I can't believe

that I graded the last research paper of the school year.

Thank you, God!

Dumb: A meditation on the folly of hunger

"I'm board!" cried the prodigal, surrounded by work in the home and fields. So he went to his father and practically wished him dead in asking for dough to spend now. His father, however, complied knowing that such reasoning couldn't be reasoned with.

"I'm limited and confined here," growled he who had status and opportunity waiting at his door. So he slammed that door on his way to the station, only pausing to ensure that he had a good list of casinos and hotels in hand.

"I'm freeee!" he shouted as cash flowed like oil, not realizing the irony at hand: that far from independently choosing expenses, each gold piece went to such predictable ends.

"I'm done for," he whispered as the last door shut on him, alone in a land where friends melted like daydreams. So he wandered the streets begging for something to do, anything but think about the life he had squandered.

"I'll eat them" I wept (now the real hero comes forth) as I looked at the dead corn husks in my hand. The shame was bitter, but nothing compared to the void in my middle that howled to be filled. Oh, what I wouldn't do to satisfy up the emptiness.

"I'm starving!" I cried in a final burst of lamentation. "I'm filthy! I'm empty! I'm ugly! I'm lost! Here I've been starving the last few weeks, and oh so willing to blame You, Father, for a failure to feed me, when I see now that it's been my mouth that was clamped shut to Your provision all this time." And as I looked from pigs to husk and back again the light finally broke...

This is nuts. I am nuts. All the ravings of every lunatic in history could not be more inane. Here I am by my own volition starving to death in a pigpen simply because I was to rushed, or stressed, or busy to eat at the table that was set all along. This is bonkers. Daft. Balmy. In a word,

dumb.

Good bye, corn husks,

I'm going home.

This post written by a professor at the RPTS seminary made me want to cry. It talks about a rare disease which dramatically accelerates the effects of aging in its victims - the children who are born with it die by around age 13 from heart attacks or strokes. But it was the pictures of a little boy with that curious mixture of three-year-old charm and withered decrepitude that got me.

This isn't right! I thought. And I believe that 'down in our gut' as humans we know that things just shouldn't be this way. Such decay and death is all messed up - a world made very good turned upside down. But amidst this helpless frustration my mind went over to another cry, a voice that assures that it will not always be this way - some day all the twisted lots in life will finally be straightened, never again to bend:

"For behold, I create new heavens

and a new earth,

and the former things shall not be remembered

or come into mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever

in that which I create;

for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,

and her people to be a gladness.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem

and be glad in my people;

no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping

and the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it

an infant who lives but a few days,

or an old man who does not fill out his days,

for the young man shall die a hundred years old,

and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit;

they shall not plant and another eat;

for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,

and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain

or bear children for calamity,

for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD,

and their descendants with them.

Before they call I will answer;

while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;

the lion shall eat straw like the ox,

and dust shall be the serpent’s food.

They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain,"

says the LORD.

quote of the day

"Anyone who is used of God is just living proof that God still speaks through rocks and donkeys. That's about all you can say about it."

-Paul Washer

any way the wind blows...

Happy April 1st everybody...