Thanks Yvette and Wendy !

Julia helped situate the young lush onto the bench seat of the wagon, then moved up to sit on the back rest. She drew a deep breath as she observed the flaming ship enter the channel and begin to turn about. For a moment everything on the south side of the river was quiet. The women looked on from the wagon, while dozens of soldiers stood along the bank to watch the spectacle. The cold breeze moved the leaves of the small trees along the bank, and the leather on the horses creaked. From the center of the river, the crackles and pops of burning wood came distant but sharp across the flowing waters. Everyone waited to see if the flaming ship passed safely over the lowered rope. As long as none of the crumbling or splintering wood dragged down below the normal draft of the ship, it would pass safely over. It wasn’t the worst disaster of the war if it did not, but they all knew snapping the ferry rope would significantly change the convenience of crossing between Fort Smith and Van Buren until it was repaired and restrung.

As the Rose Douglass began to pass directly between the near posts and the counter posts on the far side of the river, everyone watched intently. The steamer was surely atop the rope now. It was beginning to move faster in the current. Sparks were popping from the flames. A small burst of fire shot up from the top. A piece fell from the prow and was immediately extinguished in the water. And just as the rear of the Rose was about to pass out from between the two landings of the ferry, a loud creaking sound broke the silence as the post furthest into the water, just beyond the shivering Confederate prisoners, jerked free.

“Jimmies!” Randolph shouted, but didn’t move. One of the Confederate soldiers grabbed a hold of him as he passed by in a high-stepping run out of the shallow water.

The second post jerked free a second after the first one, there was a small pause, then the third post snapped at the top. The fourth and fifth posts seem to snap from the ground at the same time. But then strangely, the last post did not break.

“Get away from there!” one of the women yelled from the wagon, though only a few Confederates had been in danger, and they were now beyond the anchor post.

The heavy rope began to rise up out of the water, pulling taut, stretching to its full capacity. The Rose Douglass was suddenly adjusted in the current so that she faced downstream. Julie looked across to the far landing and saw people scattering. It appeared that the anchor posts were just now busting loose. And then the creaking stopped, the Rose stopped, the yelling stopped, and all was quiet.

The flaming ship held her place in the swift current of the Arkansas.

A book must be interesting enough that we WANT to turn the page. In the case of life, it may seem absurd to expect that one could pause on any given “page” and consider yourself just as satisfied mid-story as you’d be with the resolution of the last page. “If you were satisfied in the middle, wouldn’t you just stop reading?”

Actually, no, not at all my imaginary friend. You mistake resolution with satisfaction.

There is a satisfaction that is both complete and yet yearns to be repeated, or pursued, or expanded upon. It is like unto the ability to enjoy the first bites of dinner, while you are still hungry. It’s like enjoying your job and yet still thinking of an eventual promotion.

Life has no conclusive last page, before which all the loose ends are tied up, the bodies buried, the wounds mended, “I love you’s” declared, apologies expressed, memoirs written and charitable endowments arranged.

You continue to wait for that one thing that will change it all and give you happiness, and it isn’t going to happen. And no, I’m not discounting the rebirth of Christianity. The mind and the attitude can enhance or destroy the life of any faith or creed.

Of course, if you don’t read books (cough cough) then my whole book analogy is FAIL.

It’s the last normal working day before the holidays, and in some respects, the last one of 2011. We’ll be here most of next week to support our working centers across the country, but it will be skeleton staff sleeping late, taking long lunches and working odd hours.

It’s Christmas time and so I’d like to say a word about tacos. Tacos are a tasty treat, enjoyed at any meal. Americans tend to not consider Tacos for breakfast, but in the border states, especially the border towns, tacos are a breakfast staple. Of course, what you know of tacos (Bell, Bueno, etc.) is not much like a true taco, which is to me a bit more of a cross between a soft taco and a burrito. Much like Americans and their sometime propensity to add Tabasco or salsa to eggs and omelets, tacos with salsa are a refreshing start to one’s day.

Jesus Christ is the living son of the God who made you. The Bible is what defines Christianity, and that Bible says there is an afterlife. It also says that nobody has the ability to be good enough to go to Heaven. Good people who have done fine, admirable things for the poor and hungry – this is the Holy Bible speaking, not Justin – will burn in “fire not quenched”. “I am in agony in this fire,” the rich man says from hell in Jesus’ parable in Luke 16. “It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,” Jesus taught in Mark 9. In fact, to the very religious leaders of his day, Jesus emphatically said “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

We don’t stop existing after physical death. We live in one of two places, Heaven or Hell. In which will you be? Why do you think so? Is it based upon a logical conclusion that you have met the exact scriptural requirements for one place or the other?

Some of the most gentle, well studied, Godly men I know believe that less than 10% of Americans who say that they are Christian, actually are saved. The exact reason for this is due to our insatiable human desire to fashion our own reality based upon what is convenient to believe, as opposed to what the evidence suggests we should believe. Logic leads us to a largely (if not wholly) immutable definition of being a Christian, yet our heart drives us to redefine it based only upon criterion we choose to abide by.

So why, exactly, do you believe you will be allowed into Heaven? Is your answer defensible by the explicitly defined instructions of the Bible? Or does it include the silly and legally inadmissible phrase, “well, I just think that a loving God…”

There is no source for what basic doctrines must be believed about Christianity other than the Bible. None. We must abide by what it says constitutes a Christian, or we have no logical reason to expect to receive the things it defines as the reward for doing or being what it defined.

“Salvation” roughly means “the saving of”. The Bible teaches that salvation from Hell isn’t found by baptism or sprinkling, not as a child or an adult. “Saved” does not apply to you because you believe in the Christian God (the Bible makes that point very clear), and it does not apply to you because you believe Jesus was real, died on the cross, and that all the Bible says of him is true.

Salvation from your deserved hell comes from a recognition of your worthlessness and sin in God’s eyes, accompanied by an acceptance of who Christ is, accompanying a belief in what He accomplished on the cross and by resurrecting himself, accompanied by….. AND HERE’S THE KICKER… accompanied by a complete change in your heart, which is necessarily reflected in your life or it does not exist. That’s the source book’s definition (enormously condensed and roughly speaking).

Consider it. Less than 10% of a church may be real Christians. That coincides perfectly with Matt 7:14, “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Working in Laredo, the guys would send someone to go get tacos each morning for breakfast. About two apiece. Sometimes later in the day a woman who couldn’t speak English would come around selling containers of chopped fruit. She offered buyers sprinkles of a chili powder marketed specifically to be added to fruit. It was excellent.

I would pay you back if you bought me a bottle upon visiting a border town.

Written a year ago today, has remained in draft.
Draft from Dec. 15, 2010

Memo: Preliminary Draft of a Prayer to God the Father
- John Ciardi, excerpt
“Thank you for Claremont and choices and for this daughter
and for the road I go well enough as things go.

I mean, sir, it does lead on, and I thank you.
It is not what I imagined. It may be better.
Better, certainly, than what I remember from starting”

–

The past three weeks have held notable occurrences for me. A friend from high school retired from the Army after twenty years of service. A friend from years gone by told me he was getting a divorce. A doctor began putting time lines on a family member’s life.

Each of these things is momentous. Each represents the start or the end of an epoch in a human life. All of these are placeholders in time, to be referenced in the future as “that was after the divorce” or “when he was still working”. I believe such great direction changes yearn for common questions: Is your life unfolding as you imagined? Are you happy with your life?

I estimate that most humans die having never reached that satisfied “future” condition that we envision at every step of life. I imagine that the elderly who do reach full satisfaction only do so by the weight of their experience and wisdom finally bearing down upon them and demanding that they make peace with themselves.

Tomorrow may mark the end of my life at 39 years of age, at which time my entire biography is completed, NOT CUT SHORT.

If God decides to take your life or to allow your life to be taken, then your life was not cut short. So, should I die tomorrow, my life is then complete, with a completed story of actions and decisions leading up to my last moment at age 39 or age 16 or age 88. The only reason we think people are cut short is because by averages, we couldn’t have guessed their ending.

I say this and I know it to be true, yet it is almost impossible to take to heart.

Maybe life could be viewed like this: as a huge novel that has page numbers, but you still have no idea at all how long it is. For years you just keep reading, all along believing there will come an end with some resolution. Then one day you suddenly turn the page at 21,900 or at 32,850 and it has ended, mid sentence. No finale, little resolution of plot, it’s just over, like the author stopped writing.

So which is better? To have believed there was satisfaction to come, and always have lived for some resolution that would make life complete before it was over? Or to have actually stopped as often as you thought of it and pondered how interesting the book was and how much fun just reading the story actually was?

Speaking Biblically, the answer is both.

Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. – Phillipians Chapter 4

And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? – Luke 12:25

These are just two examples of the admonition to be satisfied (unachievable without thankfulness, btw).

However, as you probably know, we aren’t to focus our hearts on stuff in this life. How can we if we are “not of this world”.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; Matthew 6:20

So have we learned to reconcile earthly satisfaction with goals? The comforting peace of our Lord with a longing for something that isn’t ours until death?

I recently read that this was quoted from Paul Bowles’ book The Sheltering Sky by Brandon Lee just before he was accidentally killed. It is also engraved on his tombstone.

“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless…”

So there I am, minding my own business, walking along the base of a mountain inside of Battlefield 3. I guess no one else is on this server because it is peaceful.

Suddenly I hear music. It’s Michael Jackson. In fact, it’s Billy Jean.

I start singing along, then notice that there is something floating above me projecting the sound down. It is this plane, which I saw in this fake picture a few weeks ago:

I start singing along and I do a couple of dance moves (because you know I can).

The next thing I know, the plane is parked on the mountain and a woman is walking towards me. “Hey, I like your music,” she says. She draws near.
“I think you have me mistaken for someone else,” I reply, knowing she thought I was Janet Jackson.
And then she sees that I’m not Janet Jackson. “Oh, hi. Yeah, sorry, from above you looked like Janet Jackson.”
“Yeah, I could see someone thinking that with my dancing,” I reply. “I like your plane,” I tell her.
“Thanks, me, too.”
“That’s a WWII production of the 1930′s Kalinin, right?”
“Yes, it is,” she replies.

So we have dinner and then she invites me to fly the absurdly enormous imaginary concept plane. We are standing on the tip of the mountain holding it up above us like a big balloon when the dream ends.

It was a happy dream.

So the Facebook news today is an upset to the theory of six degrees of separation between any living actor and Kevin Bacon. The news is, there’s an average of 4.74 “hops” — or lines — connecting every person to every other person.

Sigh. Facebook means so little to me. Seriously, it just doesn’t hold any appeal. And yes, I have tried it. I tried MySpace before Facebook came of age and there was little there, as well.

And I think I know why.

Now of course there are exceptions to most rules, but here is what I observe. Neither I, nor John, nor Ted, nor Chad, nor any other of my old computer gaming buddies care much for social networking. Ok, Chad, a little. But the founder of Wookieepedia.com can’t be totally disconnected, right?

So, while Facebook utterly transcends all ages and generations, it has not engulfed the gamer / IT nerds in my circle of friends. Wait.. did I just say.. nvm.

So why not? Why do my mother, my sisters, and the little gray haired women at church who don’t know how to turn their phones on silent for a church service all thrive on Facebook?

Because they weren’t there in 1991. They weren’t there, on campus, just me, Al Gore, and a few dozen crusty veterans of Wolfenstein 3-D, Battle Chess, Trails West, and all things Atari. They weren’t there when Archie came online and suddenly an afternoon at the typewriter became an afternoon searching the files of ten thousand other people’s typewriters. When suddenly the sun rose and Gopher had changed the world with seemingly endless interconnected tunnels of information.

Gopher. That’s what you were when you logged in. Like a never-ending “choose your own adventure” plain-text menu. There was no thought that pictures or video would enhance the experience. We may have been among the first gamers, but we also were readers, so text-only was irrelevant to the thrill of perusing the information on a computer that was in another city, another state, or around the world.

But there was something that actually predated these two by a couple of years. Something that, at least in my consciousness, was a milestone. It was a virtual haven that mankind wandered into from the cold, dark void of the one-way media desert.

The IRC. Internet Relay Chat. The first chat rooms.

I got my first computer in 1984. The TI-99/4A had a 16-bit TMS9900 CPU running at 3.0 MHz. I played games like Munchman (you left a trail instead of ate dots), and I wrote basic programs and saved them to data cassette. Lets see, there was the one that fooled my best friend Rodney into thinking we had hacked into NORAD. Yep, he believed it. Then there was the one that, by calling the exact coordinates of every pixel, drew out a heart on the screen and wrote I Love Kim Phillips. However, the 9th grade version 2.0, I Love Trish Chambers, allowed the user to draw it themselves with the arrow keys.

So by 1991, computing was not new to me. But in college, the one-two punch of Gopher and IRC rocked my world. Sleep no longer mattered. My grades suffered. Even gaming lost its appeal for quite some time. All I knew was, after years of solitary computing, there was suddenly someone else on my screen talking to me in real time, and yes, even occasionally transferring me a file.

With the IRC you have basic commands, including flagging user names so that you are notified when they log on. And this is how I met my very first (non-gay) stalker, Julez. We met in the channel “Alternative Music”. I don’t remember anything other than that after many weeks of friendship, I was no longer pleased that I could not, at seemingly any time of the day, log onto the IRC and not have her instantly send me messages. And of course you KNOW… every sentence ended in “!” . But it was socializing, chatting, communicating, and it was amazing.

From these early days of text-only inter-connectivity to the birthing cries of Al Gore’s brilliantly conceived internet, we have been there. We were there when the first MUD servers came online and killing dragons was achieved by typing /swing sword or /cast magic missile at the the darkness. We were there when it was cool to have a low ICQ number. ICQ was an early instant messenger. We were there when a night of socializing meant 10 guys packing up their pc (including CRT monitor) and hauling them all to one guy’s house for a massive dusk to dawn gaming session fueled by pizza delivery, jerky sticks and Dr. Pepper by the gallons.

And yes, we were there, in the school computer labs, the same groups of guys, playing not just with one another, but through the massive pipeline known as T1 with others like us.

Lokey’s Minion CTF.
/grapple
muahahahalolHEH!

We have lived the evolution of virtual socialization, the new has long since worn off, the value and relevance has been established in each of our minds, and then comes Facebook. A great way to not only have our own relatives stalk us, but to have people we never really knew keep us up to date on their kids’ soccer matches or their sick husband’s bowel movements. A great way to introduce utterly inane drama into your own life by placing yourself into odd circumstances with people you don’t like, who don’t like you, but they like their Friends number.

A former girlfriend would smile at me and say, “a girl has to have a little mystery.” And she was right. Just some modicum of mystery inspires interest and intrigue. Better yet, it coincides very much with the Biblical adage that it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and prove it. “Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.” Prov 17:28

So you see, I socialize, but not by displaying my gall stones to my graduating class. I network, but not by sending my resume to my friends list and asking if anyone knows someone who knows someone. I chat, but it is with people I can slap IRL if they get stupid. I have tested the virtual social waters for over a decade, and I am comfortable where I stand. And yes, I can appreciate transparency in intimacy, but my house windows have blinds which I greatly appreciate when they are in the ‘closed’ position.

I was watching War Games on manhole cover-sized Digital Discs and plotting how to change my Algebra grade the year Mark Zuckerberg was born.

Oh, hi. Facebook, is it? Welcome aboard.

/camp