The Cockroach Whisperer...

Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting on Denny's recliner wondering what to blog about for the night.  After rejecting the first few ideas (due to copyright infringements), I was getting desperate.  Until something extraordinary happened.

Stephen walked into the room and announced, with no inflection of voice, "There's a dinosaur on the ceiling."  Actually, there was a cockroach.  I would have far preferred the dinosaur.  

By this time, Stephen had left the room and returned with his personal "Bug Stop" spray bottle.  Stopping just below the wretched creature, he paused just long enough for Gregor to dislodge himself from the ceiling and *FLY* in a direct line toward my own speechless face.  Fortunately, his flying powers were not developed enough to make it all the way to my face, so he crash-landed just at my feet and scurried under my chair.

I was up faster than a cuckoo at the strike of twelve, curled up on the sofa just opposite.  Stephen, though momentarily frozen, was back in action and appeared completely unconcerned.  Ben lifted up the chair.  Denny looked on in horror.  Stephen stood armed and ready with his spray-bottle.  Gregor decided this was a good time to disappear.

Of course, none of us were all that thrilled about Gregor's latest decision, so Ben banged the chair down and set him running toward the space just below the carpet.  A clear boot-to-the-floor was in order, but no - that would be too easy.  Stephen insisted on the Bug Stop. 

Spray.  Dash.  Spray.  Shuffle.  Spray. Dart.  Spray.  Spray.  Disappear.

Gregor disappeared once more below another couch.  FAIL.

But Stephen again showed no signs of discouragement.  "He's going for the door."  And sure enough, just as we all gave the boy the evil eye, Gregor appeared again on the backside of Denny's sofa.  The spray war continued - with Gregor consistently leading the way *straight* to the door.

Stephen assured us the creature would leave in an honorable manner.  To the surprise of all the other occupants of the house, Gregor waltzed out the front door as soon as it was opened, leaving nothing but his memory behind.

I'm sure this has some sort of application to everyday life, but I will leave you to figure that one out - the story itself is enough for me.

Update from Stephen and his magical spray-bottle:

"I have secured the perimeter."

Hop on Pop

Pa.

A short name, yes.  But contained within those two letters are years of wonderment and glorious fatherdom.  Yes, it is Father's Day, and yes, that gives me every right to tell you how amazing mine is.

When I detached my skis in the middle of some obscure wooded regions of Vail, Colorado, he did not complain.  Nay - he put me on top of his own skis and within the hour, they were found.

When no one knew if we were really going to make it to Hawaii the next year, He got our hopes up.  Ma:  "Rick, don't get their hopes up."  Pa:  "We are GOIN'!"  Ma: (shakes head)  Childrens: (laugh hysterically)

When Halloween rolled around three years ago, he passed as a genuine harley davidson biker.  Only to be beaten by some foe who decided to wear one of those pre-made Roger Rabbit outfits.

When our love for dinosaurs and bones could not be satiated, he took us fossil hunting all over the States - and we've shark teeth in every cupboard to prove it.

When every other family we know calls their parents Mom and Dad, he let us call him Pa.

More on the "gut" and the greasemonkey...

Now, before you think: great - Alan's goes off to England for a few months and comes back believing in the paranormal, let me explain myself.  I know all this talk about visions and demons and the like is uncomfortable.  Especially for people tend toward the intellectual side of Christianity instead of the emotional/experiential side.  But it shouldn't be any more uncomfortable than anything you'd find in the book of Acts - demon possessions, visions, miraculous healings - it's all there.

If all goes as planned, I'll be able to explound to you my thoughts from the past week in an organized, understandable fashion.  Of course, the last time I posted, things did *not* go as planned.  In fact, just after I finished posting, my internet failed and I migrated outside my house where I sometimes get better reception (...I shamelessly steal the signal from my brother's house next door...).  As soon as I got outside, I realized the door behind me was locked, and my Ma was already long asleep.  FAIL.  I still didn't have internet access either, so all I could do was talk to myself while the wireless amoebas decided to start doing their job again.  (...they did...)

Anyways, I've been doing a good deal of thinking and dialoguing with a friend of mine on the whole unseen/spiritual/gut thing, or whatever you want to call it.  Twas a grand expedition (*almost* as good as Pooh's Expotition to the North Pole), and in the end we came to some satisfying conclusions.  Of course, the best part was the application dance....which looks like this: 

Some conclusions and speculations:

1. All sorts of people do have these experiences.  you can attribute it to some undigested bit of corn if you wish, but plenty of people who would have no reason to make up these sorts of stories just to feel like "special christians" - have these experiences, dreams, "gut knowings" as one of my friends puts it.  Choose to dismiss them all as coincidence, wishful thinking, or lies if you wish - I'm of the camp that believes they really happen (not that ALL the stories are true, of course).  And I wasn't in that camp until I sat down and actually thought about it.

2. They don't happen to everyone.  I know this because they don't happen to me, and never have.  If they are real though, should I want them to happen to me?  Three days ago, I would have said yes:  it's the whole "faith like a child bit" - I should open my mind more to the idea of unseen signs and direction and then God may use that method to reach me.  Now I've changed my mind, though (thanks, trusty dialogue partner).  more on this in a bit...

3. As I mentioned last time, these things seem to happen more often in places like Africa and the Amazon.  It makes sense to me that this is largely because our culture has almost entirely wiped out the concept of the spiritual world.  The influence of the Enlightenment philosophers and the scandal of the Salem Witch Trials didn't help the situation too much.  But this is not the case in Africa or the Amazon - the spiritual world is very much a part of daily reality - and they know it.  Are there more demons in Africa than in America?  I have no idea, but if demons are at all shrewd (which we have every reason to believe [Gen. 3]), they will probably want to go as unnoticed in our materialistic world as they want to go noticed in say, Africa.  In his preface to Screwtape, Lewis says this: "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight."

4.  But enough about demons.  Why should I not want to tap into this whole vision / revelation bit, if I believe it really happens?  Why should I not want to have "gut knowings"? In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells the folks he's writing to to "eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy..."  Now we figured this had something to do with the visions and gut knowings and such we've been talking about.  I can't give you the whole conversation, or you'd be reading this post for a few days more than you've already read if for...but here's a snippet -

thetalkingmouse:

So what you're suggesting is that if you aren't the vision type, it might not have anything to do with christian maturity or levels of belief...

but rather there are certain types that God uses visions and such for and others he doesn't.  Just like there are some people God uses to care for the children and others to care for the elderly...

neither is better or worse -but we should be willing at least, even if we aren't the vision types, to accept that certain people ARE.  

Believe them, but not go around looking for visions ourselves.

Oytak:

Yes.  That's what I mean.

I mean, Paul asks himself, "Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?" etc.  And what he really emphasizes are the three Christian cardinal virtures.  Which are vital to Christian maturity.

...Anyway, I suppose the conclusion I'm coming to is that God gives certain gifts to certain people, and it's probably not a good idea to "try harder" to "open our minds" in order to attain a gift that might not be designed for us?

...And I suppose the real test of a gift is whether or not it glorifies Christ; otherwise, there's major reason to doubt its validity.

So we all ought to be striving toward Faith, Hope, and Love, and cultivate the gifts God *does* give us.

And perhaps He just gives more emotional-based people gifts that speak more plainly to them? (aka more abstract gifts?) and to more reasoning-based people gifts that correpsond more to their midns (aka more instructive/expository gifts?)

...And perhaps some "visions" are just one time things.

5. The leg bone's connected to the...knee bone (!)

A good friend of mine is like me, in that she revels in the intellectual power of Christianity - in the nuances of the text, the brilliance of the imagery, the literary and historical genius of God's plan.  Her roommate two years ago, though was one of the types that's always stressing the experiential part of Christianity instead of the intellectual...in the end, she says, it was good for them both.  Strange at times, but good.  

Which means it's time for....

The truth is, we need both sides.  Not just individually, but as a group.  Right now, the "vision" type people mostly flock through charismatic church doors, and the intellects stay seated in their non-handclapping pews.  We need to do something about that - and it starts with people like you (that's right, you) and me either opening up more toward the intellectual side of faith or the emotional one, depending on which side of the spectrum you occupy.

And that can be exciting, really.  It's the thrill that we "intellectual Christians" get when we read a book like Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz.  Something that reminds us, even if only briefly, that spirituality isn't just about theology and whether or not suffering is a by-product of choice or what Bonhoeffer should have done if he was given a direct shot at Hitler.  It's about love, grief, hope, despair - raw emotion.

And I haven't even mentioned what this all has to do with greasemonkeys...

The elusive "gut" and other strange things...

It's storming again here in the 'Ham - which reminds me of a thought I had just the other day that was left as undeveloped as the South Pole.

The subject revolves around seen and unseen forces. The seen forces in this case are the electromagnetic flashes of light my friends' brother saw this weekend when he was struck by lightning (Note: he had a remarkably quick recovery and was laughing about it less than an hour later - which is wondrous indeed). The unseen forces - clearly - are harder to pin down.

When yon friend-of-mine's brother was struck, she suddenly had an empty feeling in her stomach even though she had no idea what had happened. The way she described it to me, she just suddenly knew *something* had happened to her brother. And she was right, as we now know. Strange.

But is it so strange?

A product of a culture that emphasizes the empirical, I've always felt a little odd hearing people's stories about how they had visions or sudden feelings that actually corresponded with reality. A few months ago, I was working with a guy at my internship in London (you remember Dennis and the others? same place.) who told me he was led to work at ECCP and to attend St. Barnabas Church because of a vision he saw. "I had never been there before," he told me, "but when I got there it looked exactly as it had in the dream." It didn't help that right after that, he asked me how I was led to work there. "Uh...well, it was an internship that looked interesting to me and seemed like it fit my talents and such..."

The point is, these 'other-worldly' experiences happen every day, apparently just not to me. No - I realize, of course, that they don't happen to a lot of people. But is that because we're just not special, or does that mean that they don't really happen to anyone at all, and it's just in their minds? My experience suggests that neither is the case. In fact, it seems quite possible to me that my doubts about the reality of these strange experiences is precisely what prevents them from ever coming my way.

Hypnosis, I am told by my psychology teacher, works far more effectively for people who go into it believing it works. For the doubters, it rarely has the same power. Does this invalidate hypnosis? I don't think so - because clearly it still works for some. What it suggests is that a correlation exists between belief and experience. And this is nothing new - we've know this from placebo drugs and the like for years. "Correlation does not mean causation," I can hear my teacher saying now. So I will try and not draw anything more out of this phenomenon.

In dealing with issues involving the unseen, I point out two other observations.
1. there seems to be a heck of a lot more demon / angel activity going on in the Bible than anyone I know has ever experienced.
2. every now and then, I'll hear something about missionaries dealing with spiritual forces of good and evil, but it's always in places like Africa or the Amazon.

My question is simple: Why?

The answer, I'm sure, is far more complicated, and I'll be glad to give you my thoughts - another night.

It's that Time Again (!)

A Van for all Seasons...

When she started smoking, we knew her time was short.

Our family mini-van "bit the big one" (as my Pa would say) just yesterday, and I write this in her honor. Sure she had problems with her high beams and was already over 250,000 miles, and sure she would lock the doors everytime you tried to unlock them manually...but it was a family fault we were all used to anyways. Kinda like us being used to the fact that Jenkins always wears his "Where is Pisgah?" shirt in public twice a week.

We went to Gatlinburg this weekend, and all the hills and stop and go traffic were more than she could handle. The thermostat apparently gave out on us and the radiator spat out all of the engine coolant, until finally, as Ma informed us, "she blew a gasket." I don't know what that means in van-terms, but it sounds pretty bad.
In her memory, here are some stories she brought to us:

Some six or seven years ago, it was time for the first-ever Fixed Point student retreat. We packed the foosball table in the back of our mini-van (this is Not a suggested way of using the back 2/3rds of any vehicle) and followed the Taunton's van of similar build. We were well aware of the fact that our particular make of mini-van was keen to give up early on the whole window-rolling-down bit, so when we pulled up next to the Tauntons in a parking lot, we opened the door to talk. What we were not well aware of was the fact that the Tauntons had the same problem with their mini-van....just on the opposite side. So we both stopped, both tried our windows and remembered they didn't roll down, and both opened our doors into each other's.
----
About the time we got the window thing fixed, we took our yearly trip to Vail, Colorado (this was probably five years later). In fact, I think this was just a few months ago...Anyways, it was time to leave and the snow had just decided to dump itself upon all the roads north of the southern state line. Most other families would have counted their losses and waited for the snow to melt enough for easy access to the highway, but no - not us. We had 23 hours more driving before we got home, and we were not about to let a little snowdrift impede our efforts. After several failed attempts to pick up speed and make it up the hill from our condo, we were forced into the most unusual activity: pushing the van up a snow-ridden slope. Five of us lined up at the bumper while Andy pushed the gas ever-so-slightly. "Slower! Slower! NOWW! Go, go goooooooooooooo!" This went on for some dozens of minutes, which included quite a few face plants in the snow and quite a lot of backwards progress. In the end, though, man conquered nature and our trusty van led us to victory once again.
----
Of course, yesterday was not the first time she smoked. Whether it was peer pressure or she was just curious ("just one smoke couldn't hurt me"), she had tried it once already sometime last autumn. This time, she was the beast of burden for our South Dakota/Canada road trip - a trip that would soon be characterized by busted radiators and 12 cups of coffee a day. This was the trip where Mitchell informed us of the genocide of cornstalks, where we met the world's largest pheasant, and where the border patrol man we lovingly named "Sasquatch" did everything he could to prevent us from making it across the Canadian border. This was the trip where our van decided to die as soon as we pulled into Denny's grandparent's driveway, and immediately began oozing green stuff out of the hood. We left it there and took the grandparent's car through South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and North Dakota before we found out that our friends at the van repair center were in no hurry to get us home. Well, we did make it home in time, thanks to Denny's awe-inspiring one-liners on the cell phone with car mechanics ("We're only missing one piece to our puzzle, and I think you have it."), and some fancy foot work with the new radiator supplier.
----
All that to say, this van's been good to us, and we're sad to see it go.

VBS Jollities

VBS for Cahaba Park Church just concluded tonight.  And for the two days I was there, 'twas a joyous occasion.

Day One:  One of the kids made two of the greatest VBS comments ever.  This was even more glorious than the time the people at Covenant misspelled "Gentle" and an entire crew of 8 year olds went around thinking they were the "Gentile Giraffes" for the first full day of Bible school.

It was music time and all the children had been called together by the music leader, who was looking for any way she could to get them excited about singing songs they'd never heard before.  

"Alright everyone!  It's music time (!), and we're about to sing...but I see just one thing wrong....what is it??"  She was hinting at the fact that everyone was still sitting down (a non-proper position for VBS songs, for the uninitiated).

Five-and-a-half year-old Jay boldly stepped forward to answer the question.  "We're all sinners!"

Later the same evening, Jay explained to us all that Joeys are baby kangaroos.

"Tell everyone what a Joey is, Jay."

"A Joey is a - a baby kangaroo."  He paused.  "And they're faster than a rabbit!"  Another pause, this time with some thought going into the next comment.  "...but they're Not faster than Jesus!"

Day Two:  The skit for the night was all about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.  Moses was about three years my senior with a beard about 40 years my senior and a hat that refused to stay on his scalp.  But these were minor difficulties compared to the Angel of Death, whose presence was supposed to bring with it all those dark and empty feelings typically associated with Angels of Death. This was working pretty well, actually, what with the hollow sounding music, the grim reaper halloween costume and the snarls coming from the lady's lower jaw....Until.  Sally on row two saw the strange facial resemblance of the dreadful spectre and could not contain herself.  "Mom?!" she was clearly excited at the discovery. "It's my mom!!"

We can only wonder.  Was it really the facial features she noticed, or is Sally just used to this sort of behavior from her ancestors?