to the Crowne Plaza on K Street and headed downstairs to the banquet room.

They had a table set up, with little gift bags for everyone. I got a package of Dead Sea girly stuff. Mud pack or something. We also received Rabbi Eckstein’s latest CD. He sings.

We met a number of donors and IFCJ staffers. One of the staffers is a food critic. She said she would like to see my cookbook. I didn’t know what to say about that. It’s not the kind of material Christians ordinarily read.

The Rabbi showed up, and each of us got to pose for a photo with him. Very nice guy. Not stand-offish at all. No entourage. No hovering assistants to keep donors away. He even posed with Mike, who, as I have noted before, isn’t even a donor!

We sat at our tables in the banquet room, and food started coming out, and speakers appeared. I was amazed that prayer in the name of Jesus was tolerated.

I shouldn’t even have to point out that almost all of the donors were Christians.

The Rabbi spoke. He said he did not want to talk politics, but he referred, in a general way, to the problems Israel was having with the current U.S. administration. Barack Obama is not a conservative Christian, and he does not have the pro-Israel attitude conservatives expect when they nominate a candidate. He sees Israel and the Jews as spoiled by previous administrations, and he is determined to bring about “even-handedness” in our dealings in the Middle East.

“Even-handedness.” There are about 15 million Jews on earth. They have one tiny country they can flee to when persecuted. They have 1.2 billion Muslim counterparts, many of whom are determined to destroy Israel, and many of whom hope to exterminate the Jewish people. But our President wants “even-handedness.”

I can’t tell you how good it felt, watching an Orthodox rabbi tell us he was frustrated by a liberal administration and pleased to have the support of conservative Christians.

He gave us a song or two, using a beautiful guitar a supporter made. And we heard from some other speakers, and then we had conversation.

My table was wonderful. We started talking about weapons and tools and so on. We had a Pentagon employee (Army, I think) and a retired military guy and his wife, and most of us were on exactly the same frequency. Linda (the IFCJ rep who invited me) told everyone about my cookbook and my guns and tools, and we started exchanging information and opinions.

I think Mike was a little weirded out. We were sitting with total strangers, yet there was an instant rapport. We were talking about prophecy and how America was declining, and one of the guys started quoting Perry Stone, whom I have mentioned to Mike many times. Everyone wanted to know about concealed carry and reloading and so on, and I told them what I knew.

There was one couple–Baptists, probably–who seemed almost taken aback by the passion and conviction we all displayed. But the rest of us were completely caught up, like no other group at the dinner. I told Mike that when you start walking by faith, this kind of thing happens all the time. I said, “It’s going to keep happening for the rest of your life.”

By the end, we were talking like old friends.

The next morning, Mike and I got up and headed for DC again, to hear the Israeli ambassador. His name is Michael Oren, and we were scheduled to hear him at the Ninth Annual Israel Solidarity Event, at the Israeli Embassy!

I spent four months on a kibbutz in 1984, and for a long time, I’ve longed to return to Israel. The embassy is considered part of Israel, so it was a pretty good substitute.

We met some of our new friends outside the security building, and we made our way through the metal detector. It was odd to hear the peculiar, brusque Israeli accent again as the guards and staffers worked to get us checked in.

Before we began, a pianist and singer performed Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel. Funny thing, it’s based on the same folk melody as Smetana’s Die Moldau, which was one of my mother’s favorite pieces of music. When Hatikvah was banned by the British Mandate, some radio stations played Die Moldau in order to get around the prohibition.

The Star-Spangled Banner followed.

Christian speakers including Gary Bauer preceded the ambassador. They talked about the worldwide increase in anti-Semitism and the need to stand by Israel’s side in these strange times. Once again, prayer in the name of Jesus was permitted. Amazing.

I believe the only Israeli speakers were Noam Katz (Minister for Public Diplomacy) and Michael Oren. If memory serves, Mr. Katz openly admitted that American conservative Christians were the best friends Israel had. It may have been Ambassador Oren, but I don’t remember it that way. In any case, it was stirring. What a change in the Jewish perspective.

Ambassador Oren was wonderful. He’s a historian (born in the US and schooled at Princeton and Columbia), and he told about American’s long association with Israel and the Jews. He told us that one of the Founding Fathers proposed putting Moses and the Hebrews on our national seal, as a metaphor for our crossing the Atlantic and leaving the British behind. The British were our Egyptians. Ambassador Oren also pointed out that a surprising number of early Americans were schooled in the Hebrew language, and many believed it to be the language of heaven.

When the Israelis spoke, a serious-looking young man stood to the side of the podium, staring out over the crowd. I took him to be a Mossad bodyguard. An armorbearer! Just like me, except he actually knew what he was doing.

I found myself seated next to a donor I hadn’t met before. We found ourselves talking a great deal. She and her husband had been at the dinner, and a group had prayed for him, and his ear had been healed. She complained that now he could hear her muttering about him!

She asked about my church, and I told her about Trinity, and that we belonged to the Assemblies of God. The woman I was talking to said she thought it was a sign that she should check out a local AG church she had wanted to visit. A lady in front of us turned around and said she was AG, too. I seem to have made a much better impression on people than I had any right to.

I told her what I could about charismatic Christianity. I believe prayer in the Spirit builds us up (as the Bible claims), and that it gives us faith and changes us from within.

Naturally, I also talked to her about food. I took her email address and told her she could have any recipe she wanted. Since then, we have corresponded. Her husband’s ear, which had been screwed up for years, is still fine.

I was glad I had managed to be of some use. When you walk by faith, God chooses the people you meet.

I touched the stones of the courtyard on the way out, saying goodbye to Israel once again.

I can’t tell you everything that happened on Saturday; it’s fairly private. We went to the air and space museum at the Smithsonian. I felt like God was showing me the wonders he had done for this country before it turned away from him. I wondered what was in store, as our rebellion continued.

On Sunday, Mike and I went to church. His wife wanted to take their son fishing, so they didn’t go. But Mike was very gung-ho. I got him to go to Trinity Assembly of God in Lanham, Maryland. I found it on the web a while back, and it looked promising. And how about that name? Same as my church in Miami Gardens.

We got to the church, and I told Mike to pick seats for us. I was confident that God would do something weird with his choice. We ended up near the back on the right.

The music was very good, and I even knew some of the songs. I guess charismatics tend to gravitate toward the same hymns.

Mike has been having some difficulties with his family. I don’t want to say more than that. Guess what day God picked to get us in church together? Mother’s Day. The whole service was about wives and mothers. Very appropriate.

Before things really got going, we heard some testimony from a lady whose prayer for a baby had been answered. When I heard her voice, it was another great surprise. Many of the people in the church were black, but until she spoke, I didn’t know they were island people. Just like Trinity in Miami Gardens! How did that happen? We were in Maryland, not Florida. They had Hispanics, too. The pastor’s name is Tino. The only other Tino I know goes to Trinity.

The pastor had us pray sort of randomly early on. This is not unusual at a charismatic church. Mike and I went at it, and as we did, each of us felt a big hand land on his shoulder. An older man in the row behind us was praying for us, asking God to take us in hand and change us and make us his instruments. It was wonderful. I turned and thanked him.

When the prayer was done, the pastor sent a Mother’s Day bouquet to his own mother, who was attending. The person with the flowers walked right toward us and then past us. To a lady in the row behind us. Standing next to the man who prayed. Evidently, Mike chose seats directly in front of the pastor’s dad.

The pastor’s wife gave the sermon. She talked about great female figures in the Bible. Ruth, Esther, Deborah, and so on. But toward the end, she became agitated and kept saying she felt like she had to talk about restoring marriages and families. She started talking about all the things the church had to offer. Counseling and prayer and so on. And she kept repeating, “You have to do the work. You have to do the work!” This is exactly what I tell Mike all the time. You can’t wait to get your life in order before you turn to God, because he’s the one who fixes your life. You have to make time and go.

She became so agitated, she began speaking in tongues, which Mike found a little alarming. But that’s part of the package.

He has gone back to the church since our visit, and I’m hoping he’ll join. How many “coincidences” do you need to witness before you give up and get on board?

I accidentally left my IFCJ gift bag in Mike’s car. Now he’ll have everything he needs, if he decides to do a Dead Sea mud pack.

There wasn’t much more to the trip than that. We went to Five Guys again, and then I got on a plane.

If you read all three installments of the story, it should be obvious to you that I was guided on this trip, and so were the people around me. This is what my life is like these days. I am not perfect in obedience or faith, but I am on the path, and I am seeing God’s power in my life. The Bible says he lifts us out of the miry clay and sets our feet upon a rock and establishes our goings. It is absolutely true.

I wish I had time to write up all the things I’ve seen. I can understand why the Gospels say the world could not contain enough books to hold the complete story of Jesus’s ministry. I’m a nobody, and I can’t even cover what happens to me.

Israel’s Enemies Poison Their Own Harvest

Busy day yesterday. Laid out 6 dozen garlic rolls, baked 4 dozen, and had to discard the rest. Made lots of pizza. Put brownies out in clear boxes for the customers to see. Fortunately, I had some help. The 11-year-old son of our church’s head servant leader showed up and worked with me. This kid is going to be a CEO some day. Show him something twice, and the third time, he’ll start without you.

Needs to realize that cleaning up is part of the job, however.

The guy who runs the church’s cafe during the week says the building’s business tenants go nuts over the brownies. The congregation isn’t as crazy about them. I decided to bake tons of brownies and store them in the walk-in cooler, so the weekday team can get them out as needed. Brownies keep for eternity, so I should be able to bake 6 half-sheets a month and cover our needs pretty efficiently.

The Armorbearers ended up talking in the parking lot. Unfortunately, one of the younger guys brought up paintball. So now I may have to participate in that. They say those paintballs sting pretty good. I may have to hide a sheet of MDF in my Depends.

We also talked about the need for martial arts training. I suggested krav maga. One of the top instructors lives in Miami. It would be pretty cool, defending God’s house with a system developed by God’s people, in God’s country. And you don’t have to be in great shape to do it, which is a plus for me. I contacted the instructor, and he’s available.

Speaking of God’s people, Israel is in the news. A “peace flotilla” including one ship full of armed hooligans approached her coast, and the IDF boarded the problem vessel, and Israel’s soldiers were attacked. Naturally, Israel’s enemies are portraying her as the aggressor. Pray that God will humiliate and abase the liars, and that Israel will emerge unscathed.

The Bible uses the terms “flood” and “waters” to describe the waves of slander and lies the enemy uses to afflict God’s people. You can see it over and over in the Psalms. False witness is a great evil, and it brings suffering on those who utter it. The Psalms tell us God protects the righteous from it.

The Old Testament uses the term “leprosy” (“tzara’at”) to describe the curse that comes from slander. It doesn’t mean the disease we think of as leprosy; that illness probably did not exist in the Middle East in the time of Moses. It refers to other disfiguring illnesses, as well as a type of rot that attacks a person’s house. God used to make the walls of the homes of liars rot, in order to publicly expose them as people who lied in private. If you routinely lie about people, and your home is falling apart, and your plans always seem to come to nothing, you might want to ask yourself if you’re causing your own problems.

I know a person who spews a never-ending flow of slander and accusation, and this person is a complete failure and outcast (like a leper) and lives in a home which is literally rotting. I know another who behaves the same way, and that person has a miserable life which has amounted to nothing. I believe tzara’at, in one form or another, is still with us. It reminds me of what Wiccans believe: if you try to curse a righteous person, the curse comes back to you. They’re probably right. Some slanderers have supernatural protection from the enemy, but that protection goes away when the righteous attack it in prayer or the enemy no longer finds the slanderers useful. My guess is that the delayed payback carries interest.

Since learning about tzara’at, I’ve been much more careful about what I say. Israel’s enemies could benefit from the same lesson. God spoke the world into existence, and he spoke the eternal blessing on his people into existence, and he speaks curses into existence, and everything he speaks eventually comes to pass, except for punishments which he decides to withhold. Our words have power, too.

I think that when a believer prays in tongues, he speaks God’s blessings and power into his life and the lives of those around him. That’s like having a fountain that waters your crops and drowns your rats and bugs (like a flood) every day. The words come from the Holy Spirit, which is God, so what you say is God’s word, as much as the Bible. Pouring that “living water” into the world has to be a good thing.

It’s surprising how much power words have, even in the natural sense. Think about it. Our laws are words, so when a criminal is imprisoned or put to death, in actuality, he is jailed or killed by words. When you spend a dollar, you are relying on the words printed on it, which say our government backs it up. The words, not the paper, buy the goods you need. A declaration of war is words. A marriage is made by pronouncing words. All contracts are made of words. When you face foreclosure, words take away your house. The Bible even tells us God dispatches his angels using words, and we know that one angel killed 185,000 Assyrians in one night.

When Edward Bulwer-Lytton said the pen was mightier than the sword, he was not kidding. A hydrogen bomb is useless without someone to write the words allowing its deployment.

Even computers are powered by words. How do you tell a computer what to do? How do you create an application? You use a programming “language.”

Understanding the power of words should help us grasp the importance of prayer. It is literally more powerful than anything you do with your mind or your hands. Everything is established in prayer, or in blessings and curses. The work we do in the natural is just execution.

Israel will never go under. God’s flood is deeper than Satan’s. It’s sad that her soldiers were hurt, but in the end, Israel will be buoyed up like the Ark.

Flavor 7, Presentation 1

Mike gave me a secret suggestion for improving commercial cake mix. I tried it, and the texture is very good. Problem: it still tastes artificial, even though I substituted butter for vegetable oil. That part is not Mike’s fault, however.

Why does commercial cake mix taste like chemicals? Maybe they’ve managed to stick canola or dried milk or something in there, to make it taste bad. I guess I need to work out a scratch recipe. If “need” is the right word.

I also tried a frosting recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. I would call it “okay.” It needs more salt and maybe more vanilla, and so far, the texture is goopy. Not like real frosting. Maybe it needs to cool.

I decided to fool with this after trying some Misha’s cupcakes. This is a Miami company some lady started a while back. I saw a Misha’s store, and then I saw Misha’s cupcakes in a grocery store, and I started wondering how a cupcake could be so good you would make a special effort to get it. Let’s face it. Cupcakes are generally dry and boring.

Misha’s cupcakes are very good. For one thing, they’re short, so you don’t end up with a mile of cake and a tiny layer of icing. Also, the cake is moist, without that fake taste commercial mixes have. I guess anyone could have done what this lady did, if they had just applied common sense. It makes you wonder why 99% of the cupcakes you see at bakeries are dry and worthless.

I will probably never have another Misha’s cupcake, simply because I don’t care about cupcakes. But if I were a cupcake guy, I’d be there every day.

The sad part of discovering Misha’s cupcakes is that it has made me realize that making a decent cake is hard. The one I just made had some structural failures while I was assembling it, and then I realized I had forgotten the layer of icing that goes in the middle.

Tastes pretty good, if you close your eyes while you eat it.