Losing My Faith

My older sister died last month after a couple of years of slowly slipping away. She was 84 and a dear devout Christian, as is all my extended family. She played the organ at her church for years and was a talented singer and artist.

When We All Get To Heaven was the song she requested for the funeral, and I sang along with everybody. It’s a rousing march of a song. Oh, singing in church is one of the true joys of worship, even in today’s politicized consumer-culture churches. The lyrics really don’t matter, or so I’ve rationalized in my non-believer heart. It’s the singing.

“When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be! When we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and shout the victory.” Over whom, we aren’t told, but hey, victory! This implies that something or someone is defeated. The devil? Or today, Liberals? When We All Get To Heaven was written in 1898. He’s Coming Soon, another old song - a total ripoff from Aloha Oe (1878) - was written in 1918. I remember eagerly pointing this out to my mom from the hymnal. “Hey, what about this? Soon?” We were sitting together, as we did, for Sunday evening services. She smiled and shook her head, a familiar gesture of dismissal for her little skeptic. By the time I was twelve and forming my own opinions, many of them quite wrong, I became a more devout skeptic, an adolescent agnostic if you will, who was greatly relieved to leave the church and hasn’t wasted a minute looking back. So, I’m a bit of a curiosity to my family, whose lives still spin in tight orbit around their religious beliefs. One huge difference from the old days is that politics has now fully intruded into the sanctuary and pretty much taken over evangelical congregations. Once pastors figured out that politics brought people back to church, it was game over. Republicans/Evangelicals love the old testament, but Jesus and his teachings became an inconvenience. The emphasis is on his role in the Rapture and little else. I’m told that my family members sometimes describe me as a loved one who has “lost his faith”. I’m sure this is sad for them because, well, I’m such a nice guy. Perhaps it is puzzling that I’m able to appear to be at peace with them and the world. Thankfully, there are no attempts at conversion on their part. My daughter told me of this - the “lost his faith” comment - after visiting with a cousin during my sister’s funeral. People think about such things at funerals: faith, eternity, mortality. Truth is, I can state without reservation that I have most certainly not lost my faith. One cannot lose something that they never possessed in the first place. I haven’t lost my World Series ring, for instance, nor have I lost millions in crypto currency. Faith? I’m pretty sure I have that, or a version of it. It’s just not attached to a rigid belief system. I have faith in morning bird songs, turtles basking on logs and sunsets. And death. The family premise is wrong regarding my faith. But if one were to dig a little deeper and ask a true believer what they actually mean by “faith” - and nobody inside their Christian bubble ever asks such things - it’s all about believing a story. The Bible is an amazing storybook. It’s a huge part of cultural literacy in these parts and worldwide. It is a fact that it contains several fish stories, all taken as truth. Faith, one could say, is about believing something that cannot be objectively proven. They are Believers. Capital B. Of what? Of the story. The creation, fall from grace, 3,000-year-old prophesies, virgin birth, resurrection, the rapture, the whole deal. It’s a lot. And it was too big a leap for my twelve-year-old self and still is sixty years later. A formulaic mishmash of ritual, wishful thinking, gullibility with heaping portions of fear, guilt and sexual repression all leading to an end-times apocalypse? No, but thanks for thinking of me. Rather than focusing on some nebulous, imaginary thing I may have lost, I wish my family would consider, just for a moment, what I may have found during all these years in the wilderness. No one has ever asked. And while my parents were missionaries, I am not. I love my family and all my dear relatives. They are, in fact, true believers, in damn near anything it turns out, if one considers their faith in Donald Trump as God’s instrument. Someday maybe we’ll sit down for a talk about what we’ve lost and found in our lives. It all ends up coming down to discerning truth from illusion and delusion, and telling stories. I’m up for that.

Breathing Holes

Remember when you were a kid and you found a turtle or baby bird and put it in a box?  "Make sure it has breathing holes," somebody would say. "You don't want it to suffocate."

Harbor Lights Radio

I started reading, I mean really reading interesting books when I was around fifteen years old. And it was because my dad, an Assemblies of God missionary turned pastor turned radio evangelist turned Christian college recruiter turned traveling evangelist and back to radio host, had in all his travels accumulated so much religion enhanced self reproach that he ultimately turned himself into a piously glazed vessel of bubbling guilt and shame.

By all accounts, the God who Reverend Les chose to follow had either repeatedly and purposefully misled him, possibly for sport, or the connection he so desperately sought was nothing more than a black hole of cascading nothingness. The former, though cruel, at least holds an element of playfulness. Alas, only the omniscient knows for sure. (contact me)

Reverend Les died quietly of a stroke at age 93 while living in Maranatha Manor, an A/G property located near the fairgrounds in north Springfield next to the now defunct Central Bible Institute. After living his entire adult life ministering in one form or another, he left behind three grown children, a few photo albums and two briefcases full of cassette recordings of his self-produced radio show, Harbor Lights, which was broadcast every Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. on KGBX AM and later on KWFC (Keep Watching For Christ). 

For a span of ten years following a final round of cross country evangelizing, Reverend Les would spend his Sunday mornings, and sometimes into the night up to a final frantic hour before broadcast, recording Harbor Lights on big 3M reels of shiny brown audio tape. He would mutter to himself while searching for songs through stacks of albums. He would write and edit devotionals, rehearse said devotionals, splice like a madman, fading distant surf and buoy bells in & out. The finished product was usually pretty good technically and could pass as syndicated by AM standards of the time.

Through the closed studio door, one could hear the melodious tones of Anita Bryant, George Beverly Shea, The Blackwood Brothers and others wafting down the hallway. He loved Negro Spirituals like "Steal Away" and "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child", songs we never sang at Central Assembly (A/G's flagship assemblage, pre megachurch era).  The music segued into calming sermonettes and homilies droned out in an overly kind and understanding radio voice that he only used for self-parody in regular life. For its many listeners residing in nursing homes, Harbor Lights was a soothing Christian ASMR. In this regard, Reverend Les was ahead of his time. He would have loved YouTube.

The Blackout Collection

As cool as the studio was, the library full of books on the surrounding walls is the real subject of this little foray into how a 14-15 boy accidentally, or perhaps by divine Guidance, discovered some amazing literature.

The bookshelves made up two full walls in Harbor Lights studio, containing works of all shapes and sizes, hardbound and paperback. Most were religious in nature, Pentecostal and evangelical theorizing on forgiveness, faith, salvation and the like. My attempts to understand the elaborate riddles contained in Christian thought didn't get far. But scattered throughout the collection, in no apparent order, were a dozen or so books with the covers painted black. Now, this was interesting.

The first "black book" I read, and what a doozy first attempt, was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which I found incredibly scary but also fascinating. No Christian theorizing here. All citizens of the World State taking varying levels of Soma to complete their days working for the State. Small doses made people feel good. Large doses created hallucinations and timelessness. My first thoughts about drugs started here, not to mention autocracy, now a timely topic.

One could assume that deliberately painting book covers black would imply some kind of pornographic content*. Sadly, this was not the case.  These were works from Steinbeck, Huxley, Salinger, Bellow, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, some of the western world's greatest writers. I struggled to understand a lot of it but tore into them anyway. The writing, the language was like an open door to somewhere else, where one could breathe freely and talk openly about anything. I mean anything, real things. Forbidden things.

(*The closest thing to porn was a thin book entitle Ancient Greek Eroticism, which contained a few graphic line drawings. Had it not been painted black, I would have missed this truly formative experience.)

Picture, if you will, the good reverend out in his garage spray painting book covers up against broken down cardboard.  This took some time and effort but was a rather clumsy form of censorship, since it had the opposite effect. 

After a child's lifetime filled with eavesdropping on adult dialogue awash in Christian theory and complaint, it was not hard at all to figure out why my true believer father would paint books black. The same intellect that had driven him to enjoy endless theories and interpretations on faith, love and forgiveness also piqued his interest in "worldly" literature. He had a pulse. His curiosity wasn't dead yet. But from his teenage son's point of view, the blackout collection might have just as well been painted day-glow orange.

Are You Washed In The Blood?

Any effort put into analyzing the specific behaviors of highly devout Christian men is  strictly a fool's game, though sometimes their relentless naked ambition gives them away. Take Josh Hawley, for instance. Please.

While the irrationality of religious beliefs can be absolutely endearing in the proper context (i.e. when a self-admitted lost soul finds salvation by allowing an imaginary person into their heart, and this simple ritual actually changes their life for the better for a little while), more often these strongly held religious beliefs create a short-cut to self-delusion, guilt and shame. Religion can become the gateway drug to guilt and self-loathing from there. 

Reverend Les painted those marvelous books black because he was ashamed that he enjoyed reading them.

Aberrant Behavior

Aberrant behavior among those who suffer from delusional levels of piety is not a rare thing across the great expanse of the American Bible Belt, of which Springfield is often described as the buckle.

(If Springfield isn't the buckle of the Bible Belt, is it not the buckle's frame or perhaps the prong? Further, if Springfield is, in fact, the buckle of the Bible Belt, whose pants are being held up? Next topic for Non-Believer Bible Study!)

Jerry Falwell, founder of Richard Nixon's Moral Majority was the original sinner regarding blending church and state back in the 1970s. Falwell studied at Baptist Bible College on Kearney Street. 

Shyster snake lubricant purveyor, Jim Bakker, creator of PTL Club, was an Assemblies of God preacher who was excommunicated by A/G presbyters to much national coverage right here on Boonville Avenue.

John Ashcroft, Hillcrest High School's most famous graduate, whose father was president of Evangel University, ordered breasts to be draped on statues at the Department of Justice when he became U.S. Attorney General.

Oh, and then there's the pathetically heartbreaking tale of former SMSU university president, Arthur Mallory, an all-around decent fellow who did much to promote public education in Missouri and eventually became the state's Commissioner of Education. While serving as commissioner in 1987, Mallory was caught taking wine bottles from store shelves and taking a swig or two before placing them back on the shelf. He resigned in self-disgrace immediately and sought treatment for a "drinking problem". But was it the drinking? Jesus turned water into wine, which strongly implies He sanctions its consumption. No, it wasn't the drinking.

And, of course, there's the amazing story of Tim Carpenter - Family Living Assistant Pastor from James River Assemblies of God, now known as James River Church. Tim staged his own violent self-abduction in 1998 that made front page of the News-Leader. Pastor Lindell, who still presides over the megachurch in Ozark, Missouri, led a community-wide search and rescue mission, complete with helicopters, highway signs, prayer groups and press conferences. In the end, it was nothing more than your garden variety evangelical husband covering up a covert affair and not having the guts to ask for a divorce.

Local police never bought Pastor Lindell's public relations campaign and eventually tracked Carpenter down in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had taken a job at a building supply store and had rented an apartment. You can read the whole story here: https://ozarksangel.blogspot.com/2005/07/self-abduction-of-tim-carpenter.html

Breathing Holes

One must recognize that there are, at any given time but especially now, an abundance of tortured souls struggling to find a secure place in a spectacularly over-stimulated world of joy and cruelty, heartbreak and exultation, death and destruction. For those that can afford it, employing a life coach or counselor is an option. For others, a well timed Xanax (Soma) does the trick. For many, religion is worth a shot, though history shows that religion causes as much widespread suffering as it alleviates.

Reverend Les certainly repressed the usual things Christian men tend to stifle, and we can only imagine how this struggle played out for his long-suffering wife. He did at least allow himself his personal blackout collection of "worldly" literature. Yes, it's kind of pathetic, but maybe those amazing books served as his breathing holes. They certainly were for his son.

Emergencies, Evangelicals & Saluting the Troops

(This piece was written in 2019 prior to pandemic.)

A child was kidnapped in St. Charles, Missouri last week. St. Charles is 200 miles away, but my phone went off like a damn fire alarm. So did yours. It happens a lot, but this time it made me jump. Authorities are alerting concerned citizens to be on the lookout for a silver SUV.

It's heartwarming to know Americans care so much about the safety of children. We revere the unborn fetus, of course. After that, well, it's every toddler for himself. All those cuts for education, nutrition, healthcare and the accompanying increase in child poverty are a form of tough love, right? But if one of them gets kidnapped, our phones blow up.

SUV, by the way, stands for Sports Utility Vehicle, a marketing concept thought up by an ad agency representing the auto industry. Everybody knows what an SUV is. 
Be on the lookout. We're all in this together. Looking for a silver SUV.

Wait, a Silver SUV just drove by. I'll be right back. Could never forgive myself if . . . 

No worries, just neighbors returning from the grocery store. They wonder why I'm checking them out. I wave.
"Sorry, Amber Alert," I say. "Silver SUV. Just checking."
"This is a Crossover," they say. A Crossover?
"A smaller version of an SUV. We love it."

"Great! Thanks!"

Egregious General Anxiety Disorder

I used to tease an office colleague that they suffered from Egregious General Anxiety Disorder (EGAD), which caused them to experience some form of stress and agitation during almost every waking moment. Even their dreams were fraught with harrowing images. 
Luckily, EGAD can be treated with drug therapy. Ask your doctor about Egadizol.
*May increase chances of stroke. Side effects may include depression and thoughts of suicide.

So, why does it feel like we're in a constant state of emergency, even here in the American Midwest, arguably one of the safest places on Earth? You may disagree that emergencies are ever present, but just wait. There have been two mass shootings and a tornado since I started writing this a couple of days ago. Or, here's a simple test: Have you ever seen a flag at half mast but couldn't remember which tragedy was being commemorated?


"Daddy, why is the flag way up high today?" 
"Oh, honey. That's how they're suppose to be." That's how we're suppose to live. Full mast.

All across America, people are randomly gunned down for having the audacity to attend schools or visit restaurants, concerts, movie theaters, stores and churches. Most often, the assailant is an angry white man armed with a lethal military assault rifle. Mainstream media hesitates to call them domestic terrorists, which sounds almost chummy, as though they wiped down counter tops and straightened the living room before heading out for a bloodletting. Let's just call them terrorists. Most of the killers seem like regular Americans. The guy down the street could be kidnapping children and shooting up synagogues next week. He does drive a van adorned with political stickers, which serves as an advertisement. "I'm a crazy motherfucker? Beware!" It's part of a new bad ass culture. Big trucks, big flags, big idiots. And then it happens.


"I can't believe it happened here," someone will say. 
"He was quiet. Kept to himself."
"No, he didn't. He had crazy right-wing stickers plastered all over his van!"
"Oh, you're right. I was thinking of that other guy."

"Yeah. The guy before last."

Emergencies bring us together, if you're a glass half full type, which may partially explain our perverse dependence on calamity as part of our national identity. Shared suffering and fear are effective agents of unity even in a politically divided country. For a little while. Of course, long term angst is generated by disaster media like Fox News, which has discovered how to parlay fear and loathing into untold billions in profits. If calamity actually did bring us closer, wouldn't we be pretty damn unified by now? Unity via disaster and/or mass murder seems to have an abbreviated shelf life.

Common responses.

"Yes, a lot of people died and it is a terrible tragedy, but the community really came together after the tornado/flood/hurricane/mass killing."
"The first responders were amazing, cordoning off the building and caring for the wounded."
"Our deepest thoughts and prayers go out to families of victims."
The implication here is that shallow thoughts and prayers would be offered for lesser traumas.
"Lord, thank you for sparing us from the tornado that killed our neighbors," could be considered a shallow prayer.

If calamitous events revive our sense of community, am I wrong to think the world could really benefit from a fucking asteroid about now? A small one? One that allows most of us to survive and perhaps get our priorities straightened out?

In case you've been too distracted by everything, you should be aware that tornadoes, fires, hurricanes and floods have become more severe than in any living person's memory. No, it's not god punishing us for the existence of Pat Robertson. It's global warming, stupid!
An invasive species has pushed earth's environment to the tipping point for life in general, except for maybe viruses & such. 
We would do more, but the invasive specie is us. Smart as we think we are, it's becoming clear that we're fatally flawed.

Maybe we should do Mother Earth a big favor and go run off a cliff en masse like a colony of lemmings. Maybe that's what we're doing in slow motion and haven't realized it yet.

A Confession About the Troops

This is as good a time as any for me to make a confession. I'm pretty sure that I'm not thankful enough for the troops, not by community standards anyway. I mostly feel sorry for them. We go overboard saluting the troops because we feel guilty for not really caring more about what they do. We have no idea what they do most of the time. Neither do they.
In keeping with a healthy conscience, I will heretofore resist standing at Hammons Field to salute the kid who enlisted as his last best option after being fired from his job at the Dollar General in Ava, Missouri. The honored veteran, wearing a ball cap and an oddly menacing heavy metal t-shirt with camo cargo shorts, reluctantly waves to the crowd and sits down in the Hero's Chair (Courtesy of Factory Outlet). No, when everyone rises during the singing of "God Bless America", I will seek out a corn dog.
I mean, since when is the National Anthem not enough?

Now, much to my dismay, I look around and realize it's Christian Night. Dear God, help me. Of course it is. If it were Muslim Night, the crowd would be sparse with only a few international students from the university. I'm also imagining a Buddhist Night where no score is kept. But in Springfield, Missouri, it's Christian Night at the old ballpark, and the faithful are all about saluting young Travis from Ava, Jesus, and Furniture Outlet, of course.

Many in the crowd are wearing red promotional t-shirts.  Instead of "Cardinals" in cursive across the front, it says "Christian". It does, I swear. Here's a picture. I have chosen to carefully crop out their faces to protect them (and myself) from persecution.

In Springfield, being surrounded by evangelicals is part of life, and I learned long ago to just let it go. My parents brought me into the world as an evangelical. I was saved at age eight at Calvary Temple Assembly of God church on East Grand, which was torn down a few years ago and replaced with a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market. We know what the real religion is here, don't we?

Evangelical Christians in Southwest Missouri are among the most judgmental and politically conservative in the country. Evangelical Christians are also the most ardent Trump supporters on the planet. They would send their kids to his university in a heartbeat. They'd buy his steaks. They eagerly swallow all the lies and fear-mongering spewing forth from the Orange Foolius because they believe, somehow, that he is God's chosen leader. To them, Trump is kind of like a secular and profane American Ayatollah, who could only rise to power in the dim sunset of 21st century America.

Tonight, the Christians at the ballpark are not fearful at all, which is strangely heartwarming. This is how it should be. Of course, for them, there's really no reason to fear anything, especially while surrounded by people who look just like them. There isn't a Muslim or MS13 member in sight, though there are several silver SUVs in the parking lot (some may be crossovers). Still, if the Rapture were to occur at this moment, a few of the true believers would experience a twinge of sadness to miss the post game fireworks. But for the most part, they're having a great time, secure in their delusions, rooting for the home team.

As one, they rise to salute Travis from Ava in the Hero's Chair, and I quickly break for my corn dog. Behind me, a church soprano with too much vibrato is backed by an unenthusiastic ukulele choir playing God Bless America. 

Oh, how I've come to loath the proliferation of these patriotism checks at every community gathering. I long for the days when troops and police officers stoically perform their duties without forced public recognition. Can we not just have a general understanding that we support them? No, we can't, not even at the annual chili cook-off.

"Let's all recognize that we wouldn't be able to celebrate this occasion if it weren't for the brave men and women who so, uh, bravely protect our freedom," says the master of ceremonies.
Really? I think we could. I think we could hold a fucking chili cook-off!

President Trump, who is himself a frequent declarer of emergencies real and imagined, now wants to send direct text messages to the entire US population when disasters strike. AT&T and Verizon are fine with this, by the way, and I read somewhere that the system was set up like Amber Alerts, so we won't be able to block him.

A test of the Presidential Text system was scheduled a few months ago but was somehow sidelined, probably by somebody who has since been fired. If it ever starts, you know our phones will be buzzing at least once a month about some goddam thing: Fake News, Saturday Night Live, Hillary, god knows what. 

So, if you've had this strange sense of foreboding that something really awful is about to happen, there's good reason. It's pervasive. It's happening. American life, as we know it, is in emergency mode. Level Orange. Be vigilant.

Also, a kid was kidnapped in St. Charles and may be in a silver SUV. 
Never heard what happened with that kid, can only imagine.

Growing Up in 1960's SGF (Ep. 1) - Baseball, God, Evangel

I am 70 years old, having just recently achieved this status.  Yes, I'm aging. So are you, by the way. But my skin has turned to crepe paper, and I find myself saying "when I was a kid" a lot. My parents used to tell me about how hard life was during the depression. By contrast, my kids hear how good life was during the 50s and 60s. My generation seems to have lost its way, I'm sorry to say.

So, I looked up Springfield, Missouri 1961 just for fun, and Google shows me a random picture of Katz Department Store on Glenstone. I used to buy albums there. Maybe it was a Cranks or Osco by then, but I recall purchasing the very first Grateful Dead album there. Hippies were kind of scary to me at the time, but I later learned to love them. In any case, the old Katz store is now vacant, which is pretty much how it was during its most recent incarnation as a CVS.

Growing Up In Springfield.

For some reason, the prevailing image of my boyhood during the early 60s in Springfield is playing little league baseball games at Harry Carr Park, near the corner of Fort & Grand. The Children's Home, as it was called, once occupied that spot. The Children's Home was a much smaller building than the current Great Circle campus, which currently occupies that space and beyond. Great Circle is a non-profit Behavior Health Provider, which now serves 40,000 kids on campuses across Missouri. In 1961, there was no need to accommodate such numbers of discarded children. 

Harry Carr Park, named after a former mayor, was a wide open space that took up most of a city block. There were no fences. Hit a ball past the outfielder and take off, which I remember doing several times. A pair of small wooden bleachers were behind home plate facing southeast. Games were played in early evening, and I distinctly remember a backdrop of beautiful sunsets from my shortstop's view.

I also retain the delicious olfactory memory of newly mowed grass blending with wafts of cigarette and cigar smoke. In 1961, the local Kiwanis Club sponsored little league baseball all across the city in every park. I played multiple games at Silver Springs, Grant Beach, Fassnight, Doling and Smith Park, all of which were nicely manicured with neatly striped baselines and equipped with real umpires in full gear.

To me, it was like the big leagues, traveling around town playing at different parks. The Kiwanis Club provided t-shirts. And if you weren't lucky enough to be on a fully sponsored team with cool uniforms, you could sign up to be placed on a team at the Park Board.

Pre-Springfield

For a minute, let's go back to 1947. My age at the time was -4. My Canadian parents, having been called of God to the mission field, moved their young family of five from Toronto, Canada to mainland China, near Canton. Along with the rest of their Pentecostal friends, they were earnestly unaware of the political situation in China. Within two years, fearing for their lives, they would summarily be kicked out, as the new Communist regime of Mao Zedong swept to power.

Either God didn't see that coming, or it was just a bad connection, perhaps a test of faith. Who knows? People who are called of God spend a lot of time discussing such things among themselves because it happens all the time. Undaunted, the family returned to Toronto, where Dad cobbled something together as a singing radio evangelist. This was the context in which I took that dangerous passage into the world 70 years ago. 

When I was three years old, God once again interrupted our lives to call the paterfamilias to Springfield, Missouri in order to join up with the Assemblies of God movement. They called it a movement at the time, as they were literally setting up shop to save the world. My parents were both ordained ministers. My mom was typically the church pianist and never actually gave a sermon, though she did write Sunday School lesson plans and little daily devotion books for many years.

The reverence my father had for leaders of the A/G "movement" was puzzling to me. The General Superintendent. The Head of Home Missions. I still remember their names. Live radio shows were broadcast every Sunday night from inside Headquarters, which is what Dad always called the Assemblies of God building on Division & Boonville. He was super creative, loved a crowd and had visions of Godly fame dancing in his head. Alas, those visions never came to fruition on a scale he had envisioned. Looking back, I think he probably would have been happier in the entertainment industry.

The Lord's plans for my dad at A/G Headquarters didn't pan out as expected. A year later, he was called by God to Southern California to work for a radio evangelist, who, shockingly enough, turned out to be a complete shyster. Dad was appalled to be complicit in bilking money from old people. I have few memories of North Hollywood. I learned the word smog. But dad moved the whole family of six back to smogless Springfield a year later, slightly humbled but still pious enough to rejoin the movement, albeit with a lesser job. Lord's will? It seemed God kept sending Dad off on missions that didn't work out for him, but who's to question? Mysterious ways, right? At least He wasn't suggesting he could murder his son, for which I am grateful.

Back to baseball

To summarize, I grew up in an extremely religious Canadian family in the Queen City of the Ozarks. My dad, who was born in England, didn't understand baseball. He really didn't want to. Rounders was the game he understood, which, conversely, I had no interest in learning. Who plays rounders? As far as I could tell, baseball was the most perfect game. Unfortunately, I found my dad to be an annoying fan on the occasions he would stay for my games, and I found it baffling how many people seemed to enjoy his company. He was the kind of guy that needed an audience, and regular Ozarker men of his generation didn't quite know what to make of him. You couldn't always tell why they were laughing, and he didn't seem to care.

Up until I hit the bigtime little league at Harry Carr Park, most of my baseball was played on the playgrounds at Mark Twain Elementary school and at a big open field just west of South Haven Baptist Church. Kids would play pickup games back then, and even school recess always started with picking captains and choosing teams. Sometimes the teacher would be the "Steady Pitcher".  If we didn't have enough for a full game, we'd play Fly Knocker or 500 or Indian Ball, invented variations that usually involved chasing batted balls and arguing over rules.

I was always the teacher's pet in elementary school. It was probably the worst epithet I endured, which isn't too bad by today's standards. I was smallish, quiet, polite and spoke a more proper form of Canadian English than most of my classmates. Words like "house", "about", "sorry" always drew comments. But I never felt ostracized or bullied by my classmates. All my friends moms loved me, which is always a good thing.

When my playground friends asked me to try out for their baseball team, the Yellowjackets, I was pretty excited. This was a team with very cool black and yellow uniforms, black hats, yellow bills. They were really good and almost always won their age group. My friends' dads were the coaches and wore the same hats, very cool.

Tryouts at East Nichols Park on a Saturday, and I never really heard why I didn't make the team. Not to brag, but I could hit, pitch and outrun just about everybody. Maybe dad talked to the coaches too long. In the end, I didn't care that much. I signed up at the Park Board and got on a team that was coached by a couple of Evangel College students, probably as part of a college PE class, but they were into it. The Falcons. White hats, red bills, emblem of swooping Falcon with menacing talons. We bought our own baseball pants or wore jeans.

The Falcons were quite a ragtag bunch, very much a local version of Sandlot. Poor kids, kids like me who didn't have connections, one Hispanic kid, Jaimie, who everybody called Jamie. We only played one year because our coaches graduated and moved back to Michigan and Illinois. At that time, most Evangel students came from out of state. We practiced at Smith Park, and often hung around Evangel's campus, which was a bunch of old army barracks with faded asbestos siding.

Evangel College 1961

Evangel College, where two of my older siblings graduated, was a former US Army hospital that had been gifted to Assemblies of God by the Truman administration for the price of $1. In the 60s Evangel was still a series of incredibly long hallways connecting former hospital rooms and barracks. They had an intramural basketball gymnasium that was so small, the walls served as the out of bounds. It was quaint, and the students seemed to love it there. At the time, Evangel was a bunch of A/G kids, a lot of them pastor's kids, far away from their parents for the very first time. It was probably the wildest school in town, even though you could be expelled if you had the misfortune of being caught going to movies or dances.

Because of the absolute prohibition of all things deemed "worldly" by family and church, I didn't see my first movie until the age of 14. It was "The Great Race", at the Gillioz, with Tony Curtis, a campy movie with villains and heroes. But I was amazed by the sheer magnitude of images and sound and soon placed the value of movie theaters far above church. Oh, it wasn't even close. Alas, my ultra religious upbringing had trained me to be less than forthcoming with my parents. Lucky for me, they had already raised three children and were too tired to closely monitor my comings and goings. I often think of my poor older sisters and what they endured. Thankfully, my parents standards had slipped over the years, and I was the beneficiary.

Story Cube Prophecies

Story Cube Prophecies

This evening's moon crosses the sky in a Waxing Gibbous phase, more than half but less than full. In 29.531 days, it will return to this phase again. If one were to seek a spiritual meaning for such a moon, one could learn that this is a phase for attention to detail, tweaking of one's life a bit.

Speaking of moon phases, specifically the waning phase . . .

I retired right before the pandemic. So, hey, Happy Days! It's okay, though, given our shared harsh realities, it's probably the best way to get through a plague. Provided there's enough scratch coming in to pay for a place. Which, praise be, there is at this moment in time. The whole concept of retirement is laughable to God, I'm sure. No, I'm sure. He told me.

James River, southeast Springfield

Prophesy: God says there are two ways humans think about their lives. There are those whose lives revolve around the idea that they are living on the Earth, and those living with the knowledge that they are of the Earth. Religion for "on the earth" people is all about consumption & seeking temporal gains. Religion for those "of the earth" is more about recognizing beauty in nature. One worships greed & wealth, the other art & nature. Any overlap is strictly superficial. Humans are the only species with this dual view of life, as far anybody knows.

That may be the only thing that makes us special, except . . . well, science. 

I've already deleted a complete paragraph about American politics. Poof! You're welcome. Wasn't worth describing something so pathetically obvious to so many. And there are people who can deliver it better . . . without the profanity. But there's this tidbit.

Prophesy: Josh Hawley, in his later years, will wear a cape but will struggle to find a walking cane to his liking. He will come to resemble a shriveled vampire. His associates will call him "Vlad" behind his back. He will never live in Missouri.

It's not much, but I had to get it out.

On that note, tonight's prophecy is complete. I'm going outside now to take a shot of the Waxing Gibbous and post it as a parting gift of love to all of my fellow humans who know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are of the earth.

Here's a prophecy from July 2019. God told me it was too long. Of course, She's right. https://ozarksangel.blogspot.com/2019/07/word-from-prophet-of-god.html

Pandemic Journal #2

I set up this title, Pandemic Journal #2, weeks and weeks ago. I thought these uniquely dystopian times should be documented in some personal way. Then, weeks passed. Six months passed. I made up some songs, a couple of poems, cooked a lot, planted a garden, researched stuff, harvested a garden, walked in the woods, talked with people I love, kept my distance. Outside of my little world, the situation worsened.

In April 2019, a year before Covid-19 descended upon us, I said this in a post called Emergencies, Evangelicals & Saluting the Troops:

Imagine an asteroid or small planet hitting the earth, causing widespread tidal waves stories high. Would people be brought together? Would they compete? Care for each other? Would government be a help to people, or would leaders take advantage of the chaos to achieve maximum wealth accumulation and control?

A worldwide plague wasn't on my list of disaster scenarios. I probably had too much faith in modern medicine, having grown up in the days when diseases like polio and smallpox were defeated. Plagues were for Dark Ages, or at least pre smart phone. But then, there is still no cure for cancer, and it's fair to say cancer is an epidemic. Everybody has been touched by cancer in some way. Now, it seems certain, due to lack of leadership and a bewildering absence of community cohesion, Covid-19 will affect virtually everyone before it's contained, whenever that may be. We all will know someone who contracted Covid-19, just like cancer.

Since I do live in Springfield, Missouri, which I sometimes refer to as Pleasantville, the expected response from community leaders is . . . to dodge accountability. Follow the governor, CDC, County Health, all of which are, in turn, following their best instincts to avoid accountability? The only leader in the entire community, one who is at least attempting to fill the void, is a hospital CEO. The bodies are accumulating, folks. I'm sure he's being serreptitiously thanked by the aforementioned cowards, who eagerly sought leadership roles they weren't capable of filling. To them I can only offer a heartfelt Fuck You!, as they contort themselves to accommodate a non-existent balance between science and political/religious delusion. 

Thanks to the absolutely clueless moral & ethical black hole that is Donald Trump, the ornate facade covering American exceptionalism and the Republican Party has been unceremoniously ripped away like a bandage covering gangrenous flesh. Americans, still using a strange electoral system bent to favor former slave owners, somehow elected an international patsy, useful to international crime bosses for money laundering and fraud. He is now commander-in-chief of the greatest military power and largest economy on earth. This while being manipulated by these same crime bosses, who are much smarter and wealthier sociopaths than DT. They seek unchallenged world domination. It's very much like a bad James Bond movie, where we're all extras with no control over script edits.

I don't watch doomsday movies as a rule, but images from "Melancholia" (2011), where the Earth was threatened by a rogue planet, keep bubbling into my dreams and consciousness.

As Melancholia approaches Earth, no leaders rise to the occasion. Nobody rallies the people together. News reports casually deny any danger. Resume your normal life. It will disappear. Meanwhile, disaster capitalists plot their strategies, because that's what they do. Is it realistic how existentially vacant life had become for these characters? One still aggressively plans a clever ad campaign. Another, who knows the Earth is doomed, releases his stable of beautiful thoroughbreds to graze on a nearby golf course.

[Spoiler: Earth was blown to bits in a white hot moment of interplanetary impact. Everybody perishes. All life on Earth was erased within seconds, along with any human record that it had ever existed. The screen goes dark. After a pause, movie credits scroll.]

As a fractured society divided by greed, competing culture religions and almost comical misinformation campaigns, it seems we grapple with alternating currents of human frailty and resilience during the Great Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. There is no script, no scrolling line of credits to assure us it's fiction. Because it's not. We witness, together and separately, the outrageous and relentless unraveling of the greatest civilization in human history. 

But there is hope. Right? Of course there is. There has to be.

It may sound absolutely heretical to say out loud, especially as a resident of Pleasantville, but Covid-19 may be this country's last best hope for systemic change. Covid-19 has exposed our collective wounds for all to see. An election may treat a few symptoms. At least it's a rallying point. At best, it may be the start of a new healing regimen. The rest is on us.

George Wallace Comes to Springfield - 13 Sept 1968

On Thursday, September 12, 1968, George Wallace and his third-party campaign for president arrived in Springfield to hold a rally on the public square in front of Heer's department store. Just a few months earlier, civil rights leader Martin Luther King and leading democratic presidential candidate, Bobby Kennedy, had been murdered. Until 2020, 1968 had been the most dangerous and turbulent year of my life. 

In September 1968, the most important election of my young life was less than two months away. Voting age was 21 at the time, and I was a 17 year-old senior in high school. But I was already a political junkie living in a totally apolitical family. (Maybe it was that 4th grade report on Thomas Jefferson, have no idea.)

The 1968 election would be the first presidential election after the Voting Rights Act (1965), so there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon through the despair of living through the killings of MLK & RFK. 

I was also very concerned for my own personal well-being. Older friends had already been drafted and sent to Vietnam for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to die for their country for no apparent reason, the first war in a pattern that has continued almost uninterrupted to this day. Like one of my living heroes, Mohammed Ali, had said a year earlier, I had "no quarrel with those Viet Cong."

The fact that George Wallace, avowed racist, hate monger, the man who literally blocked an entrance to black students attempting to enroll at his state university, would come to my town was both a source of dark curiosity and disgust. How would he be received here? Would there be protesters? My friend, Kevin, and I made sure there would be at least two. We found a piece of leftover white cardboard and fashioned a sign using red magic marker that simply read: "Racist!".

I'm pretty sure we skipped school that Thursday. That's a fair guess because, by senior year, I considered attendance optional. We were making our own civics lesson and arrived early to get a spot close to the flatbed trailer stage. We were relieved to see other protesters, but a few dozen protesters were eventually drowned out by a throng that police chief, Sam Robards, estimated to be between 12,000-15,000. It was the largest political crowd he had seen on the square in his 33 years on the force, according to the Springfield Daily News report. 

(At this time, Springfield had both morning and evening editions. Daily News was a.m. News-Leader was evening edition. At least three reporters and a photographer covered the event.)

Police, sheriff's deputies, state patrol and secret service were visible throughout the square and on top of buildings. Reporting of the event was somewhat carefully worded by 1968 Springfield standards. Here's one account beneath a large photo:

"The jaunty candidate from Alabama rapped out his message in fiery bursts, punctuated by cheers and yells. A country band had the crowd warmed into a foot stomping hand-clapping mood . . . Pretty Wallace Girls carrying plastic buckets moved among the people collecting money for the campaign."

Wallace began his speech with a tried and true demagogue/populist message that now, 52 years later, is all too familiar. Daily News:

"Wallace was wildly cheered by the crowd for his jabs against newsmen, professors, pseudo-intellectuals and bureaucrats." He also spoke of "ultra-liberals" seeking to desegregate schools and "kowtow to anarchists who roam the streets". He continued, "If it weren't for these firemen and policemen, we wouldn't be here today - you or I - we might well have been mugged or gunned down."

The newspaper report also acknowledged protesters, who raised signs reading "Racist", "Wallace Hates", "One Hitler Was Enough".

And there was this: "Black students, calling themselves Afro-Americans, mostly from Southwest Missouri State College, felt otherwise about Wallace. About 33 Negroes showed up with signs and sentiment opposing the candidate," the Daily News reported. They marched in peaceful demonstration. A spokesman said, "We recognize Mr. Wallace's freedom of speech. We also recognize our right of assembly. We are here to . . voice our discontent and opposition at the presence of a man whose racist platform is detrimental to humanity and would jeopardize the safety and security of this community and nation."

Black protesters in attendance noted that they were not a part of the local NAACP, which had decided not to have a contingent at the rally. One young Black woman said, "As elder members of this community, they (NAACP) let us down. We are here to voice our protest and to try to get rid of some of the apathy in Springfield. Springfieldians think we are happy with the way things are. We are not."

One woman, most assuredly white because she required no descriptors, offered support for Wallace because he was "a good Christian man". Racism and white Christianity have been dating a long time it appears. 

On election day, Wallace received only 12% of Greene County votes, a number matched by Missouri. Richard Nixon won the county by 20%, the state by 1%.

Nixon eventually won the election, of course, a solid electoral college win but only 500,000 more votes than Hubert Humphrey, a representational disconnect that continues to undermine voters. Wallace received over 9 million votes and won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, as the south made a huge shift away from the democratic party following the Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965) and the Fair Housing Act, which had passed the day before Wallace arrived in Springfield.

Wallace ran again in 1972, this time as a democrat, but was shot during a primary election rally in Maryland. He was paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. The day after being shot, he won primary victories in Maryland and Michigan. 

Bass Pro, Assemblies Announce Merger

The Springfieldian, Volume 1 Number 1, Summer 1992, on early Microsoft Publisher.

Shock waves rolled through Springfield's business community early Monday at the news of a huge, if unlikely, merger of two giant entities, Bass Pro Shops and The International Headquarters of the Assemblies of God.

Officials from each organization held a news conference at Hemingway's restaurant. The new religious sporting goods venture, to be named "The International Bassemblies of God", marks an unprecedented merger of Evangelical elements from the former Pentecostal movement with the popular Bass Fishing and Sporting Goods retail industry of the American Midwest and South.

"We have seen bass fishing become a regular religious activity for millions of people," said Bassemblies co-owner Ronnie Forrest, "and at the same time, denominations like the Assemblies have become more like big business. By combining our assets and customer bases, we create the potential for unlimited growth, not to mention eternal life for all those Christian fishermen out there."

 "It's a logical progression in God's eyes," said Assemblies Public Relations Specialist, Julian Turnbridge. "The Bible is full of fish metaphors and stories. In fact, you could say the Bible is one big fish story. There's Jonah, the sermon on the mount with loaves and fishes, and, of course, all of Christ's disciples were bass fishermen.  Also, don't forget the Bible clearly states that Jesus was the first man in recorded history to water ski."

The merger of the two local industries will bring some changes to business practices for the Church/Watersports giant, according to Bassemblies Marketing Director, Uncle Buck Swaggert. "We'll soon present new catalog that will include a popular line of Christian Camouflage and a new pontoon boat that will be marketed as Noah's Party Barge."

Other promotions include special discounts for born-again bass fishermen and an annual Fishers of Men travel package that doubles as a missions event. Salvation Stations and Baptism Tanks will be featured in larger stores, and tithes to Bassemblies churches may now be paid by credit card and are exempt from any fees or interest. A sign stating "Over 10 Million Saved" was unveiled during the ceremony.

"We're ecstatic," said Forrest of the merger. "It's a combination of Divine Intervention and Free Enterprise. We call it Divine Enterprise. What could be more powerful? And it's all tax exempt. Hallelujah!

The Springfieldian (1992-94) was a satirical quarterly that lampooned local politics, religion and other aspects of life in the Queen City of the Ozarks. There were three main contributors who put together nine issues. Springfield Public Libraries has entire collection of original hard copies stored somewhere in Local History archives.

The Words of a Prophet 2019 A.D.

Prophet of God

I was called upon by God* today to visit a Christian church in Springfield, Missouri. I don't care if you don't believe me. It's True, capital T. I am a prophet of God. If you question my status as a prophet of God, that does not make you special, nor does it make me less a prophet.

This is not an attempt to persuade you to adopt a set of man-made riddles intended to make you feel better about yourself, though my hope is you will someday. That is to say, I don't give a shit if you turn away from Truth at this moment. Truth will eventually find you, whether you seek it or not.

Self-Proclaimed Men Of God.

Self-proclaimed "men of God" like Franklin Graham, Joel Osteen, Jerry Falwell, Jr. and their ilk espouse spiritual insights only to enhance their own temporal condition. That is, they're frauds. If you haven't figured that out yet, maybe you should stop reading.

God understands that the easily led are prone to follow blatant fraudsters more out of convenience than conviction. Or, put another way, Evangelical Christianity is to religion what professional wrestling is to sports. Both can be entertaining once you suspend your disbelief.

Genuine prophets of God do not seek followers nor do they want your money. I will occasionally purchase items when God sends me on "answer-to-prayer" missions, but it's usually not that much. He ignores 99%, by the way.  You'd do more good gifting your money to a homeless person working a street corner near you. This more visible level of poverty is a relatively new phenomenon locally but certainly not in human history. Any thriving tyrannical empire will produce plenty of beggars. God knows it runs in cycles.

My aim in sharing prophesies is no different from the old timers back in the day. Consider it a warning, a wake up call. This is what prophets do. The rest is on you.

Venturing Forth on East Sunshine Street

Verily, I ventured forth to answer God's calling, passing many a humble consumer servant along east Sunshine Street. Dutiful bargain hunters were ever-so-carefully creating a traffic snarl at a Sam's Club entrance. This despite clear traffic signals intended to provide smooth passage. Many of the elders were driving Buicks, which God finds oddly amusing. That's not much of a divine revelation, I know, just passing it along.

As God's obedient servant, I traveled eastward and, in good faith, turned south on Blackman Road. Blackman Road is so named because a man of African descent was spotted there many years ago. He may have been walking down a nearby path carrying some fish. Perhaps he lived near the James River for a short time. I don't know if this is true, but having lived in the area for many years, it seems plausible.

In the blink of an eye, I came upon a large house of God nestled high atop a neatly mowed hill several hundred paces from the road. I beheld an angular arrangement of bricks with metal roofing. This, I felt reasonably sure, was the spot. I pulled into the huge parking lot. Nobody was there.

God & Architecture

At first glance, I mistook the church for a middle school or high school. It seems whomever God had blessed with the construction contract for this house of worship had thrice utilized the same pre-ordained template with larger school districts in surrounding counties.

For what it's worth, and it's a lot, God prefers His homes to be singular in their design, which may explain His sighing disdain for prayers emanating from cookie-cutter suburban landscapes. And I'm sorry to report that God no longer attends to the distorted pleadings emanating from prefabricated metal buildings. Sadly, most of these "full metal churches" are found in rural settings, frequently visible on outer roads across I-44.

For the record, the rare open air tent meeting remains the preferred assemblage from which God enjoys receiving worship and prayer requests. 

I began examining the roof lines of this particular church. Walls, windows, and corner masonry slapped together in a lazy geometric. I've seen Lego structures with more character. I found myself visualizing, for a moment, God's Word bouncing off the angled roof lines like laser beams back into the atmosphere, piercing clouds and careening off orbiting satellites into the deepest reaches of space. Metal roof. Ugh. Impenetrable, virtually prayer proof. This explains a lot.

Inside, a multitude of prayers from congregants becomes an indoor bombardment of prayer lasers careening from ceiling to floor and back again until fading out entirely. Sunday worship at a metal roofed church would amount to nothing more than an indecipherable, discordant mix of mangled pleadings and missed directives. And then they all get in their cars and drive! God knows where they go, but they are dangerous.

Figure It Out!

God sometimes reveals Himself through idle thought portals like this. That is, I've come to value moments of wandering, or what some people would call day dreaming, because mental meanderings sometimes end with a flash of divine light. One person's daydream is another person's epiphany. Revelations from God don't happen that often, really, just often enough to effectively condition me to keep the playground open. You never know.

Was God revealing to me that the church roof served as an impenetrable deflector shield? Could this explain why so many Christian churches have lost their way? Metal roofs deflecting God's message? Could it possibly be that simple? Is this why Evangelicals are so susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous charlatans? Seems plausible.

Come to think of it, the area's favorite mega church, James River Assembly of God, has a metal roof like this! By the way, it's now James River Church, as they've scrubbed their website of any references to the Assemblies of God denomination, which is headquartered in Springfield. Did we miss something?

Church squabbles are delightful entertainment for God. It's His reality television, if you will. Witnessing self-righteous men - and it's always men - puffing up and making fools of themselves in His name? Hilarious! The wives? Well, they are trained early to be submissive, so what would you expect?

Is it possible that a metal roof on James River Church explain why Pastor preaches that yoga is demonic and gay people aren't worth protecting from discrimination? Could it be that messages from God just haven't been getting through? Is Pastor just winging it?
Having heard him speak on several occasions, I find this quite plausible.

Heaven, Hell & the Rapture

I'm now imagining Pastor's arrival at the Gates of Heaven and in answering for his misguided political meddlings says, 

"You see, it turns out our church had a metal roof that served to deflect the Lord's Word. I never actually received His messages, and should therefore be held harmless for any sins I may have committed. To which Peter replies,

"Oh? Sorry, but the "Know Not What They Do" absolution is valid only when administered by God or His Designee. If you don't know what you're doing, you cannot possibly absolve yourself for not knowing what you're doing. Figure it out! Therefore, no entry for you, false prophet!"

Pastor, falling into hell, screams "Aiiyeeeeeeeee!"

Disclaimer: Pastor being flung into traditional Hell is my own self-directed flight of fancy. Truth is, God has never outright revealed to me whether Heaven or Hell exist actually exist as separate places, nor has He confirmed, or ever suggested to me, that there is a final day of judgement after death. He has cleverly implied many times that heaven and hell (lower case) exist in real time right here where we live, which I find both troubling and comforting depending on the situation.

Of course, as a prophet of God, the troubling question is, am I projecting scenarios from my own mind, or did God reveal it to me through my mind? Metal roof deflecting God's message? Plausible?

Wishful Thinking & Faith

It pains me to admit that I soon became overwhelmed with indecision about this day's calling. Why can't everything be easy? Being incapable of understanding God's message is the main reason man invented faith, with zero Guidance, by the way. God says that faith is dressed up wishful thinking and nothing more. But again, that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. So, if you consider yourself to be a man or woman of faith, rest assured there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

At this moment, my own wishful thinking was being severely tested. I resisted the temptation to leave and instead chose to wait for Divine Affirmation of some kind. This could take a while.

I once parked for the better part of an entire evening outside a strip mall massage parlor in southwest Springfield. Once there, I could find no sign or clue.

I did happen to see a guy who looked very much like Josh Hawley furtively exiting the parlor door. He appeared to be wearing a cape, which I found curious. He glided to a car that was parked outside a Chinese restaurant down the row. I marveled at his quickness and agility. Maybe it was the cape. I thought, "Whoa, am I here to catch Josh Hawley after a happy ending? That would be so amazing! Self-righteous twit!"

God quickly interjected. "He's going to be limber after a message."

This is how you know you're on the wrong track with God. It's never, "Hey, you're on the wrong track." No, it's always a statement of fact followed, and maybe it's me, seems to be followed by an unspoken "dumbass". Guidance from God is seldom direct, and don't waste your time with questions. Click. Among His most frequent directives is "Pay Attention". Easy for the omniscient to say.

It turned out the massage parlor outing was all about a woman who worked there, rather than a cape-wearing Josh Hawley. I never learned her name. She may have been ill, because I eventually was directed to a nearby market where I purchased specific items and returned to drop them off. That was it, but it took more than four hours for me to figure it out.

So here I was again, sitting in my car in a church parking lot on Blackman Road waiting for something to happen while speculating on metal roofs and mega church pastors being cast into hell. And lo, it came to pass that I fell into a troubled sleep behind the wheel of my Toyota.

Children Are Dying!

I awoke from a horrific nightmare, still in car, heart racing in full panic mode as I pieced together bizarre images. My mind filled with haunting echoes of anguish and death. I was stranded on a narrow ledge high atop an underground water park. Early Bransonesque. Marvel Cave meets White Water.

People were dutifully lining up their kids to be randomly killed on a water slide lined surrounded by jagged, flesh-cutting, man-made boulders. I don't know how else to say it. The slide was too swift for children. I watched in horror as their flailing little bodies were launched into the misty air and dashed against blood-soaked rocks, screams muffled by roaring water. Their bodies drifted off around a corner on a lazy river of death.

"What are you doing?" I scream at the families below. "Can't you see? No! Don't do this! They're dying!"

But people continued moving patiently along in neat lines that doubled back on themselves. They clutched their brightly colored rafts and kept moving forward, afraid to look up at me. A few children were obviously petrified, but parents urged them along toward the top of the slide, where smiling park attendants helped them lie down on their rafts.

Like happy vacationers boarding a doomed Duck Boat, they had somehow convinced themselves this particular ride was a must. True to Branson, all of the parents were too heavy to be thrown off the slide, but the younger kids were flying high into the air, one after the other. Oh, God!

"What's wrong with you people?" I woke up screaming. "Jesus!"

Sometimes I think this is how God likes to wake me up. He was laughing, which is about the most disarming thing there is. "Why would anybody listen to you? They don't listen to Me!"

Sometimes I think God has a sense of humor. I'm pretty sure He does, but most of it is way over my head. Like old people driving Buicks is funny? I don't get it. But, here's one you may have missed. God placed a giant prophylactic atop the Missouri Capitol as the ruling patriarchy passed restrictive laws to more effectively suppress women. It appears to be ribbed with no lubricant, which sounds Republican. God works a lot with metaphors, I've found.

With my dream, I believe He was trying to show me how tough it is to be God's prophet in 21st Century America. People don't listen, even when their lives are at stake, and they are struck dumb when confronted with Truth.
Truth often comes in blows, He once told me.

And then, still reeling from my dream, the sign from God came to me. I mean, literally, it was a sign right in front of my face. It said, "ATM".

At this moment, God reminded me how comfortable I had become with the superficiality of consumer life, that it would take over an hour for me to notice a big, bold bank ATM sign sitting squarely on Church grounds. Is this not His house? Did anybody bother to confer with Him about this? Obviously not!

A Den of Thieves

You may recall the only time we see violent Jesus is when he unloads his righteous rage on the money changers in the Temple, beating their asses, overturning tables, spilling cash boxes, freeing the sacrificial livestock into the streets and calling out the priests for turning the Temple into a "den of thieves". Oh, man! Wish I'd seen it. This was the real reason they had him killed him, of course.

Such a public display of disrespect to the owner class could not go unanswered. They had him executed in the most gruesome manner for all to see. You know the story. Sometime later, a bunny with colored eggs became involved. I have no idea. But the wealthy elite's message to the peasant class - virtually everybody else - was crystal clear. "Don't get any ideas."

Historical Note: Sixty-six years later a violent rebellion did erupt, forcing Roman Emperor, Nero, to send multiple reinforcements. The great Jewish Rebellion lasted seven years before it was finally defeated, leaving much of what we now call the Holy Land in ruins.

My point here is that most modern day "Christians" think that Jesus died for their sins. In truth, Jesus died for upsetting an established order that had allowed exploitative money changers to establish a foothold in the Temple of God.

Fast forward two thousand years, and we see money changers setting up banking services in God's house, and the church has become so thoroughly secularized that it's blind to the obvious desecration of God's house.

God's position is this: People can go ahead and worship money like crazy. I mean, we have free will, right? This isn't new. Just don't expect it to end well. Churches, however, cannot also be banks. God considers this spiritual bankruptcy, if you will. And here we have Exhibit A in the spiritual bankruptcy filing from Glendale Christian Church in Springfield, Missouri.

Also, please note that Springfield City Council unanimously approved this bank/church arrangement. The mayor quipped that the church might find it easier to collect tithes with an ATM on their property. Ha! Funny! Church, state and money changers united in what? Enterprise? Admit it, at first blink, you don't think it's that big a deal. Verily, I say to you. It is a big deal! 

God Did Not Create Corporations

Oh, and let me just pass this along, since we're discussing church/state/moneychanger things. God condemns the notion that corporations are people. Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A will not rise up during the Rapture. 

Neither will you, for that matter. There's isn't going to be a Rapture. A full scale Apocalypse maybe, but no Rapture.
He wants you to know this. Stop deluding yourself.

For God's sake, I tell you this now so that appropriate actions may be taken, though I'm not exactly sure whether it would be better to repent or join a rebellion. Historically, both produce dubious outcomes. If pushed to choose, based on my interpretations of God's message, I'd probably go with rebellion at this point. It just seems more proactive, and sometimes rebellions succeed in changing things.

I will report more Insights as they are provided to me. It is my calling. Meanwhile, I would advise anyone reading this to offer prayers to God only while outdoors for best results. Also, just to be safe, if you attend a church covered by a metal roof, please listen very carefully to the message. Does it sound like it could come from God, or are they just making shit up?

You have free will. 

Pay attention. 

Figure it out.

*God has no gender and doesn't care about pronouns. I thought about mixing pronouns, but that would have made this piece even harder to read than it already is.