My One Night in the Army

My One Night in the Army

The draft missed me by just three days,
So I went to Preacher School.
Missed out on Basic Training--
Hey, now that's not cool!
So when a Vet from Nam told me
A Chaplain was their need--
I stepped right up to do God's stuff,
For my new company.

I bought camouflaged fatigues,
And sewed on Chaplain's cross.
A major drilled me on technique,
Since he would be my Boss.
I bought a pair of Army boots,
All black and shiny bright--
Then drove on down to King City,
For war games late one night.

My One Night in the Army--
Attention! March! Salute!
My One Night in the Army--
In my Second Lieutenant's suit.
My company disbanded,
And so I couldn't do it.
My One Night in the Army,
Till they gave me the boot.

I was bouncing 'round in my old car,
Among those tanks and jeeps--
With dusty nets and purple lights,
Through those dark ranks I'd creep.
“Have you seen my company?”
But they all shook their heads.
At half past three, I gave up,
And trundled off to bed.

I slept that night with officers,
And with the same I ate--
Paying for the eggs and hash,
They heaped upon my plate.
By then great tanks were rolling in,
I stood knee-deep in dust--
Still trying to find my company,
Not knowing they'd gone bust.

My One Night in the Army--
Attention! March! Salute!
My One Night in the Army--
In my Second Lieutenant's suit.
My company disbanded,
And so I couldn't do it.
My One Night in the Army,
Till they gave me the boot.

They were old soldiers, out of Nam,
And some, Korea, too--
California's mighty SMURFS,
Who'd served red, white, and blue.
But when they learned the sweat they'd burned
Would not turn into cash--
They'd resigned, left me behind,
Pretending I was M.A.S.H.

I spent one night as sole soldier
In all my company--
Stumbling through those war games,
Helping men stay free.
One night I've served my Uncle Sam,
But these old boots I'll keep.
They've not worn out in thirty years
Of marching in my sleep.

My One Night in the Army--
Attention! March! Salute!
My One Night in the Army--
In my Second Lieutenant's suit.
My company disbanded,
And so I couldn't do it.
My One Night in the Army,
Till they gave me the boot.

There are those who've served much longer,
But at least I've served my night.
I heard the call, and gave my all,
And marched right out to fight.
I've been among the honored few:
My nation's fighting men--
Searching for myself out there,
Hell bent on fighting sin.

My One Night in the Army--
Attention! March! Salute!
My One Night in the Army--
In my Second Lieutenant's suit.
My company disbanded,
And so I couldn't do it.
My One Night in the Army,
Till they gave me the boot.
My One Night in the Army,
But hey, I've got my boots!

c2013 by Skip Johnson
All Rights Reserved

Note: This is a true story. Mine. I think God has stirred these memories and given me this lyric at this time in preparation for the Fourth of July Children's Rodeo out at Chesaw, WA, where we are asking God to allow us to plant a church. Chesaw and nearby Pontiac Ridge have been a gathering placer for Veteran's desiring to live “off the grid” since at least the end of the Vietnam conflict.

The area has the reputation for being “The Wildest Place in the West”, and also draws AWOL felons, left-over hard rock miners from the shut down gold mine, drug runners, and various other citizens who are disenfranchised from civilian life and/or society at large. The inhabitants of Pontiac Ridge enforce their own brand of justice, and law enforcement generally know to leave well enough alone, and simply leave them to their own devices. One man was causing trouble, so they burned his house down, if I've got the story right. It was a subtle hint for him to move on. My lead elder from our Oroville congregation, the one with this target group as our church plant, was kidnapped by marijuanna farmers when he stumbled into their patch fifteen years or so ago. He finally escaped, and hiked out in the darkness.

Now I'm asking him, and others of our members, especially Veterans, and those who work well with children, to come back in to see what God will do in granting us a church in this isolated area just south of the border with Canada and to the east of the northern end of our Okanogan River Valley.

In the winter, Chesaw is bound in by heavy snows. In the summer, its population swells, peaking with the Fourth of July Rodeo for Children, which is their biggest festival of the year. In less than a month, we expect to take our first group in to mix and mingle and minister, as God allows us opportunity.

We baptized a woman who lives alone in a trailer out on the far side of Pontiac Ridge in the Tonasket “Let Freedom Ring!” series last year. She's a member of our Oroville congregation, but we don't see her much in the winter, due to the deep snows, and not much any time, due to the cost of gasoline in our spread out ministry territory. We need a weekly Sabbath meeting of worshipers in the Chesaw and Pontiac Ridge area to genuinely serve the spiritual needs that exist within this unique population.

The Fourth of July is a perfect day to begin a work for spirit-wounded heroes, the Veterans in one of the most forgotten corners of America. That is exactly what, with God's help, we intend to do.

Keep us in your prayers.

~Skip Johnson
Omak, WA
6/7/2013

Who are the greatest lovers?

Thursday during my "Guitar and Life 101" class with the guys and girls down at the Nespelem Tribal Jail, I sang a couple of love songs, and told them the story of meeting the longest-married couple I had ever encountered. They were an Adventist doctor and his wife, in their mid-90's.

I visited them in the Senior Care Center, where she'd been placed after her mind began to wander to the point where she was unable to recall the names of immediate family members (though the section of her mind filled with many familiar hymns she still loved to sing seemed entirely unimpaired). When I stopped by for a pastoral visit, he was sitting beside her wheelchair, holding her hand quietly.

In the course of the conversation, I asked her, "When did you and your husband first meet?" She looked through me for a long minute, her faded eyes searching over space and time. Then she focused on me again. "I'm sorry," she said slowly, "I don't remember when we met."

I went home that evening, and told my wife, "I want to be married to you for so long, you've forgotten when we met."

"Seven out of ten songs written are love songs," I told the young adults in my guitar class, "and there still aren't enough love songs in the world. If you want to know what it takes to find love and keep it burning over a lifetime, don't ask the Young Lovers, like Romeo and Juliet. Instead, go ask the Old Lovers you know, those who have been married 40, 50, 60, 70 years, or more. They are the deep wells for this sort of life wisdom, which in our day, when a seven year relationship is considered 'long term', is something that ought to be bottled and passed out on street corners for free!"

It takes a new crop of Young Lovers, or there will never be any Old Lovers, of course. But those just starting out do have a place to turn for life coaching on the essential skills required for a love that lasts a lifetime. A great many of these are found in Christian Churches, sitting quietly together in pews, or holding hands in forgotten nursing home rooms.

Adventists, the Seventh-day Sabbath of the Bible, and "The Battle for Creation"

All competent Hebrew scholars, both rabbis and Christians, agree that Moses in writing Genesis, the Bible's first book, meant to convey the idea that Creation occurred over six twenty-four hour days, as that is the Hebrew word he employs of the six days, and of the seventh, which followed them. What Moses meant to say is clear and unmistakable: That is beyond question.

What is at stake is whether those who look to the Bible will accept what it clearly says, or instead simply disagree with Moses and the Bible from its very first page in favor of an alternate world view's contrary ideas instead--specifically materialistic evolution, which posits a many millions and even billions of years of time span needed for life to evolve from a chance and unreproducible alleged beginning through various states of increasing complexity by random mutations and natural selection to its present state.

These two world views--Biblical Theism with its Creator, who speaks and things spring into existence--and Materialism--which says the world has always been pretty much as we know it now, with variation, or evolved from simple, chance beginnings, through random chemical processes to its current state--are diametrically opposed to each other.

Though this is the case, there are those who would attempt to meld these alternate takes on reality together through teachings that would bend the Bible to accommodate the needs of the opposing world view, suggesting that God created over long periods of time, ranging from a thousand to many millions of years. This approach has been employed in Catholic education since the 1950's. It was also largely adopted by the Christian Churches in America as a whole after Darwin's ideas swept through society.

I read a book many years ago in the Santa Cruz Public Library on a day off titled "The Battle for Creation". In it, evolutionists lamented the fact that their favored world view, which once seemed so triumphant, was now being successfully challenged in public forum by Christian churches once intimidated into silence in the public arena on the subject. These same once-cowed and placid entities were now bringing repeated challenges for public school education on teachings on origins.

The author noted that after Darwin, every voice of opposition from the religious world fell silent, with a single exception: Ellen G. White. After her, the Seventh-day Adventist professor Dr. George McGreedy Price of Pacific Union College began employing scientific evidences in favor of the Creation model of origins. Others began doing the same. And now, sadly, (for the evolutionist's view of matters) many Christian churches had picked up that once flickering torch, and were scorching evolutionists with it at every turn. They were losing public debates and also public support for the promotion of their teaching, a thing they had long simply assumed.

It was all the Seventh-day Adventist's fault! If that flickering wick of an Adventist Sabbath-keeping prophet, and those who looked to her teaching, had been only extinguished, atheistic (or at least the fish/fowl hybrid of "theistic evolution") would have held entire, permanent sway over the minds of the masses. Now, sadly, that was not so...and was getting more not so all the time.

I must say, that bit of information from the camp of the opponents of the Biblical view of origin made me proud to be a Creator-worshiping Seventh day Adventist! There is an organic and unbreakable link between keeping the seventh-day Saturday Sabbath of the Bible's teaching out of reverence for our Creator, in keeping with the repeated teachings of the Bible that declares His truth on matters of origin, and the example of Jesus and the apostles, and the ability to stand up against opposing world views that would deny, by clear implication, all of these things. If you are not willing to obey the teaching of the Bible in this matter, or any other, you will quickly find yourself in a position to no longer know clearly what you believe either. That was the case with the Christian world as a whole only a few generations ago on the matter of origins. It remains a practical truth today, as well. Do it, and you'll know it. Don't do it, and you may, or may not, be able to argue in its favor, with any conviction, or success.

As for the author of "The Battle for Creation", he states that it was Seventh-day Adventists in particular, with their Sabbath observance and insistence on hanging on to the Biblical view of origins tenaciously, when it had been abandoned by all other religious groups, who proved to be the beginning of the undoing of Darwin's theory in the minds of men. We are their most effective, most persistent, and most harmful opposition.

Hey, thanks for the compliment! Glad you noticed.

Bible-Based Theological Training Available to All

No-Tuition Fees for World Class Bible-Based Theological Training Available to All (Enroll Now for Free!)

Many here on Facebook and elsewhere contact me, seeking my financial assistance in obtaining training for Christian ministry. I help them as I can to achieve this worthy goal. But I know that such formal training is beyond the reach of a great many who might do excellent service for God in winning men to His kingdom. I also know that there is a far better education that lies within the reach of nearly all, and at nearly no cost--a world-class, even universal-class education. That is the hand-copying of the Bible, after the instructions given to the ancient Hebrew kings in Deuteronomy 17:18-20.

I have had the benefit of seven years of specific ministry training on the college and post graduate levels, as well as the practical experience of working under seven lead pastors in ministry formation before being ordained as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in my own right by the authority of our world church organization. Yet, if I had to choose between those formal educational opportunities, or the value I received from obeying God's instructions, and hand-copying the Bible cover to cover...well, there is no contest at all. The hand-copying of the Bible is the gold, and every other educational opportunity God afforded to me is silver, copper, brass, stone and wood by comparison. It is of value, but not of highest value.

So I urge all who read this, and who seek educational opportunities to fit themselves for God's ministry to do as He Himself directs you and all: Get yourself a binder of blank paper to write on, your own Bible you will be ministering from, and some black ink pens. I would suggest you begin with Matthew's gospel, and copy through to the book of Revelation first. Then go back and begin in Genesis with the 4/5ths of the Bible we call the Old Testament after that.

If you do this, you will have a world class education on all levels, and need never bow your head in any company anywhere on our planet because of what you may perceived to be a lack in your educational advantages. You will have been trained by God Himself, entered into, and completed His assigned course of study to prepare you for ministering accurately, completely, and under the Spirit's authority and power in His name. If you settle only for such instruction as you may obtain even from the finest of theological instructors and mentors, there will ever remain gaps in your education that will manifest themselves in your character, your teaching, and your leadership.

The Bible contains three things of greatest importance, and in their fullest measure:

1. The Message we are to preach.

2. The Methods by which this message is to be delivered.

3. The Mandate that authorizes us to preach that message anywhere, any place and any time, as God directs.

If you are a Gospel Worker already in service, or especially if you are a young worker just beginning your life's work, read Deuteronomy 17:18-20 carefully and prayerfully. Then if you are willing to take up this God-assigned duty, and hand-copy God's Word, so that you may down load the "software" of Scripture in its entirety into the "hardware" of your brain's computer, let me know. We are establishing a mutually-supporting online "Scripture Copying Seminary" that will encourage this form of preparation for entire ministry, and which will recognize the achievements of those who take up the work of intellectual, spiritual, and practical education directly from the Word of God itself.

We would like a suitable name for this venture, and are open for suggestions as we are in the initial stages of our online Scripture-copying Seminary, whose purpose is to fit world-class leaders for service among God's people by means of the very educational process He Himself enjoins on them in His Word.

Those working most closely with me on our growing ministry team here in the beautiful mountain river valleys of north central Washington State are being encouraged to enroll in our new seminary. Perhaps in time we will even have a location where people can come and live as they engage in this process of education, along with other helpful and practical additions of training. This is the core curriculum for a life time of fruitful ministry, and holds first place among all the other instruction that follows.

Pray God will give us a suitable, beautiful, and appropriate location for a seminary after the order of those who kept the knowledge of the Word of God in their language alive by this and similar means during the 1,260 years of the Church in the Wilderness (See Revelation 12 for details.) Our region here, with its green, clear-flowing river valleys, its pine, fir, and spruce covered steeps, its rocky crags and waterfalls, and mountains rising up to the glaciers that remain even in the summer's heat is a perfect setting for the return to such methods as God Himself has appointed for those who would serve His people and seek to win others in Jesus' name.

Crabernathy Jones

Crabbernathy Jones is a mean old man,
He beats his wife with a frying pan.
He whips his kids till they can't stand.
Crabbernathy Jones is a mean old man.

Crabbernathy Jones kicks his cat and dog,
He plucks live chickens and starves his hog.
He's the meanest thing since Gog and Magog.
Crabbernathy Jones kicks his cat and dog.

Oh, he is a bad one, old Crabbernathy Jones!
He ought to be marked with a skull and bones.
I hope he leaves me quite alone.
Oh, he's a bad one, old Crabbernathy Jones!

Crabbernathy Jones crushes butterflies, too.
He snarls, “They'll wish they never flew!”
He plucks bright wings of yellow and blue.
Crabbernathy Jones crushes butterflies, too.

Crabbernathy Jones is as mean as sin,
If you want him out, then he'll come in.
He'll break your mirror with his twisted grin.
Crabbernathy Jones is as mean as sin.

Oh, he is a bad one, old Crabbernathy Jones!
He ought to be marked with a skull and bones.
I hope he leaves me quite alone.
Oh, he's a bad one, old Crabbernathy Jones!

Crabbernathy Jones curses God and man,
And every blessed thing he can't understand.
But one glad day he was born again--
Then Abernathy Jones' new life began.

Oh, how the angels danced for joy--
As Satan raged, and cursed, and spat!
Come see the change our God has wrought.
“Meow!” and “Purrr!” said Abernathy's cat.

Abernathy Jones is a kind old man.
He loves his wife and he holds her hand.
He brings her daisies since love began.
Abernathy Jones is a kind old man.

Abernathy Jones was changed that day,
Crabbernathy left, and Abernathy stayed.
God changed his heart and changed his name.
Abernathy Jones was changed that day.

Oh, how his chickens danced for glee,
As the butterflies swirl, so happy and free!
His fat hog grunts snout-deep in feed,
And his kids climb down from the apple tree.

Crabbernathy Jones was a mean old man,
He beat his wife with a frying pan.
But now he's gone, and Abernathy stands.
Crabbernathy Jones was a mean old man.
Crabbernathy Jones was a mean old man.
But Crabbernathy's gone, he won't come again.

c2013 by Skip Johnson
All Rights Reserved

“But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:20-24 King James Version

Coming Soon! God's Universal Tour

Have you ever wished you could go on a cruise ship, or travel to another country and see exotic sights, or even take a voyage to another planet and view the galaxy? There's a far greater trip waiting, and you can sign up for your passage today, if you have not done so already!

The greatest voyage ever, God's Universal Tour is the theme of a new series that seven of us of our Advance Team are banding together to bring to pass here in the Okanogan River Valley of north central Washington State. This unique approach to conveying the reality of future events as understood by the Bible through a participatory advanced tour for those who must decide whether they will make the soon to come actual voyage will be based on the ancient teachings of the Bible, whose prophecies depict events that lie just ahead, and will involve the entire human race.


Upcoming Attractions

Some of the dozen featured scenes and stops on God's Universal Tour include:

*Jesus' Second Coming and the Resurrection of the Righteous Dead

*The Journey Through Space from Earth to the Stones of Fire Galaxy at the Heart of the Universe

*Entry Into the New Jerusalem, the Nerve Center Capital of God's Universal Dominions

*A Tour of the Golden City, Attendance at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, and Summons for Universal Jury Duty

*The Second Journey Through Space from Heaven to Earth in the Biggest Mothership Ever Constructed

*The Bright New Jerusalem's Touch Down on Dark Planet Earth and the Day the Living Dead

*The Spectacle of the Last Battle of Armegedon, With the Great White Throne Judgment, and The Voyage of Ark II Through the Flood of Fire

*The Glorious Finale: We Witness the Creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth


The Purpose for the Tour

While we expect to trace surely and vividly the details of the tour, so that all may make choices that will enable them to participate, those engaged in this process are staggered at the magnitude of the sacred task of accurately describing the bare outlines of the coming grand voyage through time and space adequately. The Bible, the only actually functional Time Machine in existence, with the proven ability to see into the distant future and past, says:

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him."
I Corinthians 2:9


What You Can Do to Help

We ask the prayers of all as our Advanced Team of seven explorers goes on ahead in charting the outlines of God's Universal Tour, the grandest voyage of all time, and preparing the way for others who will be invited to follow. Already we have identified a dozen stops on the tour, and the information we uncover we plan to present in twelves fifteen-minute segments that will combine the Bible bones of ancient prophecies foretelling that which now lies just ahead for Earth' inhabitants. Our group of Bible-anchored imagineers seek to convey the information that may be known of these things in a series of creative presentations through word, song, visual aids, and other interactive teaching methods.


The Grand Opening

At present, the God's Universal Tour project is still in the imagineering stage, and will be under ongoing construction here in the Okanogan River Valley over coming months with the ready assistance of our local Seventh-day Adventist congregations. We have an eye to its completion sometime early next year, after which it will be ready for viewing by the general public at our Grand Opening, and at which time advanced ticket sales for the actual tour for the general public would go online.

While we expect God's Universal Tour to be an engaging and sound exposition of the Bible's true teaching concerning what lies just ahead for Earth's inhabitants, we of the Advance Team recognize that our utmost efforts to truly pierce the glory, the gloom, the flames and the splendor that are a part of the actual space voyage are beyond the limits of mankind's imagination. Because of this, we covet the prayers of one and all as the project proceeds. Periodic reports and press releases on the progress of the project may be expected from time to time, and those interested in viewing the work still under construction will have opportunity to do so as it unfolds in our Omak, Tonasket, and Oroville Seventh-day Adventist Churches in the weeks and months just ahead.


Signing Off For Now, But Keep Your Eyes Open For Future Press Releases!

On behalf of our local Management Team of God's Universal Tour, this is Public Relations Spokesman, Skip Johnson, hoping you'll join us as a part of an adventure so stupendous that it lies beyond the ken of mankind's collective imagination.

Keep looking up!

Omak, WA
4/29/2013

Rich Preachers???

I sometimes wish I were in the position to walk away from money entirely. I'd rather go get my rice bowl and be begging with Ghandi, and maybe free up a few countries from their oppressors along the way, or better yet, hang out with Jesus and His disciples. Unfortunately, I was born 2,000 years too late for that particular gig, and I currently have four mostly disabled people living under my roof, dependent on a single pastor's salary. No complaints, here! There is a warmth when you've got one fire to cook on that isn't there when there's enough wood for everybody to stoke their own off in separate corners.

Fortunately, I have a wife who is our financial manager, which leaves my energies free to devote to ministry pursuits that don't involve $$$ signs. Those who post such things as this do make a point about the problem of a church that matches too nearly the values of its surrounding culture, rather than the gifting of the Spirit, in its man-made, church-style corporate ladders.

Some pastors worship golden calves still. Others are lucky to have a car at all, and currently have the same retirement plan as God provided for Moses and Aaron. I have a pastor friend in Africa who has 21 congregations, whom he often sees every week, by riding to them on his motor cycle. He's home two days a week with his new wife (his former wife died a few years back), and children.

I believe here in America we will have to learn and consciously adopt the ministry techniques of our fellow pastors in third world countries before we will be able to finish God's work here, too. Anybody interested in knowing more of how to actually achieve this, check the Facebook page "African and American Adventist Alliance", which the pastor I mentioned and I have been working to establish.

The basic idea is to link up pastors and districts from Africa with pastors and sister districts in America, and also principles and schools in Africa with pastors and sister schools in America, for the purpose of mutual prayer for each others work, the sharing of ministry ideas, cultural exchange, and such tangible assistance as either group can render to the other, as mediated through the pastor or principle involved.

Request for Prayer and Funding for Adventist Orphanage Project in Kenya

African and American Adventist Alliance

I have great admiration for those engaged in active and aggressive work of evangelism and mercy ministries in locations of the world where funding for the same is minimal. I believe we who minister here in America must learn from those who minister in such countries the lessons of faith, tenacity in doing God's work, organization, training, and economy before we will be able to complete the still-unfinished work here in North America.

I received the following request for funding from one such worker, Kenedy Oramat, a few days ago. Kenedy is engaged in working with a project to support needy children and orphans through an Adventist program for those not of our faith in an area where 42 tribal groups live there in Kenya. He seeks whatever aid people may be able to give him to this end.

I have not met Kenedy Oramat personally, and would suggest any with the ability and interest in giving aid contact him on his Facebook page under his name: Kenedy Oramat. You can find further details and make your own informed decisions through direct contact. The rest of us can pray for work being done under most difficult circumstances by fellow Seventh-day Adventist Christians, both Kenedy's work in Kenya, as well as thousands like him in various places of the world.

I am in contact with a fellow pastor in another country in Africa who has a district of 21 congregations, whom he visited often weekly on a five day motor cycle tour. We are working together on a project we're calling “African and America Adventist Alliance”, which looks to match up pastors/districts and principals/schools in Africa and America in “sister churches” and “sister schools” alliances for the purposes of:

1. Mutual prayer for each other's success in ministry

2. The sharing of stories of success and ministry and challenges in ministry

3. Cultural exchange by members/students and pastors/principals through pictures, letter writing, and the like

4. Rendering of mutual aid in tangible form through the pastors or principles, as such resources may become available

If you're interested in learning more, check out the Facebook page my African associate on this project has put up: African and American Adventist Alliance.

Here is the specific details of the Adventist needy children and orphans project in Kenya that Kenedy Oramat is working with from a message he sent from his mobile phone, I believe. I have not altered the text, which is a bit difficult to read due to language issues and also the limited means available to Kenedy for communication.

Keep looking up.

Pastor Skip Johnson, with “African and American Adventist Alliance”

***

from Kenedy Oramat

Helo,pst Skip J.true im from Africa.and im very hapy to be among of your friends in this continent and hope to visit me in person.my Country Is Kenya.im in a project that sponsering children and madication Foundation From Germany.working as staff writting children letters to sponsors.my Life Goals Is to serve the lord and supporting needy childrens and ophans Childrens In Community Under Our Church.CHALLENGES:im working With People Who are not my fellowship in church.i have the plot and i haved introduce the group to work with childrens and we're Capitol and we need brothers and sisters for blessing donation from adventist.as im working they can not consider sabath and we need children to grow up and meet the true worshing and serving the lord.i Live In Kenya Rift valley Province.we have 42 tribes and im a masaa.we are pastrolism keeping cows,sheep and goats.arround The Maasai Lands We have fertile soil good for growing maise,beans,bananas and all crops.i live near the park and there are many wilds animals

Our Truorist There Is Elephants Giraffs,lions,zebras,cheaters,hynas,antalops,black $ White Rhinos ,hippopotomus and crocodile and soo more. IM aventist from south kenya conferance and a youth leader in our district churches I Thank God for the talent of singing He is the good shapherd my parent got seperated whe is was a 4yrs old and i passed dificulities and love children when they enjoy paretal care with love.may God Bless You And Remember Me In Prayer One Faithfuk Man Can Shake The World Amen!

***

P.S. from Pastor Skip Johnson: Our three church district in Connecticut entered into a relationship with a pastor and his 21 congregations in Africa a few years back, as we were beginning to work with this idea of the “African and American Adventist Alliance” of sister church districts and schools. We learned a great deal from their ministry approaches, their faith, and benefited greatly from the prayers of the 4,300 members in those congregations who held our work here up to the Lord of us all. We were also able to send them two boxes of our “God's Dollar” leaflets, enough for one for each of their church members, as well as full sets for their elders which would allow them to have a short eight night reaping session.

That project has been delayed a bit on the American end of things due to a pastoral move to the opposite side of the country, and my own recent round of cancer treatments (successful, thank God!). Those interested in learning more of this initiative, feel free to contact me directly, or go to the “African and American Adventist Alliance” Facebook page. We believe this is an idea that stands to greatly benefit those engaged in ministry on both of our continents by closer links for mutual benefit.

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

Terry writes this prayer request for Kerry, her husband:

"Hubby is for open heart surgery tomorrow...PLEASE PRAY that our lives will speak Jesus, not like the world and that we would have opportunity to share HIS truth with whom-so-ever-may..."

Note: One of our Tonasket members, Gordon, called me two days ago, and we had an anointing service with oil, prayer, and an appeal to God to honor His Word given in James 5 a few days ago with Kerry and Terry after their own church elders refused to honor this request on their behalf. Kerry has had heart problems for at least three years now. Three years ago, he was clinically "dead" for 15 minutes, before they applied the paddles, and brought back a heart with an artery blocked down to 30% capacity.

During that time down, Kerry had a vision of himself, and of Jesus Christ in garments shining like the weave and wick of a gas camp lantern. Jesus spoke to him, and Kerry was sent back to earth to complete his life's work. This work has included speaking out of the dreams and visions God has continued to give Kerry and his wife, Terry, which point them to the details of the Old Testament sanctuary tent of the time of Moses, and details in symbolic form the very key truths that Seventh-day Adventists have known from our founding as a people.

Specifically, the dream symbols involve the cleansing power that can only come through an entire acceptance of the Ten Commandment Law of God, and the blood of Jesus, including the seventh day Saturday Sabbath of the Bible, and this in the context of the preaching of the eternal gospel. As I know of the truths to which these visions Kerry has received signify, helping he and his wife understand them and know their significance is not difficult.

During the first year after his initial heart attack, Kerry repeatedly attempted to share what he was experiencing with his congregation, but was told by its leadership that he was being led by a spirit other than that from God. His requests that he be shown his error from the Bible proved to no avail. He and his wife have stepped back from direct involvement in the congregation that a portion of their six children's families attend after being increasingly shunned by the leaders and members alike. They are in an isolated position, both socially, geographically (they moved far up into our local "Valley of Refuge", and have been living off the grid, preparing for the coming crisis that every one of the 42 congregations I have visited so far in our district area affirms is imminent), and spiritually.

Two of their own congregations leaders were summoned to do the anointing, but have refused this service to one of their own, on unbiblical grounds, until Kerry and his wife should repent of the spirit that has been giving them the dreams of Bible truths their own group has not yet understood, or accepted, but which are vital for God's people living in the end times. When this occurred, through Gordon, an Adventist friend to the couple, I was summoned to assist.

When we had heard of the moving of God's Spirit in their lives, I told Kerry, "The passage in James 5 says to "Pray for one another". Would you be willing to pray for me, even before I pray for you?" He agreed, and I remembered that my wife Judi had requested prayers that her own illness be lifted sufficiently for her to be able to sing and play her worship and praises to God again among His people. I asked Kerry to anoint me with oil on Judi's behalf to that end. When he had done so, he placed hands on both of my shoulders and prayed that if his life must be taken in exchange, to grant my wife her request.

Then I anointed him with oil, the Spirit moving me to inscribe the shape of the two tablets of the Ten Commandment Law, which had been clearly featured in the dreams and visions he has received, on his forehead, along with the shape of the cross. We had already discussed these twin marks of God's true end time people, as they appear in Revelation 12:17:

"And the dragon (Satan) was enraged with the woman (God's true people in all ages), and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring (God's end time believers) who (here come the two marks, so watch closely...) KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD, and HOLD TO THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS."

That's from the New American Standard Bible, which I happen to have on the desk beside me, with the () marks enclosing the Biblical interpretation of the symbols involved.

We are in the time when God is sealing His people for what lies just ahead, through His Spirit. His people have two marks:

1. They keep God's Ten Commandment Law (Exodus 20:3-17)

2. They trust in Jesus' blood alone to pay for their past violations of that Law, and to give them power needed through His Spirit to fully comply with every detail of its teachings.

The symbols traced in oil on Kerry's brow signify his acceptance of these very things, which includes an acceptance of the seventh-day Saturday Sabbath of the Bible, which is in the heart of God's eternal law, and is reaffirmed repeatedly in the New Testament writings through both precept of Jesus and His apostles, and in explicit teaching.

The group to which Kerry and Terry belong is a fervent and devout Christian denomination, who have an ongoing desire to be freed from all sin, and to come into God's presence. This occurs, of course, through the sanctuary, in Bible times, and especially now, as Jesus completes the final acts of His ministry in the heavenly sanctuary before returning to earth for His Bride, the Church. When I visited among them a number of months ago, their congregation had just completed an entire series of meetings seeking to draw nearer to God. Yet the pastor told the congregation, "We must still press on to come nearer to God!" He was correct. Something was missing in his own religious experience and what he did not possess, he could not pass on to his people.

"There is one portion of the Ten Commandment Law that was symbolized as the cleansing blue flame in your vision that your church stands in violation of every time they meet to worship," I told Kerry. "That is the fourth commandment, which specifies the seventh day Saturday Sabbath as the day set aside by the Creator Himself to meet with Him in worship. Sunday, based on mere human tradition, arising from the Papacy of Rome, as signified by the Little Horn power on the head of the dragon of Daniel 7, is the authority behind the shift of day. And each of us is a servant of the master we choose to obey: Either the god of the Vatican, a mere human authority contrary to the Law of God, or the God of the Bible, as He expresses Himself in the Ten Commandments and in the rest of the teachings of the Bible."

"I never thought I would observe the seventh-day Sabbath," Kerry informed me, as he saw the significance of both the Scriptures themselves, and also their application to the specifics of the dreams/visions he had been given, which so aroused the opposition of an increasingly spiritually-abusive church leadership. Others of his congregation told him they believed some of the things he had said and done were correct, but that they feared to acknowledge this openly, as they would be shunned, too.

At present in two congregations of this very closed group, four marriages have been broken up by the leadership of the congregations attempts to insert themselves in decisions rightfully left between husbands and wives. These couples love each other, but are divorced and living apart, wishing to reunite, but have the men unwilling to allow the church leaders to dictate the inner workings and decisions they hold rightfully belong to a man and his wife, not to a pastor and another man's wife.

Please be praying not only for Kerry and Terry, but also these four other couples. None have remarried. All wish to return to their spouses. But the women involved fear being lost forever if they accept their own husbands' authority within their home above the intrusive authority of their local spiritual leaders. This is the larger healing that needs to occur. Please pray for an even larger anointing so that this currently unresolved open wound may be healed, and these marriages restored, as God intends.

The State of Modern Marriage: An Opportunity for Purity

When Jesus said people would be "marrying and giving in marriage" up until His sudden return, as they were in the days before the Flood of Noah, I believe he had more than simply usual marriages in view.

In our day, marriage is being twisted and turned in all directions—temporary marriages, trial marriages, pre-nuptial agreement marriages, group marriages, same—sex marriages, polygamy, open marriages (both partners have other partners, as well as each other), serial marriages, and even people marrying objects and animals—these and more are a boiling like a overheated pot in human societies worldwide. Television shows devoted to these things, glossy magazines reporting the latest scandals of celebrities, and entire networks serve these things up continually.

This in addition to the removal of marriage entirely by those busy cheating on their future marriages by fornication and living together. Moral wrongs are championed as "Civil Rights," and what is declared abominable is championed by the leaders of nations.

These things are affecting Christians as much as the world at large. In America, a nation claiming to be over 70% Christian, eighty percent of young, unmarried people between the ages of 18-24 are involved in pre-marital sex, compared with 89% of the population at large. Even pastors’ families are affected, with half of all specifically pastoral marriages ending in divorce.

The tattered state of Modern Marriage is surely a sign that the second flood, the coming Flood of Fire, is soon to come to again sweep the earth clean of sin and sinners. (See I Peter 3:7-13 for details.) It also means that we live in an age that is rather like the reputation of Jesus' own home town of Nazareth, which was so proverbial for its wickedness that Nathaniel questioned, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"

With such challenges to Christian purity all around us, however, God is raising up people who in their own lives will demonstrate the value of observing the 7th commandment, and Jesus' own words about purity even in our looking and in our thought life.

Those who have not engaged in sexual sin need strong encouragement from Scripture and the testimony of those who have made good moral choices to support them in doing God's will. Those who have not followed God's guidelines in these things in the past need the promises of God for forgiveness for what is past. The strong strictures of the Bible that protect human sexuality show how precious this aspect of human life is. It is only a great treasure that is stored in a strong safe. But for some, the safe has been broken into already, and hope for a better future is needed. The Bible balances its prohibitions and regulations concerning moral conduct with stories of people like Rahab the Canaanite harlot, Samson the womanizing Judge, Judah the moral crusader tricked by his own daughter-in-law Tamar, King David and Uriah the Hittite's wife Bathsheba in her bath, the wise King Solomon's foolishness of a far overstocked harem, and the Samaritan woman at the well with her five exes and the new guy she was shacking up with.

As for adultery in all its pre-marital, extra-marital, and non-marital forms: The Bible says, "Don't do it, but if you have, God isn't done with you quite yet. There is still hope to ‘go and sin no more.’"

The fact is, the current state of marriage is not only the fulfillment of prophecy pointing to Jesus' soon return, it also provides an excellent conditions for forming a strong moral character. It is the oysters that grow channels where the waters rush most violently that grow the thickest shells. It is the tree still standing on a mountain top after the storm has broken down the forest around it that knows the full strength of the wind. The finest sailors learn their skills only by braving the roughest seas.

Black Pearls

A Gypsy, my Mother,
My Father, an earl.
When he saw her dancing,
He promised her pearls.
When he saw her prancing
With passion and fire,
He paid gold to have her,
To have her, to have her.
He paid gold to have her,
And quench his desire.

I've no place to go,
There's no turning back.
All I own I can carry
Here in my pack.
Like a leaf that is blown
By a cold, lonely wind--
I'm swirling along
Down a road without end.

Bright gold he did give
To men who were strong.
They toppled her wagon,
Then dragged her along--
To his castle of stone,
In a tower so high.
He tore off her gown,
Her gown, her gown.
He tore off her gown,
And she spit in his eye!

I've no place to go,
There's no turning back.
All I own I can carry
Here in my pack.
Like a leaf that is blown
By a cold, lonely wind--
I'm swirling along
Down a road without end.

She was but a Gypsy,
And he was an earl.
When he'd spilled his seed,
He tossed her black pearls.
He toss them, he tossed them--
These pearls in my pack.
She gave them to me,
I'm bringing them back.

I've someplace to go,
There's no turning back.
All I own I can carry
Here in my pack.
Like a leaf that is blown
By a cold, lonely wind--
I'm swirling along
Down a road without end.

At twilight, I entered
His castle so high.
I climbed his strong tower,
Far up in the sky.
I tossed him black pearls,
Then I watched him die.
His blood on my hands,
On my hands, on my hands.
His blood on my hands,
And her knife in his eye.

I've no place to go,
There's no turning back.
All I own I can carry
Here in my pack.
Like a leaf that is blown
By a cold, lonely wind--
I'm swirling along
Down a road without end.

She was a Gypsy,
And he was an earl.
When he saw her dancing,
He promised her pearls.
When he saw her prancing,
That lithe, gorgeous girl,
He paid gold to have her,
To have her, to have her.
He paid gold to have her,
But she scorns black pearls.
He paid gold to have her,
But she scorns black pearls.

I've no place to go,
There's no turning back.
All I own I can carry
Here in my pack.
Like a leaf that is blown
By a cold, lonely wind--
I'm swirling along
Down a road without end.

c2010 Skip Johnson
All rights reserved

I've read in a book of the Gypsies, a race of about 12 million wanderers, about 2/3rds of whom live in the nations of Eastern Europe. They have no homeland, no dream of a homeland, no heroes, and no religion of their own. The Gypsies claim that when God was passing out religions in dictating the various Holy Books, that the Holy Book of the Gypsies was written down on cabbage leaves, and quickly became a donkey's dinner!

As a group, Gypsies have been persecuted in many nations through the centuries in a manner similar to the Jews. During World War II, they suffered in the Nazi concentration camps along with Hebrew people. Even in “good times” Gypsies suffer repeated exploitation. They live, on the average, only 2/3rds as long as the people around them.

Gypsies are natural storytellers, singers, and legend weavers—traveling entertainers among the nations they rove. They have an innate need to amuse those around them, and themselves, even if that means greatly embelishing a story--or telling an outright lie. At times, they have fallen into sexual exploitation and even turned to prostitution in order to survive. Their girls marry at the age of 12 or 13, and often have children of their own when they are still playing with dolls. They travel in caravans, with the richer having covered wagons with narrow windows, and the poor far less. The men lead the procession, with the women and children coming along behind in wagons. Only in recent times has their unusual language been reduced to writing.

This lyric is straight-forward storytelling, a tale of revenge by an exploited Gypsy girl on the powerful man who used her for his own brutal pleasure, then paid her in black pearls--as though she had agreed to sell what he had stolen from her. It is a dark tale, certainly—and sadly one that has been played out in endless variations by men who act on their passions, imagining themselves safe because of their position of power over their victims. In this sense, the Gypsy girl is every woman who has been sexually exploited. But on a deeper level, this ballad serves as a human illustration of a Divine truth recorded in the Holy Book of Christianity. The apostle James says:

“When tempted, no one should say,
'God is tempting me.'
For God cannot be tempted by evil,
nor does he tempt anyone;
but each one is tempted when,
by his own evil desire,
he is dragged away and enticed.
Then, after desire has conceived,
it gives birth to sin;
and sin, when it is full-grown,
gives birth to death.”
James 1:13-15 NIV

Here, the lecherous earl's evil desire literally concieved and gives birth to that, which when full grown, brings about his death—his own illegitimate son. Such half-breed children were counted as belonging to their mother's people. The earl's son is both the singer of this song, and also the equivalent of the Jewish Blood Avenger. He is honed as the means by which the Gypsy girl finally repays her perpetrator--and returns his black pearls.

* * *

The Blind God

************************************************
"Don't!" His mouth formed the word. But I was on a roll now. We'd see who would make who do what. I stiffened my thumb into a hard stub with its sharp nail a blade. I held this weapon steady with my other hand. Then I gritted my teeth, and punched God's eye out.
************************************************


I poke my finger into my eye, and God winced. This made me smile. I wasn't pleased with Him being God. I disagreed with what He allowed to occur, what He said was so, and who He, unbearably, was. Now I'd inadvertently stumbled onto a way to strike back at high heaven. I poked my finger into my eye a second time, just to check. Sure enough, it worked. God winced again, shifted on His throne and regarded me with alarm.

Now it hurt badly to poke my own eye. But the heady rush of being able to make the Almighty suffer, to have Him in my control, to torture and make Him writhe like a worm on a hook felt even better. It was worth it. By now the pain in my self-injured eye was excruciating. Tears ran down my cheek, and the other eye began watering in sympathy. I wiped them both enough to get another quick peek at God. He had His hand over His own eye. He was rocking forward and backward. Streams of brine ran down His great cheek.

I laughed. Now I was god to God. This was a brave new world of untold possibilities. I could control Him like a puppet. With Him out of the way, I could do, think, and be whatever I wished. God looked at me and shook His great white mane.

"Don't!" His mouth formed the word. But I was on a roll now. We'd see who would make who do what. I stiffened my thumb into a hard stub with its sharp nail a blade. I held this weapon steady with my other hand. Then I gritted my teeth, and punched God's eye out. The pain tore through my head as my injured eye exploded in its socket, beyond recovery or repair. I clutched my face, and cursed the God who allowed such pain--which He might have prevented. How could He be so sadistic? He was supposed to be kind. He was supposed to be powerful. Why didn't He do His job and stop such senseless tragedy?

It was a long time before the tears in my remaining eye slowed enough so I could see God again. He was sobbing, the tears streaming from both His eyes. Then I raged at Him, sitting there weeping--His two uninjured eyes like spring-fed pools. If I could have reached Him, I would have torn Him from His throne and cast Him to the ground, and with my two strong thumbs blinded Him forever. But He was out of my reach. So I did the only thing I could. I clutched my wrist and stabbed with my thumb again, deep into my remaining eye--and screamed.

There was a brief electric flash like a jolting bolt of lightning. Then all was darkness. The fluid from within ran down my cheeks--thicker than tears or blood. Now I would live by feeling alone, not by unwelcome sight. God couldn't see me. He'd be hurting too much. He'd be blinded by tears. He'd be in agony, writhing on His haughty, humbled, almighty, powerless throne. I'd found the way to beat Him, to shut Him out forever. A curtain of darkness had fallen, and I was free at last.

For a long time there was only darkness and agony. I held my ruined face in my hands, and rocked in the blackness to reassure my body it still existed. For hours, days, years I stumbled anf fumbled in this new world of my own creation. I listened. I smelled. I groped. It was an empty relief not to have to deal with God anymore. Regrets were useless. There was certainly no turning back. During that time I bumped into things and injured myself often. I fell into nothingness when it opened unexpectedly before me, and struck the unmerciful bottom when it lashed up to catch me.

There were things in this darkness--things stronger than I--that stank loathsomely, and hissed and wretched horribly. Sometimes they caught me and tore at me. I couldn't protect myself from them. I was their plaything and slave until they lost interest and abandoned me.

But mostly, I was alone. Very much alone.

Centuries passed, or seconds. I crawled yards, or miles, or in circles only a few feet in diameter for all I knew. I slept and woke and dreamed and wandered in utter blackness. Sometimes I still cursed God. But now it was mechanically and without passion--more for the comfort of the sound of my own voice. After all, I had disposed of Him. He was gone. I had a part in His world once, but He had no part in mine. Did He still exist somewhere? If He did, could He see me?

Finally, I lifted my head.

It was then I felt Fingers touch my face. I'd been alone so long that I didn't draw away. They gently soothed my rough sheek, and tenderly traced the hollows that still oozed and ached endlessly. Then the Fingers drew away. I lifted my face after them. "Don't go," I whispered to the night.

In a few moments, the Fingers returned. I felt their strength and purpose, yet they were trembling as they touched me. They found my cheeks, fumbling with my face, and finally located my empty sockets. Suddenly there was firm pressure in the center of both eye sockets. Lighting flashed again. The Fingers drew away, and I could see.

I looked up into the face of God. But He couldn't see me. He had no eyes. He had given them to me.

Little Cherry Pies (Why I Married My Wife)

***

I was drowning. Judi was air. Only, I wasn't supposed to breathe.

***

I wasn't such a great fiancée. In fact, I think I was about the worst fiancée ever. This was due, strangely enough, to the fact I really, really, REALLY liked Judi.

My attraction to her womanly charms was so bewilderingly overpowering that it ran head on into a major life commitment I'd made before meeting her again seven years after I'd first asked her out at Auburn Adventist Academy in Washington State. Back then, we were still in the kitten and puppy stage of the courtship game. It took me three days to work up my courage to ask Judi to our high school Freshman Class Party. I couldn't think of anything to say all evening, and feared a repeat performance. I went back to the dorm that night, wrote her a song, and hid it in a box in my closet.

Now, however, we were all grown up. The game turned deadly earnest.

The major life commitment to which I refer was my conviction, based on my reading of the Bible, that I should wait until I was properly married before God, family and friends before sleeping with the woman who would be my wife. Now it seemed irresistible force (my attraction to Judi's comely self) had come up against immovable object (my Bible-based moral convictions about not sleeping with anyone I was not married to). That was the ingredients for a collision of train wreck proportions. I feared I would bed the beauty before we reached the altar. In her heart and mind, Judi had already committed herself to me. I feared she would take me into her bed with "I do's" still only promised, if I only asked. That meant I had to protect her from me.

So, to protect Judi's good reputation, my own troubled conscience, and the honor of our families and friends--as well as do what was right in the eyes of God--I did what any dolt of a male might have done under similar circumstances. I broke up with Judi because I liked her too much. I know this doesn't make any sense. If I'd read Paul's writings in the Bible a little more carefully, I'd have come up with a more sensible and theologically correct solution. "It is better to marry than to burn with sexual desire..." Paul wrote. Why that most useful bit of Biblical teaching escaped my notice, I do not know. It caused major upheavals in our courtship, however.

Not only did I break up with Judi once, just before Test Week (the time traditionally reserved for students to drop out of Adventist colleges because of the sudden realization that Christ is coming far too soon for them to finish their education), but I did it a second time, a few months later. Both times it was for precisely the same reason: I was drowning. Judi was air. Only, I wasn't supposed to breathe.

Just why the male of the species will turn and run from the very thing he wants and needs most is a wonderment both to womankind and to God Himself, I'll wager. But that's what I did. Judi hinted that eloping was a good option. Her parents had done that after her German Grandpa had sternly forbidden his eldest to marry the girl of his choice on pain of being cut off from all future financial support. They went ahead and got married anyway. In Judi's family, elopement cut the sort of knots that were tying me up, and settled things with the naysayers and non-supporters. In fact, Judi's Dad had told her he would pay her a thousand dollars cash if she suddenly showed up married.

But I would have none of it. I was determined that I--a soon-to-be preacher of the holy Gospel--was not going off to some sinful city of cardsharps and stage show strutters, like Las Vegas, for a cheap quickie of an "I do" by a guy in an Elvis suit with a three-dollar mail order marrying license. We were going to be married in a church before God and man, by a proper clergy--like my Grandpa Gepford--as befitted a future man of the cloth. Somebody should have taken me out, hung me up on a clothes line, picked up a stout stick, and knocked the holy starch out of my over-stiff, stubborn soul. The unyeilding Swedish blood of my ancestors had congealed somewhere between my ears. I was in way over my heart and head, but I wouldn't budge.

Now I know better. If you love the girl, Elvis is good enough.

Judi and I already decided on everything except the name of our firstborn by this time. We would have two children, healthy or sick, boys or girls--and no more. I'd already visited her parents' home shortly after I broke their little girl's heart, blasting it to bits by bowing out of her life briefly just before test week, thus destroying her concentration on the studies her parents were paying good money to have her attend to.

Judi's Father seemed a formidable Kodiak bear in his cave to one callow youth come seeking his firstborn daughter's hand in marriage. I drove to her parents' place that first home leave from college in my old heap of a car, with the vinyl top torn off in chunks and the door wired shut where a close-passing truck had nearly ripped it from its hinges. Judi's Dad's and brother's cars were pricey, and spotlessly maintained. It shows how much I attend to automotive matters to say I can neither recall the make of my own car back then, nor any of theirs. In fact, I have to go look up the make and year of the car I've been driving for the past two years when I take it in for an oil change. As for Judi's car, it was a sporty little beauty like herself--though I don't recall its particular make either. Just driving in at the Ammon residence, I was already out of my league. But I didn't have enough sense to perceive that fact. Ignorance can sometimes pass for courage.

When I met Judi's father, he was so polite ice sickles froze on the dripping eaves. I'd just broke his little girl's heart a week ago, and now I was showing up at her door? The man who potentially would be my future father-in-law took one look at me and my junker of a car, and decided he needed to do something to secure his daughter's safety. She'd be riding around with me in that thing. Earlier, back at college, we got called out of a Saturday night movie by the campus police. They'd spotted my car, and thought someone had broken into it. I assured them that was how it always looked, and they needn't worry. They went off in the dark with their flashlight, shaking their heads in amazement.

So Judi's father and brothers began plotting to fix my car's door, while I took the family's Crown Jewel Cutie down to see a cave carved into a bank of nearby White River. The sandstone cave complex was located beneath the roots of a great old maple tree, down a half-mile long steep slope just across the highway from Auburn Adventist Academy, not far from her parents' home. I wanted to show Judi that cave and do a bit of boasting about how I'd scared the campus bully and his gang years before, back around the time we’d first met.

That bragging rights trip to the cave with the Big Bear's daughter didn't work out so well.

I'd been raised running the steep canyon sides off the end of my Grandpa's farm up on Ham Hill, in Centralia from practically the time I could walk. We slid down hills this steep in Grandma's laundry basket for fun when I was three or four years old. Judi's father, on the other hand, had never let his little girl step off the sidewalk. Our differing life experiences soon manifested themselves. Judi's feet went out from under her, and she headed downslope for White River hundreds of feet below on the seat of her jeans.

I was astonished someone would actually do something like that on a mere trail--rather than hanging from the side of a cliff, or sliding down the outer branches of a fir tree forty feet in the air. I stood and stared after my rapidly descending True Love. She tobogganed, sans tobaggon, down the admittedly steepish slope. I recovered enough to race down the hill after her by the time she stuck out her hand, caught a small passing tree, and swung around to slam into the trunk of the larger one beside it. If Judi hadn't taken the precaution of rescuing herself, she would have ended up several hundred feet further down the slope in the White River itself. When I came to where she was clinging to the tree, I held her close as hard as I could and said, "I thought I had lost you!" Scared me half to death. Her, too. She might have died, or been injured badly.

I brought Judi home again, smeared with mud, and limping. Her Momma took her into the bedroom, shut the door, and got a look at the great purple bruise on her daughter's shapely rear end. Now I had had an affinity for that particular rear end from the first time I followed it down the hall as a Freshman in high school. But a bruise the side of a dinner plate was no way to decorate it. Between my crippled junker in the drive among the gleaming power rides, and nearly losing the Joy of the House in the local river, I was on pretty much every Ammon's bovine excrement list there for a while. Judi didn't do hillsides. I didn't do sidewalks. Was this really going to work out?

Fortunately, my future father-in-law developed a remarkable deal of personal discipline working his way from mail room flunkie to one of the top executive positions in the huge Boeing airplane and space craft company. You don't have hundreds of highly skilled people working under you in multiple locations, access to top secret "Black Box" projects for the US military complex, and the ear of Congress when you testify in government hearings without having learned a thing or two about dealing with how you feel in any particular situation--and doing the right thing anyway. Even if that situation involves your little girl and a frizzy-headed college kid who plainly isn't up to the task of taking care of her properly. My father-in-law's life work helped bring down the Evil Empire during the Cold War. Security and safety for one of the world’s contending superpowers was his passion. And I couldn't take his little girl on a walk without nearly killing her.

As for my family, my Dad gave Judi the thumbs up the first time he met her--and he was ever a man of keen discernment when it came to judging character. My Mom had inadvertently seen a song I'd written for Judi the home leave before. She was greatly interested in meeting the girl that was making her son have those kinds of feelings. It was called "I'm Hugging My Pillow and Wishing That It Was You". (I found out later, a group called "The Ink Spots" had recorded another song by the same title back when my Mom was a girl.) The lyric expressed my ardent interest in the person of this new and unknown leading lady in my life. Mom met Judi through my eyes and feelings in the song I wrote before she met her in person. As my Mom is musically-inclined, that was probably the best thing that could have happened. As for my older brother, John, I saw myself grow a good two feet taller in his estimation the moment he learned I was actually dating Judi Ammon. My little sister, Ingrid, was the one who phoned me to let me know Judi was on campus just before we met. My people were in her corner.

We went back to college again. But all was not well, even yet. I broke up with Judi again a month or two later, for the same reasons as before. I wanted to bed her so badly that if I didn't exit her proximity promptly without looking back, it was simply going to happen right there on the floor with God and the angels looking. So I informed Judi I felt we needed to put some distance between us to consider our relationship. I drove my old beater over to the coast that Sunday, and sat on a big rock looking down at brown cows munching green grass. I wondered why God in His blue sky seemed about as pleased with me as Judi's Dad had been as I sat there pondering life and trying to pray. Finally, I drove back to campus. When I walked into my dorm room, the phone rang. It was Judi. "I've just had my fiancée break up with me," she told me, her voice trembling and tearful. "I'm all alone down here. I need a friend." I said, "I'll be right over." So ended engagement trail separation number two, less than twelve hours after it started.

A few more months passed. I'd already gotten advice from my Dad during the Christmas break about buying Judi an engagement watch--which in Adventist circles at the time, served in place of an engagement ring. I had the money set aside. But I still hadn't officially popped the question, and the frustration of wanting to sleep with Judi, but having my conscience forbid me, was heating up to fever pitch again. Finally one night, I called her on the phone. "I've got to talk to you about something important," I informed her grimly. I drove over to her upstairs loft that I'd filled with wild flowers and love notes one day not long before when she was away at work.

From the tone of my voice, Judi feared the worst. Was this the third and final time I was going to exit her life after giving every possible indication that I was extremely attracted to her? She had cause to be concerned. I truly did not know, walking up the wooden steps to her little loft, whether I was going to break up with her for good, or ask her to marry me. I hadn't a clue. My heart and my brain were on opposite continents somewhere. My feverish body was tossed on the stormy seas between. My future and hers was teetering in the balance, and the slightest breeze could tip me either direction.

When I came through the door, Judi took my arm and said, "Sit here on the sofa. I won't hear anything you have to say until I've made us something to eat." I don't recall what she fixed for me that night. I know it wasn't Little Cherry Pies, but it was something equivalent. After I'd eaten some lady-cooked comfort food, my mind was a good deal clearer. My heart and my head were finally coming into alignment, now that my hunger had been eased. How can you break up with a beauty after she's just fed you? I couldn't. Judi already had my heart. Now she had my stomach, too. My brain finally kicked in as it should have done months earlier. Sitting there on her sofa in that little upstairs loft with the restroom with no door, I asked her to marry me. Why she said "yes", I really don't know. I thank God for women who have the patience to lead their men gently in matters of the heart. If they didn't feed us those Little Cherry Pies, we guys would starve ourselves to death, drooling.

Here's the slightly transmorgified story of the night I asked Judi to marry me in the altered setting of an old time Pie Social picnic, where a man purchased the food a woman had prepared at a community auction for the purpose, and was permitted her company in the bargain. That's the sort of a thing that would have happened back around the time my Grandpa was courting my Grandma...

Little Cherry Pies

She fed me little cherry pies
On her picnic blanket--
With daisies smiling all around,
And the cool brook bubbling low.
She fed me little cherry pies,
Made with her slim fingers.
She stroked my head upon her lap,
Where the fragrant wild rose grows.

She fed me little cherry pies,
As I kissed her fingers--
And praised the pretty freckles
Sprinkled on her nose.
She fed me little cherry pies,
While bumble bees were fumbling
Sweet nectar from the clover,
And clouds came drifting slow.

There's no cherry half as sweet
As my Maggie's kisses.
Her tender skin is softer far
Than the petals of the rose.
A glory of bright butterflies
Came dancing through our meadow.
I sipped her huckleberry wine,
Where tiger lilies grow.

She fed me little cherry pies
From her picnic basket--
With daisies dancing all around,
And the cool brook laughing low.
There she promised she'd be mine--
Mine, and mine forever.
She fed me little cherry pies
Where the fragrant wild rose grows.

c2009 Skip Johnson
All rights reserved

Killing Kids for Jesus (Why I Use a Modern Language Version of the Bible)

***
"Wilt! Wilt! That man Jesus touched the poor guy. Look! His leg has wilted. He can't even walk. Ahh!"
***



The day I realized the King James Version would not be a fit for the ministry to which God had called me was the hot summer afternoon I assisted with a Vacation Bible School for the neighborhood children in Fresno, California in my first church assignment out of Bible college.

In our denomination, the Children's divisions for Bible instruction are carefully crafted. They often include multiple teaching props. One prop that is traditional for teaching the younger children--and is also often used by our missionaries in teaching simple truths to the illiterate in far away places in times gone by--was the Picture Roll. The Picture Roll is a 2 foot wide by 3 feet high roll, with a new picture on each page. It sits on a wooden stand, and the pictures can be show as needed by simply lifting those not in use over the top of the stand so the appropriate scene is revealed. Eager young minds could see the picture and learn the verse printed beneath it, while the teacher would tell the story from which the text and the picture were taken. It was simple, colorful, attractive teaching technology--a tool of the trade for child instructors. Pretty much anybody could use it.

Except me. I ran into a snag. With a room full of forty ghetto kids sitting around listening, I turned to the trusty Picture Roll's first scene with a feeling of conscious competence. I'd just completed four years of Bible school a matter of weeks before. Teaching these simple Bible stories to mere children should be a snap.

The picture showed Jesus bending over a lame man, his hand outstretched. The lame man was saying, "If Thou wilt, Thou canst heal me." I read the verse aloud, had the kids repeat it after me. Then, resorting to the Socratic method of instruction, I asked, "What does this mean?"

Immediately the children began chorusing, "Wilt! Wilt! That man Jesus touched the poor guy. Look! His leg has wilted. He can't even walk. Ahh!" I was so appalled at what they'd just taken from a straight forward reading of the King James, I said, "No! Oh, no! It doesn't mean 'wilt, wilt'. It means, "If you wish, you can heal me." The cheerful little chirpers with dirty faces and ragged clothes kept grinning and waiting to learn more. They liked stories about witches who live in gingerbread houses and catch kids and keep them in cages, and cook them. They liked stories about giants who shouted "Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman! I'll beat him, I'll eat him, I'll pound his bones to bread. Then I'll spread him on toast with jam and eat him for breakfast!" Or something similar.

The neighborhood kids who had come to Vacation Bible School liked my stories about Jesus, too. He could just touch people, and they would wilt. Only, I, as storyteller, they were certain, was keeping the secret for dramatic purposes. I said "wilt" meant something else. Of course, they all knew better. But they would play along until the story unfolded more fully.

Only, I knew how that story was going to unfold. I saw I was in deep water, and that maybe I didn't know how to swim as well as I'd thought. Exegeting tenses and participles in Biblical Greek and delving into eschatological distinctions concerning end time events hadn't prepared me for this. I abandoned that page of the Picture Roll as a lost cause, and moved on to something else—flipping to another page at random.

There was the same Jesus as in the first scene, only this time with children crowding around him on every side. He was laying his hands on their heads. Whew! We'd get this matter of Jesus being a hero instead of a villain cleared up quickly, before we sent these little munchkins on to cookies, punch and crafts with an entirely wrong impression.

I held forth boldly again. "Now kids, let's look at this story. Here is our memory text. Everybody say it after me, 'Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not.' They all chimed in, in the best tradition of an audience at a melodrama, repeating the text after me. Then I asked, “What does this verse mean?"

Immediately forty squirming hopscotch theologians began parsing and exegeting the text at hand, as instructed. "Suffer? Suffer? Oh, its Jesus again--that man who touches people and wilts their legs. Yes. He's touching the children so they will suffer! He is putting his hands on their heads. They're going to be wilting like dead daisies!" Suffer the little children. Plain as day. Right there in the King James Version Picture Roll text. If you read it for yourself, you know its true.

I was struck speechless, which for a preacher at any stage of his development, is a remarkable thing. I looked around at all those grinning faces beaming up at me with such good will, expecting me to tell them the truth about Jesus---and I saw they thought I was doing a marvelous job of it, so far.

Finally, I stuttered, "Suffer? Suffer? No, it doesn't mean Jesus touches them and they all suffer and wilt like the man with the lame leg. Suffer doesn't mean 'suffer'. It means 'let'. Jesus is saying, "LET the little children come unto me, don't keep them away." They all looked up at me, grinning. By now they were coming to realize I truly believed the lies I was telling them about words meaning different things than words actually meant. I could see in their eyes they knew I was a total idiot, but they liked me anyway. Because even if I didn't have a clue on God's green earth about the things I was saying, I at least had come and tell them whopping good stories. About Jesus wilting people's legs and making children suffer like dead daisies by simply patting them painfully on the head.

Any teacher who doesn't learn more from his students than they do from him, isn't fit to continue teaching. That week, I purchased a reliable modern translation of the Bible. I didn't want to keep on telling little ghetto kids--who hadn't grown up speaking 500 year old King James English as their second language—more lies about God. I've used a reliable modern language version in my preaching, teaching, and storytelling ever since. It is the only way I could keep looking God in the eye.

Things That Go Bump in the Neighbor's Blueberry Patch Past Midnight

A clear conscience is a great comfort. Especially, in the dark.

My best friend, Keith Clarkston*, often slept over with my brother and I in the tent we pitched in the back yard each summer. As Keith lived the next street over, it wasn't far to come. He would bring his sleeping bag, his pillow, his flashlight, his pajamas, and a candy bar or two to eat should he get the nibbles in the wee hours.

He would arrive early, a hardened, woods-tested, mountain man, a warrior of the wilds. His bravado and swagger assured us all that any past cowardice, such as being afraid of the dark, was a thing of his now-forgotten infancy. Tonight, for the first time ever, he would actually make it to morning without freaking and bolting for home.

The first night Keith chickened out, I thought it was a fluke. To humor him, I suggested we camp inside underneath my Mom's grand piano. He indicated this was an acceptable alternative, so we dragged our sleeping bags in and installed ourselves beneath the ivories. We should have stuck it out in the back yard. If I hadn't caved and come inside with him, perhaps the seeds of morbid horror would not have become planted so deeply in his quivering soul. Once there, however, they proved impossible to dislodge. Like nightshade, they bloomed in the dark.

I'm not sure why sleeping outdoors with my brother and I rattled Keith. We tried to keep him entertained with interesting stories to divert his mind, but it was of little use.

There was the story about THE GREEN RAT our older cousin had first told us in the dark behind our Grandparent's house at a family reunion a few years earlier. It was all about the haunted mansion, and the three kids that went inside it, and the door closing behind them and locking them in. As they wandered around inside exploring, they found the big painting of the Great Green Rat hidden in a closet, eyeing three pieces of cheese. That first night, when the flashlights turned off, there had been a terrible roaring snarl. When they turned on their flashlights again, ONE OF THE KIDS WAS GONE. The next morning, the other two went back to the closet and looked at that horrible, huge rat. ONE PIECE OF CHEESE WAS GONE, and ONE DROP OF BLOOD WAS DRIPPING FROM THE RAT’S FANG! The next night the same thing happened exactly, with the second kid disappearing. The second piece of cheese had disappeared from the picture, and a second drip of blood appearing on the fang of the painted rat. On the final night, THERE WAS ONLY ONE KID LEFT. The batteries of his flashlight were blinking and about to give out, and actually DID GIVE OUT! So that last kid lit a match, and made a torch, and went to look at the picture of the Green Rat again. It glared at him with glittering eyes, so he threw his torch at the picture. THE PICTURE VANISHED IN A BLINDING FLASH, and there was only a tiny squeaking green rat running about on the floor. The boy stomped on it. When he did, the locked door to the mansion flew open, and so he was safe and feeling so much better. Until he took off his coat when he was about to go to bed that night back in his bedroom at home, AND FOUND A PIECE OF CHEESE IN HIS POCKET, AND A DROP OF BLOOD ON HIS PILLOW!

There was also the terrible tale of the couple who had heard of the MURDERER WITH A METAL HOOK IN PLACE OF HIS MISSING HAND, who had been terrorizing the couples who parked to smooch on Lover's Lane. A couple were up in their car kissing and stuff and THEY HEARD A NOISE THAT SCARED THEM. So they tried to turn on the car and get away, but they found they had LOST THE KEYS IN THE DARK when they were fooling around. They frantically fumbled in the dark, and finally found the keys in the crack in the back seat. They roared away into the night, laughing at how scared they had been--only to discover the next morning A HOOKED HAND HANGING FROM THE CAR DOOR'S LATCH!

Then there was the gruesome account of the man who ran out of gas on a ghastly stretch of lonely road, who pulled over to wait until morning. He locked himself in because, of course, A CEREAL KILLER HAD BEEN SEEN IN THAT VICINITY RECENTLY. So the traveler knew IT WASN'T SAFE. He dozed off for a little while slumped over his steering wheel, then woke with a start. What was that he heard? The tiniest of sounds came from the car’s roof DIRECTLY OVER THE MAN’S HEAD. It scritched. And scratched. He held his breath and listened. The sound stopped. His heart finally quit pounding and he was about to nod off again, when it scritched, then scratched again. ALL NIGHT LONG, THIS CONTINUED, until in sheer exhaustion, the stranded traveler fell asleep. He was wakened the next morning by the police pounding on his window. “GET OUT! GET OUT!” THEY CRIED. When he unlocked the door, they dragged him out. Then the policeman pointed up. There over his car HUNG THE BUTCHERED BODY OF ANOTHER VICTIM, tied and hanging from the limb of the tree above. Its curled and cold fingers reached down just far enough so A SINGLE DEAD FINGERNAIL could scritch and scratch AS THE CORPSE SLOWLY TWISTED IN THE BREEZE.

That story alone set any small sound of the night in a darker shade of blackness. Crickets chirped horribly. A dog barking in the distance was an omen of evil. The mere rustle of grass in the breeze signified ghosts passing in search of things they had lost and we might have inadvertently found, and which they now wanted back. A stray moth's fluttering wings on the canvas overhead buzzed like a madman's chainsaw. Even dead silence was proof zombie cereal killers were creeping silently forward to pounce, carrying boxes of Lucky Charms in their crooked, bloody fingers.

My brother and I were veterans in the standard spook stuff, the updated versions of stories surely told in the shadow of the pyramids as they were being built along the Nile. Somehow these tales always came to mind when we were lying safe in our sleeping bags, and had helped eat Keith’s candy bars, and our flashlights had been turned off for the night. Then they seeped out of us like water drips from ice. We could no more trace the connection between these stories and Keith’s unaccountable fear of the dark than a tobacco company doctor can link lung cancer with smoking Pall Malls. We only observed that every time Keith came for an overnighter in the back yard, we could count on him beginning to sink down into the Edgar Allen Poe-ish regions of sheer horror and madness long before dawn, no matter now many stories we told to divert his attention and ease his troubled mind.

One would think after a dozen failed attempts, Keith would give up and declare himself a permanent indoors man. But he never did. He was a hardy and hopeful soul. A few nights later, he'd ask to come over and sleep outdoors with us all over again.

One night when Keith camped over with us, we were fresh out of ghost stories. Then someone remembered the blueberry patch in the back yard of the man at the end of the street. We'd spotted it when we rode our bikes down that way earlier that afternoon. The thought of those luscious tart berries waiting for us made our mouths water. Grandpa told us of raiding watermelon patches in the South as a boy and cutting the hearts out of the big melons with a jack knife to eat right in the field. But in Washington State, our Northern growing seasons were generally too short for melons to thrive. They did provide excellent blueberry climate, however. We determined to uphold the traditions of boyhood and do a bit of raiding of our own with what was available and near at hand.

We pulled on our shoes and tiptoed down the dark roadway, past the sleeping houses with an occasional glow of a T.V. through the window. We'd have to be quiet. As late as it was, not everyone was asleep quite yet. As we neared the blueberry patch, we slowed and slunk into the shadows. In fact, we got down on our bellies and crawled the last hundred feet or so, listening carefully. We didn't want to set a stray dog to barking. We feared the owner of the patch might flick on his back porch flood lights and come blasting out to capture our pirate-hearted thieving carcasses. We well knew what we were engaged in was wrong. We learned that at our church where my watermelon-stealing-Grandpa took us to be instructed in the ways of God. Example trumps precept any day. Besides, how could we know true forgiveness if we never actually sinned?

I found myself among the low shrubs in the black of night, fingering tender blueberry twigs.

Ten minutes later I whispered, “Keith, have you found any?”

“No,” he breathed.

“Me neither,” wafted my brother's voice from the shadows beyond.

“Keep looking.”

We spent nearly an hour slinking on our bellies and feeling for forbidden fruit, but without success. It seems God had seen our evil ways, and hidden those luscious jeweled berries from us plundering pirate-hearted scum. We were groping in darkness and sin, but without any appreciable pleasures resulting. Finally, we gave up and withdrew as stealthily as we had come.

We made it back to our backyard tent in safety.

Then our consciences began smiting us. This was a new kind of terror, and it quite outdid mere ghost stories. It occurred to us with great force that WE HAD DONE WRONG. We had intended to STEAL WHAT DID NOT BELONG TO US. That was AGAINST ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, the one right after “Do not commit idolatry with your neighbor’s wife”, whatever that meant. IF YOU BROKE ONE, we knew, YOU HAD BROKEN THEM ALL. A blueberry might not be so large a fruit as the Snake offered to Eve, but we’d all heard HOW THAT TURNED OUT.

We were certainly goners. WE HADN'T A HOPE. The fact we had never actually found a single berry didn't matter. GOD COULD SEE IN THE DARK, and He knew what was in our hearts. And OUR HEARTS WERE VERY DARK INDEED. We sat shivering in horror at the enormity of our crime. Our remembrances of religion had taken us as far as the “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God…” part. But not quite so far as the “…being freely justified by faith in Jesus blood” remedy. We were SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD, and it was ALL OUR OWN FAULT.

We sank down into blind, black, mutual misery.

Suddenly, Keith leaped to his feet with a horrible wail. He charged out the tent door, nearly taking out the center pole when the toe of his shoe caught on the zipper flap at the bottom that was supposed to keep out the rain. He plowed through my Mom's prize irises. He careened off the garbage can Dad had set out by the street, leaving a dent we found the next morning. He set off on a lope for home, leaping such obstacles as presented themselves, and wailing his confessions to the dark skies. The Devil was on his track. He dare not look back. The cruel, creeping, craven shivers had struck with a vengeance.

Once Keiths's cries had died away in the echoing darkness, my brother and I muttered our own trembling bedtime prayers, begging for forgiveness, promising reform, hoping for mercy. We had no immunity against this variety of night terror.

The forgiving sun woke me at daybreak. It was a comfort to open my eyes and see the familiar ceiling of my bedroom above, and the light shining in through the curtains. Ghosts were one thing. God was another.

Next day, I rode my bike at the end of the road. I glanced over at the blueberry patch we'd slithered and slunk through the night before. The man who owned them was out in his back yard, watering his roses. I rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the road, and casually glanced over at the blueberry patch, a criminal drawn back to the scene of his crime. After gazing at the blank bushes for some time, I spoke up.

“Where are the blueberries?” I asked.

“This is only June,” he replied. “They don't come ripe for another two months.”

Sometimes still I remember Keith, and what we put him through telling ghost stories and raiding blueberries. On such nights, I lie awake and stare at the dark bedroom ceiling. And somewhere overhead, perhaps in the attic, I hear a faint scritch. Scratch. Scritch. Scratch. Scritch...

Is it a mouse gnawing a ceiling joist? Or could it be SOMETHING ELSE?

“The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” Proverbs 28:1 NIV

Note: * Name changed to preserve a long-time, and still-cherished friendship.

The World's Largest Cowpie, and How It Was Almost Successfully Crossed

The World's Largest Cow Pie was, in fact, achieved by numerous chickens who worked cooperatively over a period of time. This glooping monster was expelled late one winter from a dump truck onto the half acre plot beside the house I grew up for future use as garden fertilizer. Scooped in an eye-watering cloud of ammonia fumes from beneath the laying pens at the chicken farm where we three Johnson kids gathered and packed eggs at two cents per flat, it was, we neighborhood kids were sure, the largest specimen of its kind in existence.

The front loader on the chicken farm tractor plunged in, tilted, backed out, and dumped its big bucket into the back of the dump truck repeatedly. Then began the ride to our garden space in the small neighborhood two towns away. The dump truck backed into the center of the waiting half acre. Then its rear flap was unlatched and the hydraulic lift screamed to lift and shift the massive load. There before our eyes, like the primordial toilet of some great dinosaur, we kids witnessed the creation of The World's Largest Cow Pie. It glurped, steaming, to the cold ground. Fragrant, semi-fluid, and thick as oozing lava, it settled in a puddle about 15 feet across and three feet deep. Within its semi-liquid heart lay my Father's dreams for the finest garden in the neighborhood.

My father's dream was not without foundation. He had grown up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and knew the power potent fertilizer exerted upon growing things. In his boyhood days before indoor plumbing was common, outhouses were mined each spring and spread on the face of the fields under the euphemistic phrase "night soil", presumably in memory of blizzardy midnights on wooden thrones with drafty bottoms. It was their early equivalent of recycling. Everybody used night soil for fertilizer back then, and nobody complained. But times had changed. Folks had grown more finicky and tender minded. Other views and customs prevailed. So the arrival of The World's Largest Cow Pie, which while it did not emanate from humanity, was still a novelty in our neighborhood. While the concept had many enthusiasts among the younger set, their elders looked upon it with suspicion and upturned noses.

Weeks passed. The initial stink passed. The great cow pie in our garden began to crust over. We neighborhood kids, who had almost forgotten it, looked upon it again with new eyes. The huge crusting over cow pie reminded us of ice freezing over on the nearby ponds during the winter. Only this pond stood three feet deep above the surrounding chickweed in our still-to-be-tilled garden spot. It was brown and crusty, and had cracks on its surface. It didn't smell nearly so badly as the day it first arrived.

We speculated among ourselves that the crust had grown so thick one could walked across it safely. In fact, the more we talked among ourselves, the more we became convinced this was a important fact that needed verification. In the end, we recruited my four-year-old sister, Ingrid, to prove our theory. Ingrid was the most likely subject for the experiment. First, she was young enough to be be pliable. She could be talked into it. Second, she was the littlest and lightest kid in the neighborhood. She had the best chance of pulling it off. Third, we weren't entirely sure the crust would actually hold, so we needed someone else to brave the crossing. We led her, by persuasions and enticements of the glory that would be hers, to the edge of the great heap of moldering dung. Lack of life experience is a dreadful thing when others wish you to attempt what they will not.

Ingrid scaled the side of The World's Largest Cow Pie successfully. Its edges had indeed become hardened as the liquid vaporized or sank into the soil below. Our theory that the dried crust would support her lighter weight proved true--up to a point about six feet from the nearest edge. She was tiptoeing across quite nicely, when, suddenly, the brown crust broke beneath her like treacherous ice. Ingrid sank past her waist into the oozing chicken muck that boiled up from below. We who stood around watching were struck by the sudden fear that the stinking poop would suck her clear under, like quick sand. We set up a general wail that brought my Mom out of the house on the run. My sister floundered toward the edge and reached out a desperate hand. Mom grabbed hold and dragged her to safety. Then she turned on the garden hose and sprayed her off, before stripping her shorts and shirt, wrapping her in a towel, and leading her inside for a warm bath.

The World's Largest Cow Pie had plainly become a hazard to small children. It had nearly swallowed my sister. It might eat more of us. Mom prevailed upon Dad to do something about it. After work over the next week, Dad turned the original monster into a thousand smaller versions of itself. He scooped shovel fulls into his wheelbarrow, transported it through the early spring weeds, and plopped it down every few feet over the garden's entire surface. It looked like our half acre garden spot had hosted a herd of Holsteins with the runs. Only it stank rankly like the chicken poop it was. You could smell the Johnson place before you could see it driving in from town. Complaints from neighbors near and far rose to an angry rumble. What could those Johnson's be doing down there that smelled so bad? Why should they inflict this horrific odor on the entire neighborhood? The stench was enough to gag a maggot.

Dad ignored the neighbors' talk, and kept stolidly shoveling the fragrant stuff. He was a man with a plan, and nobody was going to stop him. Once the great cow pie was distributed, he hired a man with a tractor and a rototiller to come and churn the stinky stuff into garden soil. Then we planted corn, pole and string beans, summer squash, carrots, kohlrabi, tomatoes, beets, cabbages, lettuce, dill, parsley, potatoes, pumpkins, radishes, and the rest in rows and hills.

It mattered little what we planted. Vegetables and weeds alike exploded in glorious profusion. That year our garden easily produced three times more than any other garden in our neighborhood. Our corn patch rose, a mighty forest. The pole beans slithered up and weighted down their holding lines like jungle vines. Tomatoes loomed large in vivid green, weighed down with fruit. Our zucchinis swelled and jutted like torpedoes. Row upon row of the rankest and richest vegetation flourished in Eden-like profusion. Mom's rows of cut flowers for the church pulpit bouquets blossomed, heavy-headed on vigorous stalks. It seems everything that grows likes the taste of chicken manure.

As we lived near the entrance to our street, our lush garden was readily visible to passing neighbors. It produced so much food we were handing out fresh vegetables to anyone who would take it the rest of the summer. People took to locking their car doors at church to keep annonymous bags of zuchinis from appearing on their front seats during services. Back home, the public mood changed. The next spring, every garden plot behind the houses along our street had its own great cow pie installed. It seemed my Dad had become the gardening trend setter. The World's Largest Cow Pie had inspired imitators. Our neighborhood stank for miles. Nobody complained.

As for us kids, we played Robin Hood of Sherwood's forest in the corn patch, built dinosaurs from excess summer squash using kindling sticks for legs and hooking together the body parts, and grazed on fresh vegetables at will. The World's Largest Cow Pie had paid off hansomely.

We never heard of any other kids attempting another cow pie crossing, however. It seems the word had gotten around and grew into local cautionary legend. Sometimes, one experiment is enough.

"The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in his way. When he falls he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the one who holds his hand." Psalm 37:23, 24 NASB