The lonely tracks (a place description)

Blackness scours the sky with lashes of silver sun streaks. The hills rise, a dark pallid green in the failing light, bumbling like drunks into the jagged rocky slopes of Mt. Reneir. The tracks lie heavily -- steel and cedar, an endless line of dead immigrants and convicts -- in rutted channels dug out of the hillside. They wind around some smaller peaks and disappear near the muted purple remains of the euthanized day. The treeline at the edge of the rocky cliffs is patterned with old-growth firs and younger quaking asps, at once dying and begetting, generations of sentinels casting shadows over a hushed domain.

No idea what happens there - seems like a pretty nice place though.

Tonight, tonight

We'll crucify the insincere tonight. How about that?

What's really going on?

There's a broken window in our dining room that I broke when trying to get it open one evening about nine months ago. I haven't fixed it yet. It's covered with a piece of cardboard and sealed with blue painter's tape. We recently quelched an insane black fly problem in the kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom, mostly due to the fact that I bought screening materials but have not screened the windows yet. I have gained 50 pounds in the last year, which I attribute to stress and lack of time - 'school takes all my time' (which is B.S.). I keep telling myself that I will be graduating in just a couple of months and then I'll get back in shape. Some resolution. The truth is I can't wake up in the mornings and am often a few minutes late to work.

I have not done any kind of daily devotional Bible reading in months. My eczema has been pretty bad this summer. Sometimes I wonder if I should correlate the two.

Today a big rig dumped an entire truck load of wet asphalt across three lanes of the only freeway that will get me home. I moved about four miles in two hours.

But on one very awesome note, my wife and kids have found a way to get along together. They discovered Montessori homeschooling, and everyone is benefiting greatly from it. Amazingly (although I'm at work while this goes on), I am benefiting the most. The kids are happier and a little better behaved. This has dropped a great weight from my shoulders where I had always blamed myself for their constant misbehavior.

We've been getting in Bible time with the kiddos most nights, and every night when I put them to bed I read them six or seven chapters of the Bible while they calm down and try to go to sleep. In the last few weeks we have read Job, Mark, Deuteronomy and tonight we read half of Romans. Even if this is way beyond them now, I hope the questions and comments will start flooding out of them soon. I plan to keep this up. It's probably the only good thing I have ever done for them.

I told my kids tonight that I am so sick of hearing them complain when I put them in their beds. After I put out all the fires, they actually knocked out with little hullabaloo. I hope you're sick of me doing the same thing. From now on, the complaints department is closed.

I've had enough of myself too. If you see me complain again, remind me to give myself a spanking.

Tonight, tonight.

What things are you sick of yourself for? Lay them at the cross. Jesus died for those things too.

You reap what you sow

I'm a good driver. A great driver even. According to the DMV and my insurance company, I'm an ACE. I haven't gotten a ticket in 8 years or had an accident in 6.

And then...

I got pulled over twice this morning. Within 3 hours of each other. The first one gave me a speeding ticket. I was doing 78 in a 55 (but he only wrote me for 70). The second one let me go. I actually wasn't doing anything wrong the second time.

I started looking at my arms. Has living in the desert darkened my skin? Does my car match a stolen vehicle? Why did I get pegged this morning? And then it hit me. It hit me with vigor and clarity.

Amos. I listened to Amos yesterday while driving to work. He's a minor prophet but a major hitter. He accuses the nation Israel of all of their heinous sins before God, and worst of all, accuses them of being unrepentant. He tells them that because of their sins, "prepare to meet your God". He gives them consequences. He explains God's justice system a little more clearly.

After that was over I was like, "that was heavy". Then I turned on the radio to a Christian Talk station I listen to every so often to hear pastor Lance Sparks quoting James and Paul and others in the New Testament about how sin leads to death and all sin carries consequences, whether or not it is repented of and forgiven by God. Examples? They abound. You rob a grocery store: you go to jail. You curse at your spouse in anger: your kids hear it, and then they turn out just like you. You shirk your homework: you don't pass. You don't spend quality time with your family: they flounder and sink, and you live unfulfilled. Whether or not these crimes are forgiven, the consequences remain the same. The Bible says it very clearly: You reap what you sow.

I have been unintentional lately about many things. I have rarely read my Bible (I'm just too busy...), have not spent much quality time with my family, have used homework as an excuse to get out of doing things and then hardly ever actually do my homework in those times, I have been hit or miss with praying for my family and my neighbors each day, let Bible time with the kids fall off the cliff, etc. And now, emergency after emergency at home. A miscarriage. Bleeding and disobedient children. A frustrated and drowning wife. Clogged sinks. Extended family problems. Hospital bills. Bank overdrafts. And now, traffic tickets, traffic school, the stress of being pulled over twice in three hours.

After I said "thank you" to the gentleman who had handed me a citation and shook his hand, I thanked God for the reminder. There are consequences to my actions. This was a very minor one. I needed a slap on the wrist. I deserve a hell of a lot more than that. Thank you Lord for your mercy and for always seeing me through, even when I am keeping you at arm's length you find a way to tap my shoulder and bring me back.

What kinds of things remind you that God is in control and doesn't let you get away with things?