9/25/07

BUSH PULLS TROOPS FROM IRAQ - INVASION OF MEXICO IMMINENT

(NOTE: Just to set the record straight - this article was originally written in 2005, with the exception of the "border wall" reference, which I added in the summer of 2007. Apparently, a movie came out in 2007 (Delta Farce) that bears a resemblance to my article. Hackers!)


(Washington) In a hastily arranged news conference held last night, President Bush announced the planned withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. He then stunned the nation and the world by adding, “But the invasion of Mexico appears inevitable.”

The president’s explanation that Iraq was ready to control its own destiny met with widespread skepticism considering the current military and political climate in that country. Bush was quick to defend his plan, noting, “The fellas to our south are having troubles of their own, and we have a responsibility to share our expertise with the entire world, not just the Middle East.”

Bush confirmed that U.S. Army Rangers were already massing along the Rio Grande for what he called Pancho Villa II, an obvious reference to the unsuccessful search for the Mexican bandit during the last U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1916.

Some Washington insiders say the president’s decision was based on the report from the Office of Immigration Statistics in the Department of Homeland Security, which indicated that over 6 million of the current 11 million illegal aliens are from Mexico.

The president confirmed that in a hand-count vote over lunch last week, the White House staff gave Mexico a “dwarf” designation, eliminating them from the status and privileges of a bonafide country. That vote resulted in all land in Mexico becoming private property, and thus, subject to the 2005 Supreme Court ruling on annexing private land.

Bush stated that if his plan met with Congressional opposition he was prepared to produce reliable intelligence sources who would confirm the existence of WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in Mexico.

The news conference did shed new light on the story out of Texas last week regarding the sudden suspension of all work on the border wall. An anonymous spokesman for Walls International, the sub-contractor currently constructing the wall between the United States and Mexico, reportedly told the Laredo Ledger that the company was told to cease all work immediately. The spokesman also said they were told to submit blue prints for constructing a wall around the White House, instead.

In a related story, the president’s brother and former Florida governor, Jeb Bush, has been on vacation in Mexico with his family for the last month. According to a close family friend, they have been looking at real estate in Mexico City.

9/23/07

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, COVENANT WOMAN

Saturday, September 22, 2007. Thirty -four years of marriage. Not many times am I left struggling for words. Words have always come easy for me - too easy, some say.

But such is the case on this anniversary. People are always telling me how blessed I am and do I know how lucky I am to have a wife like Cindy. Duh, like I wouldn't know that! To quote a great man, " I ain't no physcikist, but I knows what matters."

For this year, I believe I will borrow the words of a song to express my feelings:

COVENANT WOMAN
Covenant woman got a contract with the Lord
Way up yonder, great will be her reward
Covenant woman, shining like a morning star
I know I can trust you to stay where you are

And I just got to tell you I do intend
To stay closer than any friend
I just got to thank you once again
For making your prayers known
Unto heaven for me and to you, always, so grateful
I will forever be

I've been broken, shattered like an empty cup
I'm just waiting on the Lord to rebuild and fill me up
And I know He will do it 'cause He's faithful and He's true
He must have loved me so much to send me someone as fine as you

Covenant woman, intimate little girl
Who knows those most secret things of me that are hidden from the world
You know we are strangers in a land we're passing through
I'll always be right by your side, I've got a covenant too

And I just got to tell you I do intend
To stay closer than any friend
I just got to thank you once again
For making your prayers known unto heaven for me
And to you, always, so grateful I will forever be.

Bob Dylan
Saved / 1980

PS In case you didn't get that earlier quote - it was from POPEYE, the 1980 movie. 1980 was a good year.

9/9/07

Bound for Life

Jesus, I plead your blood over my sins and the sins of my nation. God, end abortion and bring revival to America .

9/8/07

THANK YA'LL

Can’t help but feel a little nostalgic this morning. I’ve been giving some misty eyed thought to my conversion and the people involved in it. You see, it’s my birthday. Thirty-five years ago, August 11, 1972—I was born again. About 8:00 pm, to be exact. I’ve been thinking about all those who had a part in my salvation experience and how thankful I am for them.

First of all, there would have to be my heavenly father, who invaded my life of pleasure and persistently pursued me. Then, there’s my parents, who raised me in the Congregational Holiness Church, which I believe is the smallest denomination in the world.

It was in that little church that, as a child, I was exposed to the manifestation of the Holy Ghost. I was not a Christian but the exposure left a lasting impression on me.

I was attending Trinity Baptist Church, in Palatka. Florida, when I was saved. I was pushing twenty years old. The pastor, Buddy Hogarth, and the Trinity family were genuine Christians, accepting me but praying for me, as I had never claimed to be a Christian.

I liked to hang out with the youth group, which my good friend, Clint Johnson, was a part of. Oh, and there was also this really cute girl in the youth group, Cindy Green. Cindy would later give me the great honor of becoming my wife.

Cindy’s mom and dad were very special, an integral part of the little church. Clint’s mom and dad, Shot and Betty, were also pillars in the church and accepted me as a third son. But, again, I was not a Christian and never said I was.

There is certainly a lesson there! As a youth pastor, I see the danger of becoming gospel hardened-to be so saturated with the gospel that you build up a spiritual immunity to conviction. This is especially true with kids who are raised in Christian families, attend Christian schools and are in church every service.

You may be asking, “So, what is the lesson?” The lesson is to be honest with yourself. Your soul is too important for spiritual games. I never claimed to be a Christian because my lifestyle spoke volumes against any such claim.

As I tell young people, often, “You cannot become a Christian through osmosis.” God doesn’t decide, because you have hung out with Christians for years and worked on some outreach projects, that you now meet the criteria for becoming a Christian. You can sleep in your garage every night but you will never wake up in the morning as a Porsche. No, one becomes a Christian at a specific point in time, a point in time that can be marked. I realize that some folks were saved at an early age and remembering the date, etc. can prove difficult. But still, it was a point in time.

Anyway, Jay Johnson, Clint’s little brother, actually led Clint and myself in our salvation prayer, around a coffee table that night in 1972. As I recall, Clint was saved as soon as he asked Jesus into his heart. Having been raised a Baptist, Clint was oblivious to the Pentecostal concept that I was privy to, called “praying through.” Clint lived out of town but Jay and I subsequently shared many great times in the Lord together.

So, again, thank you to all who shared in my conversion, especially that cute girl from the youth group. You made August 11 and my whole life—special.

NO DR. DOOLITTLE

My record with the animal kingdom has been pathetic. From the time I was a child I just never had much luck with critters. But I was thinking that maybe, since I am now 54 years old, that things had changed. I was wrong. A short summation of my history with animals is probably in order.

But, before I begin, I feel a need to assure you that I never became a serial killer, as some statistics might suggest of someone with my history. I was never really sadistic. Not that it is a blanket excuse, but most of what I am sharing is just the old school, rural Palatka, Florida way of living.

In the early 1960’s, while I was in elementary school, I found a little squirrel, took him in and named him Jasper. I shelled pecans and fed them to him, lots of them. So many, in fact, my dad said that was what killed him. But I only had him for a week, so his parting was not traumatic for me.

When I was in junior high school, my parents bought me, and my five younger siblings, a $50.00 bargain nag. In horse years, Goldie was about 135 years old. She was extremely swayback and was winded, which meant you could hear her breathing about 30 seconds before you saw her.

I ran her into the ground, literally. Her breast was so small, the equivalent to a blue jay’s, her front legs knocked together when she ran, causing her to often stumble to her knees. Without dismounting, I would just slap her until she struggled back to her feet. I buried her in the pasture a couple of years later, never shedding a tear.

I was in high school when my uncle gave my mama a Chihuahua that he bought in Mexico. In those Palatka days, a Chihuahua was nothing more than a glorified cat—probably today, too. Missy had bulging eyes, was always nipping at your heels and ran on three legs, keeping her left rear leg up in the air.

Missy had a strange little quirk—she went into heat about every three weeks. My dad put her in the hay loft whenever she was feeling amorous, her leash tethered to a rafter.

Being the oldest of six kids, I inherited the responsibility of watering and feeding the demon dog every day. One day I climbed into the loft to find she had fallen, or jumped, over the edge, hanging herself. To this day my family, even my own mother, believes that I hung the dog. My lack of remorse didn’t help my case any. Of course, I did not, and have never purposely killed a domesticated animal.


But wait, there’s more! When I was 27, some friend’s asked me to watch their dog while they took a vacation. It was a hot July but I wouldn’t let their “house dog” in my house, an outside laundry room being her temporary home. She almost died before my friends returned, because I refused to take the dog to the vet when she started to stagger around the yard and urinate blood.

Amazingly, 10 years later, the same friends asked me to drop by their home and check on their dogs, cat and hamsters while they were on another vacation. Having personal knowledge of my history, it would seem that David and Barbara Mason were the sadistic ones for recruiting me a second time.

The critters were in a screened-in area on a back porch. On a visit one afternoon I found the porch door ajar and the hamster cage empty, the only hamster sign being some fur on the floor. I thought about it, but my wife insists that I actually did it—putting up some crime scene tape and drawing a couple of hamster outlines on the floor with some chalk.

When I was in my mid thirties, I relented to the incessant pleas of my children and picked up a little mutt for them, with the understanding that they would have to water, feed and clean up after him.

You guessed it, yours truly ended up performing those duties. I put him outside the fence when we took a family vacation, thinking he would relocate to a house where folks would take care of him. It worked.

Now, fast forward to July, 2007. A stray cat took up residence on our front porch toward the end of July. The grandchildren and some other kids my wife was watching for the summer became attached to the cat. But my wife and I both refused to let them feed or water the cat, fearing that it would never leave.

The stray would leave during the day but return every afternoon and stay throughout the night, meowing at the front door. This lasted for two weeks. Then, I decided to take the cat to another neighborhood, so it could take up with a cat-loving family who would feed and water him.

I coaxed him into my truck, drove a couple of miles from my neighborhood and put him out. As I drove away, I felt a sickening thud. The cat had darted under my truck and I ran over him, killing him. It was an accident, but apparently one befitting only me.

After the unfortunate accident, as I was driving to church, which is where I was heading when the idea to relocate the feline first came to me, I began to cry. Now, I can not adequately relate how confusing this was to me. Crying over a dead animal, stray or pet, accident or homicide, was totally alien to me—especially a cat.

As I was driving and wiping my eyes, I said out loud, “What is going on, I can’t believe this?” I wondered if I was just getting old and sentimental or if God was showing me something. And though I am getting more sentimental with age, the latter was the case.

The Lord showed me that I was feeling compassion. The compassion was not for the cat, though that in itself would seem to have some merit. No, the compassion I was feeling was for my grandchildren. I was hurt as I thought about the hurt Peyton and Jordan would feel, if they knew about the cat’s death.

My mind went immediately to the passage I had been studying on the “little ones” (see July 07’ blog) and how the organized church has a responsibility to embrace and assimilate the young in this current youth revival. The little ones, though obviously applying to children, also applies to the young in the Faith, the weak or the immature.

God further revealed to me that just as I felt compassion over my grandchildren’s loss, I should feel compassion for the losses suffered by the young in the Faith, the weak or the immature. The attack of the enemy of their souls should concern me, his theft of their dreams should arouse compassion in me, the destruction of their health should cause a righteous anger in me.

Those who know me can attest to the fact that God using a cat to teach me anything is nothing short of miraculous in itself. Who knows, maybe the Lord is opening up a whole new area in the animal kingdom for me. Nah.