Oh well, what ever.  I get on my bike and work my way over to 270 heading up to Frederick for a quick ride. I haven’t gone but a few miles up the road when I realize something odd is coming up in the left lane. Here goes mr. pocket rocket, standing up on his rear pegs with the front wheel of his bike a good 4 feet off the ground. Yup the show off was going down the highway at 70-75 mph doing a wheelie. So he goes on past me and I’m riding my ride, shaking my head at his little show, when he decides to bring everything back to earth – and that’s when it all goes bad.

Something happened when the front wheel touched the road surface, maybe the tire wasn’t lined up perfect, I don’t know, but what I saw was the front end violently wobbling and then the whole bike shaking. In an instant the bike flipped itself onto it’s far side creating what’s termed a “high side” fall for the rider. The rider was tossed to the ground in front of the bike with the bike then running back over him. Needless to say there was general pandemonium on 270 as everyone locked up their brakes trying to avoid hitting the downed biker.

So what if you were me in this story? What would be your initial reaction? Are you thinking, “what an idiot – that’s what you deserved”, or….? Do you have compassion and care how badly he’s injured or if he’s even still alive?

If you reminisce about your more youthful endeavors, how many hair brained, lame things did you do? How many of them can you look back on now shaking your head in wonder that you’re still around to tell a “story”?

BTW – this is just partially a true story (right up the last paragraph). When the guy really did bring the bike back down he proceeded to rocket across all 4 lanes of traffic and shot up an off ramp doing about 80 mph. And yes my thoughts were more along the lines of,  “what a jack a$$”, “where’s a cop when you need one”, and even “I’d have laughed if you’d laid it down.”

Yeah, Mercy is one of the spiritual gifts that needs improvement.

Well if this has ever been the case then I’d like to share with you something that a good friend at work just shared with me this morning.

Coming soon to a Walmart near you will be the talking Jesus doll. No more feeling alone. Have the likeness of our Lord and Savior right in front of you. Hear His words of wisdom and have your faith exponentially enlarged.

And for our Catholic brethren the Blessed Virgin will also soon be made available. Never before has it been so easy for the saints to lift up in adoration the mother of our Lord. How much easier it will be to ask for intercessory prayer.

Check out this website for updates, and if you’re in need for a little fuzzy loving pick up a teddy bear while you’re there.

Oh and if you’re questioning the ‘rightness’ of this product rest assured – Pastor Jack Hayford has given this product his highest endorsement.  Need we say more?!

The lake was ringed by the leafless, barren, winter trees that stood about like spectators waiting in silent expectation for some as yet unstated play to unfold. Their stark shadows splayed out foreboding and ominous. Spectral dark fingers that reached out to take hold of me and pull me into their bosom, hurrying my steps ever toward the center of the lake.

If you’ve ever been to a frozen lake then you’ll know the sounds that the frozen ice will make as it expands and heaves. There were deep boomings that sounded like they were coming from the bottom of the lake. The echoes from the sound rippled from shore to shore, coming back to me off the hills. Popping and cracking sounds that I could feel beneath my feet leaving me to wonder if my next step would leave me floundering in the icy water. But now there was a muffled sound reaching my ears, and as I continued to make my way to the center of the lake the noise became more distinct. It was a lite pounding or hitting that I was hearing and it seemed to come from directly beneath me.

I looked down and all I could see was the milky white ice. But as I continued to stare downward and the noise grew increasingly distinct I saw the ice become clearer so I could see the water beneath. But it wasn’t water that I was seeing, but upturned faces, pressed up against the underside of the ice. Fists pounding, nails futilely clawing against the bottom of the ice. The faces of a multitude silently screaming in the horror of being trapped beneath the ice with no way to escape. Each person alone, raging in anguish against the nightmare in which they found themselves.

All of this happened in mere seconds. And as I continued to stare down at my feet and the faces looking back up at me I realized that they couldn’t even see me. They weren’t pleading with me directly to release them from their prison, they were just trying to escape. And it wasn’t to get out of where they were but to get to where they wanted to be. Even as my mind reeled at what I was seeing I understood the meaning of this nightmare. This was an image of the damned, each trapped, frozen in isolation, separated from God. It was with that heart rending knowledge that I startled myself awake, drenched in a cold sweat.

It’s been years since I had that dream, but the memories and the images have been burned into my mind. Time has not lessened the feelings of horror and dread that I witnessed in that dream, if anything time has further clarified my understanding. I believe that coming before the Judgment Throne of God, we will all be allotted the opportunity to not just see but know who are Creator truly is. We will feel His majesty to our core. Our spirits will leap in recognition. We will smell the morsels from our Masters table and our souls will taste the mist that blows off the fountain of living water. And just as quickly, for those who never called him Lord, they will find themselves torn from his presence, cast into an eternity of separation. Hell is knowing what you could have had. Hell is feeling the Glory of God wash over you (even while being condemned) and knowing that you will never feel anything like it again. Hell is finding yourself alone, without any contact or comfort and where the only solace is the memories of your own pitiful existence played out over and over and over and over till then end of all…

There is no end that’s the hell of it.

Sweet dreams,
Rong

Well I have a garden. I’ve had one for almost 20 years now. I worked very hard at getting it, but at the time the work was all pure joy. No matter how much of myself I put into it I felt that I was getting double the return. For a time I did find contentment in it. There was nothing better at the end of a long day than to spend time tending it all of it’s various needs. My wife was/is equally devoted to (now) our garden. It took a little bit of doing on my part to convince her to work with me, but she did. With slight variations in breadth of vision, she caught on to the same dream and diligently worked beside me. At times we would even talk about how we could expand our garden. We knew it was a grandiose idea, yet it had appeal.

However, as time passed I became complacent about tending to the gardens needs. Weeds would sprout up and I would more often than not, try to ignore them. There would be long dry spells and the garden would need watering, but that would have entailed me going out in the heat and so I’d just turn away hoping that a summer rain would nourish it. My wife would come home from an even rougher day and she’d still go out into the garden to tend it, but there was no longer any joy. The garden had just become another job to deal with. Because she’s not the procrastinator that I am, she’d make sure the garden doesn’t die, but at the same time she felt very alone in taking care of it. Because of her diligence and my lack I grew angry with myself, but all too often would turn that anger on her. Now don’t get me wrong, there were times I’d still get into working on the garden with the same glee that I had years ago. On a cool summer morning, even before I’d had breakfast, I could find the joy that I had been missing and even conjure up those more youthful visions of what the garden could become. But those days were few and far between. More often than not, I’d work on the garden so as not to get in trouble with my wife. The garden was not the place of quiet solitude and happiness that it once was.

I used past tense verbs in the previous paragraph on purpose. In the past 2 months I have realized, through more than a little help, that my lack of attention to the garden is causing irreparable harm. I had thought, or at least hoped, that the little bit of attention that I was giving it was enough to sustain it. Of course I was also overly relying on my wife to hold it all together. The reality is that the garden may look good when we clean out the weeds but the soil lacks the nutrients needed to continue using it. So instead of doing the maintenance work all along that was needed, I find myself having to regroup my efforts and begin from scratch giving the garden a fresh start. It’s going to mean a lot of time and energy on my part to clean out all the dead plants and re till the soil, but the investment that I’ve already made, and that my wife has made, is too great to let it continue to fall apart. We both still have our vision of an abundant garden flowing with the fruits (or vegetables) of our labor.

I’m sure you can see past my cute little analogy and realize that this post isn’t about rutabagas. I have to give a hat tip to the Maestro for inspiring this post. His story of being a young boy working in his vegetable garden really got me thinking. His vision of working in a garden and the joy that he had in those simple tasks made me consider the garden that I have in my family. I think you can easily see the correlation. I think you can also understand how easy it is to become complacent in tending that which our good Lord has given to us. By putting this into the perspective of a gardner I began to realize a number of what are really quite basic truths.

Like gardening, being in a marriage and raising a family take work. You can’t sit back on your laurels and expect your family to flourish as if by magic. Work involves sweat, it means you have to be willing to get dirty and when it comes to the distractions (weeds) of the world, it takes tenacity and constant vigil to keep them at bay. But look at the fruit that we recieve from our labors. I told my son the other evening; “It’s not the job that I find personal satisfaction in. No one gets a big ego stroke because they are an accountant, manager, developer, etc. It’s from the work performed and the accomplishments seen. Joy is the ledger sheet that balances out at the end. The employee that says thanks because you took that extra step or the application that actually works as planned.” I find joy, satisfaction and contentment when I look at my family and know that I am doing all that I can for them, no matter what my circumstances may be.

I have to personally learn to take this message to heart. I have to remind myself that it’s just not going to happen without effort on my part. Like the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) how can I expect to be entrusted with more if I am not dilligent with what I have already been given. You see one day I hope that I’m going to be called on to expand my garden. I’m hoping when that day comes it’s not going to be a larger garden or an added plot, but a full blown farm.

There before me now I could see the front of the line moving up before him. And, I saw The Judge, larger than life, sitting at a great, white stoned, judges bench. Before him laid the great book and each of us knew that therein was a page devoted solely to us. As the line moved forward I could make out what was being done. A person would stand before the Judge, who would then turn to a page in the book and without saying a word the person before him would suddenly reel in terror. I don’t know what they saw, but I know I didn’t want to see it. I’ve never seen such a look of horror and panic, of repugnance and physical revulsion. Their body literally contorting under the insanity of what they saw, the scream unable to escape their lips. And then just as quickly they would vanish. And the next person would step forward. Over and over I witnessed the same horrifying scene unfold before me, the line ever diminishing, moving me closer to the Judge to be judged.

And now it was my turn. The judges bench loomed before me like a gallows, the Final Authority staring down at me with implacable eyes and a grave countenance upon his face. He turned the pages in the book and with the index finger of his right hand he pointed at what I knew to be the first words on my page. Just as quickly, I knew what it was that all the people before me had seen. A mirror began forming in my mind and I knew that I was about to see myself and all my past deeds through the eyes of my Judge. In that infinitesimal moment, I inwardly curled into a fetal ball. Dreading with every ounce of my being what I was about to see, knowing that it was going to wash over me like raw sewage. But in that same instance, instead of what I was bracing myself for, a brilliant, radiance reflected back towards me. The light was so bright that in my mind I had to avert my gaze, the heat blowing past me like a warm summers day. I tried to make out what I was seeing and realized that there was someone else standing in between myself and the Judge, it was His reflection that the Arbiter saw and not my own. And with that the mirror vanished as quickly as it had appeared and the countenance of the Judge had changed, a look of acceptance now appearing on his face.

And me, instead of producing a soundless cry of endless horror, there birthed now only silent tears of joy.

Submitted for the Unfettered Monk.

"THE ELEVENTH HOUR"

 Ramblings of A Mad Man

     Of course it is after Eleven, when is it ever not this absurd hour before I once more take pen to hand ? You ask what insanity drives me to this tablet this evening, and for once I have had more than a passing thought on a subject, for this has cut me to the quick and then held me in the warm embrace of certainty.

     The thought  that crossed my mind  today is I’m sure one  that we have all had a time or two, and yet for some reason today it decided to stick with me until I felt compelled to put some thought to the question… What happens to us in Heaven?, and I don’t mean what are we changed into ( angels and such ) , but what happens to the self, what happens to that which makes me, ME? With all the majesty one imagines when  thinking about heaven, I had to wonder how easy  it would be to lose ones self when in the glory of Gods  Kingdom…. I can imagine myself being caught up and whirled away like a leaf by the majestic maelstrom of Gods loving presence.

      With this in my mind I had to ponder on what it would be like to pass from this world and enter into His. To feel the Fathers love filling every ounce of my being, and for a moment; a moment that transcends all of eternity, a moment when time has no meaning I, ME, MY SELF, no longer exists…

      For only a moment, and then I am once more conscious of my own presence. In the brief time that it takes me to grasp that I am still whole  I realize that I am now seated before a potters wheel . I’m not working the wheel, but I am watching someone working with a large piece of moistened clay. The clay is slowly spinning on the wheel, turning round and round, and  I am firmly rooted in watching this lopsided blob of clay spin endlessly. It is at this point that I hear  a voice unlike any I have heard before. A voice that resonates through out my body. Not because of its volume but because every fiber of my being recognizes the Creator.

     As I stare transfixed at the clay I see His hands begin to work the clay. His hands aged by an eternity of work, are hardened with calluses and yet they are full of subtle grace as they shape the clay. I want to look up and see the Teachers face, but at the same time I know that I shouldn’t, and  even if I did I’m not really sure I’d see anything past His hands. At this point  the words that He has been speaking start to form in my befuddled head.

     " I am the  Potter and everything  you’ve ever seen, everything you know of, and even that which you know not of is by my will and design. All of the creatures of Heaven and Earth are my creations. I am the artist of all that there is or ever will be. As you see the clay take form so it is with life as you know it. It starts as nothing, and then I touch it and breath life into it. As I draw the clay upwards so I draw up a man. I form him and shape him to be my creation, my individual creation. For I am the master artist and none of my works are the same. But unlike the piece of clay you see before  you I give man the freedom of choice. A piece of clay will sometimes lose its shape and the artist must start over. So it is with man."

     As I watched the clay formed it was turned from a useless mass of clay into a beautiful vase, with graceful swirls rising up from its’ base to it’s open mouth. The vase didn’t outwardly look so different from others I have seen, yet upon further inspection I could see that while simple in its’ overall design there was a perfect symmetry to its’ shape. In my heart I knew that only Gods hands could have made the vase I saw before me. The wheel slowed its spinning, and my Lord stretched out his left hand pointing to an enormous pile of broken pottery.

     " These represent the broken souls that would not heed my calling and chose wrongly. Always falling short of allowing me to enter their lives they finally became too dry and hard for me to work with any longer. In the end all they will ever know is what they could have been, and they will lament in their folly for eternity. Know my child that as an artist I am greatly saddened  at the loss of such, but for each of these that have fallen there are these."

     With that He stretched out His right hand  and I saw row upon row of the most exquisite pottery. All the pieces were fired and painted to such a perfection that they dazzled my eyes to look upon. Each piece was as different from the one next to it as the infinite flakes of snow in a mid winter blizzard.

     " These represent the souls saved from destruction. Each of these is a complete and individual masterpiece reflecting my love."

     Slowly the scene dissolved from around me and I awoke to find that I had fallen asleep in my chair… But in the back of my mind I could hear my Father calling out to me," Remember, there can be only one original. No artist would ever have a copy around when he still had the original, and always know, I am the artist of the universe. So rest in peace knowing that as you are you shall remain. The only change shall be the changing of the dirty rags that cover your heart, for these shall be cleansed , mended and returned as kingly raiment upon your soul."