It is near the ending of an old argument—when bombs have dropped, do more solve the problem? Is there such a thing as holy fire? And can a man who thinks he is a god ever truly raise the white flag and
Surrender without conditions.
She was a strikingly pretty college student with a disconcerting way of saying truly disfiguring things as though she was doing an elevator pitch for a rom-com puppet movie.
She said the “idea was based on a childhood friend,” and that the horror movie centered on the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of the Christian God (wait for it)…being the malevolent antagonistic killer!
Quite. A. Plot. Twist!
Somehow in the process of writing a home-cooked horror movie she managed to pull off an egregious character assassination of both her childhood “friend” and mine.
I listened aghast as emblems of rescue and redemption were suborned for a Mean-Girls-meets-The-Shining revenge plot.
At one point the thinly-veiled childhood-friend-turned-megalomaniac-killer-omnipotent-deity murders the protagonist after repeating a common Christian invocation of the Trinity.
She got a fan-girl response from many in the audience with questions about whether her movie was going to be produced, possibly with the support of the university?
Afterwards, I broached a few questions—
Was she concerned about alienating over a billion Christians?
Had she shown the manuscript to the “childhood friend?”
Had she considered making a fictitious murderous-god-antagonist to vilify instead of the explicitly stated Real One?
Had she or would she run all this by Him?
It is a gut check to have to listen to someone you love get raked through the fire of untrue and scourging misrepresentation.
But this was not Jesus’ first rodeo.
He paid the price for my ransom and hers, and whether she could or would see it, his drowning snd destruction in the abyss of human violence and folly was, is, and will be our only way out of it.
It is “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” not primarily because we are so broken, but because he was-for us, and that should require a response.
My childhood friend has saved me from the deep end so many times. I would be lost without him.
Thank you, Jesus.
Isaiah 49:1-2 NIV
[1] Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name. [2] He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.
They pepper me with questions on the way to the office. When it is just the three of us we can lean into our survivors’ solidarity—
How do birds fly? What are shooting stars?
I want to say you are shooting stars, bright bits of light in night sky, not stars, but bits of iron and silicate broken from the mother rock
Contrails in the inky sky
I wanted to share this because it seems to bd pretty thorough—
In my mind I have a picture of my maternal grandmother, mother of 11 children, flawed but beautiful
She looked like a grandmother—skin settling in, soft. Her hair went gray early but her face was always delicate and lovely
I am a grandmother now, and many of the adjectives apply to me—soft, round, wrinkled.
Fat to be blunt.
I am fine with all of this. I made a deal with myself years ago that I would see my aging process as an experiment in entropy—eventually gravity will have its due with us all.
I went on a deep dive this morning looking at a host of cosmetic procedures—surgeries, lasers, radio waves, deep tissue this or that—all promising to make a body toned, sculpted, and smooth.
I don’t really believe most of them work, but even if I did, I don’t believe they are for me.
I am supposed to “know God and glorify Him forever.”
https://www.apuritansmind.com/westminster-standards/shorter-catechism/
The words spill out about a horror movie you showed them and I say excuse me girls I need to make a brief phone call
And walk to the phone booth at the end of the world—
Just a couple of Dixie cups and grubby yarn but a good enough connection for me to
Shout
I am so angry at you! How could you have picked monsters instead of little girls? How could you have let them see all those scary movies? The too-real monster men? The empty ache for an awake mama?
I am so pissed at you
No wonder they have been angry too
Few leaves stay behind strung to winter branches
Those that remain anchored by the unseen
Yet they still speak
Wind-whirl
Sun-soaked
Small brown ghosts
Worship
