Daddy is away. Respect Mother.

I am away from the innernets until the mid-20s of this month. I am in one of the AIDS capitals of the world, that being South Africa.

I will be building cinder block houses, and Didi will be visiting AIDS victims in their homes. It will rip her heart out of her soul.

We'll be staying, for at least part of our time there, with black families in the township of Mamelodi, outside Pretoria. What we're going to go do is not magical or spiritual-looking, but it matters. I don't think the enemy likes it when we start sniffing around the poor and disenfranchised, so pray for us when you get the chance. Also, this:

Some Things Matter

When I make a poot, I want it to be as loud as possible. So I always push it out. I want it to QUACK, for crying out loud.

But sometimes, because I'm pushing it out so often, I get a little hemorrhoidal. I loosen an O ring.

[poot!]
(giggle.)

The Glorious Use of Sin

Let's call this man "Trent".

You're walking uptown and you meet Trent. You know nothing of him. You stare, exchange pleasantries, etc. At some point down the line, Trent sins against you. Aha! Now you've got him right where you want him. You didn't know how to 'minister' to Trent previously; you'd considered putting your hand on his arm and praying with him, but weren't sure how it'd come across. Now you have a great opportunity:

Isaiah 53:
4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

Before, it wasn't an option for you to bear up Trent's foibles. Now it is. After doing away with the petty temptations of unforgiveness and bitterness, you move into the place where you can actually deal with his junk before God in a way that will redeem him from his sin, and redeem you because you get to enter that much more into Jesus' heart. Yum!

When you were unrepentant, this opportunity was also not open to you. You were sentenced to working out life on your own, trying to make sense of your scene, and striving to create a world for yourself (in which others would be props) where you come out feeling good, safe, and as comfortable as possible. Whew! Glad that's over... now we can get onto reality.


If you will responsibly carry Trent's oopsies back to God and deal with them redemptively, you will enter into "the fellowship of sharing in [Christ's] sufferings, and, becoming like him in his death, somehow attain the resurrection from the dead." Wow! That sounds mysterious and crazy, but it also sounds wonderful. Painful? Yeah, sure, but every one of us is happy to experience pain to get something beautiful. That was built into us from the start.

-----------

The funny thing about this whole scenario is that I was born into a system of thinking that told me to run from all sin as far as I ever could. I was told to do that becuase God hates sin and also hates people who mess with sin. I now know that to be false. And I also now see that Jesus went around basically looking for sin. He was like a sin hunter, and he'd go absorb it everywhere he went. He'd suck it all up into himself and deal with it in himself. Like John Coffee (like the drink, only spelt differn't).

So the question for me is, what am I after? If it's comfort, then for goodness sake, stay away from sin! It's like spiritual poison! It hurts to get near it (maybe not instantly, but eventually)! It'll hook you up with this system that'll steal from you! Oh, but if you're after mercy (! oo! mercy!), well then, THERE's a horse of a differn't color. In THAT case, you might not MIND too much if your heart is used as a doormat, or you're ridiculed, or you have to stand up to strangers, or you have to defend someone who's smelly because of their own decisions. Yes, in THAT case, you might have that weird Pauline sort of APPETITE for what the Rod calls the "sweet storm" and might have some INTEREST (with misgivings--yeah, okay) in suffering in the right place for the right reasons.


It is my destiny to be like Jesus.
Jesus was a Sin Siphon.
A=C.

More Cereal Reviews! Spoilers Ahead!

I'll tell a story, then I'll make a point.

Get ready for a story. Didi came home recently with a cavalcade of packaged goods she bought at the local big box grocer. She knows the system, and my baby works the deals. One such product was a new cereal (my interest was immediately piqued): she'd bought it on sale, got an even better deal with that blasted frequent-shopper card (give me a moment here, for an extended parenthetical note...

CAN ANYONE STOP THE TREND OF THE FREQUENT SHOPPER CARD!?!?! My local PETROL supplier, for Petey's sake, now has a frequent shopper card! How many of these do we have to lug around with us to trade on the modern market? My friend David showed his RIDICULOUS wallet yesterday, filled to overflowing with items such as a Blockbuster card, which is unnecessary since they'll let you trade with just your driver's ID, a Starbuck's gift card with $0 on it, frequent buyer cards for Smoothie King, a pretzel place, Subway, Kroger's, etc. etc. It was disgusting. Simplify! Simplify! Simplify! Those blasted cards are likened to me as the convoluted process one must undergo at Radio Shack--headquartered in downtown Ft. Worth, Texas--to buy batteries. One must surrender one's address, telephone number, and mother's maiden name to patronize the place. I won't have it. I have cash money, and that will suffice. Egads. -mumble-

Ahem. now then.), and even more deeply discounted with an on-the-shelf coupon that the grocer (for reasons I don't understand) voluntarily doubled at the register. So she'd made off with $3 cereal at an introductory price of $1. Good girl.

Well, I was even more interested in having the cereal in my mouth by the spoonful than I was that Didi'd wrangled a great bargain on the product, so I sat down in our custom market research facility and set to work. My friends, what I experienced that day was a revelation: imagine Grape-Nuts (you may not be a fan. You may find it gravelly, pebbly, and generally inedible. I am not like you. But read on, nonetheless) WITHOUT the tooth-splitting hardness. It is light! It is airy! It is still crunchy! And these Grape-Nuts feature almond slivers (yes!) and raisins (I'm always down with the raisin). But the BEST part of this incredible new cereal is the Touch of Honey (TM). Holy smokes, you open up a box and you can SMELL the natural sweetness! Am I communicating its goodness?


Anyhow, I dug into this cereal and exclaimed, "Wow! This stuff is fantastic!" Didi came over and stole some of mine, employing her food-stealing skills of persuasion and chicanery, then said with resolve, "I'm getting my own bowl." We love the stuff. The day after this cereal festival happened was a Friday, which is my day off. Let's just say I made my way back to the big box grocer:

Cashier: So, I guess you really like that cereal, huh?
Me: Yes, i really do. You're correct in that assumption. My wife says the price on this stuff will never be any lower, since this is an introductory special and you guys are doubling the coupon and everything, so, I mean, since it's good 'til, like, 2008, stocking up makes a lot of sense. It's also delicious.
Cashier: Uh, okay. How many boxes you got there?
Me: 15. It's got a heart right on the box. That means it's good for me, right?
Cashier: (ignoring me, swinging the UPC Lightsaber around)

And that's the story, friends. My point is this: you should go out of your way to try new Grape-Nuts Trail Mix Cereal. I have forced several friends to try it, and the reaction is 100% enthusiastic approval. As a matter of fact, I had lunch that same Friday with Chris, who I entreated to take one of the 15 boxes of cereal in my car. Being a man of high principle, Chris insisted on buying his own. He has since passed on reccomendations to others. People, this is a quality product. Go. Eat.