Adventures in UnMasking

  I decided recently to stop wearing a face mask in public.

 

 Let me preface all this by saying that I'm not a martyr to 'the cause'. I have no real desire to cast sand unnecessarily into the gears. I just don't want to be compelled to participate in foolishness. Your embrace of stupidity and pseudo-science does not compel me to join you.  I'm just a guy, going about his life, and I really just want to be left alone.

  Having said that, a while back I caught the Covid. In fact, my entire family caught it. For a couple of days I had the chills and an annoying cough, and everything tasted terrible. That's my whole Covid story. No ventilator, no lung scarring. Just a bad case of the flu. My body did what it was designed to do, and repelled the invaders.

  Having survived it, I am, according to science, immune to catching it or spreading it for some admittedly indeterminate period of time  I am chock full of antibodies, after all, as evidenced by my survival. I am safe to be around, and I can be around you, even if you are sick. I am therefore, for sound medical reasons, exempt from any reasons to wear a face mask, and I purposed in my heart to deploy every reasonable means at my disposal to live that way.

  Of course I set some ground rules for myself. I believe, as a Christian, I am obligated to tell the truth (Romans 12:17), but combating foolishness with foolishness (Prov 26:5) might require me to tell a very specific version of the truth.  I am still refining this technique, by the way. Doctors offices have been extremely problematic, and well as oddly enough, the local Goodwill. And I don't win them all. But I don't wear the mask.  So here, submitted for your consideration, here are three very recent examples of living mask-free in public..

Example 1

  My wife and I recently celebrated an anniversary, and we got out of town, staying at a nearby luxury hotel. The hotel was thick with signs about masking and distancing, etc etc. I simply ignored them, and endured the accusatory stares of some. Most people really aren't up for a confrontation, and some even agree with your stand, though they have opted not to take it themselves. I wasn't confronted about it until the next morning when I went down to get our pathetically sad ( at least compared to pre-Covid ) breakfast from the hotel.

  "Sir, you need to put on a face mask" said the lady behind the food counter.

  "Actually, I'm medically exempt." I maintained eye contact, and a casual, but cheerful demeanor.  I am  , after all, not a rabble-rouser, I'm just a guy.  There was a long awkward pause.

  "Umm, ok, well, just don't stand so close to the counter, then."

  See, how hard was that?  I wasn't boisterous, I wasn't rude. Everything I said was not only true, but more true that the propaganda plastered on the walls.

Example 2

  Having left the hotel, we went to go get some food at a Panda Express. I stood in line with maybe 10 other people, and I was the only one not wearing a mask. A cheerful manager of some sort swung thru the lobby reminding us that masks are required. I ignored her. A few minutes later she came back out and repeated the admonishment. I ignored her.  She came out  with a mask and  told me I had to put it on.

  "No I don't. I'm medically exempt."

  "Yes sir, you do."

  "Aren't you aware of your own corporate policy regarding medical exemptions?"  Truth be told, this was a bluff on my part. I certainly didn't know their policy, but the odds were she didn't either.

  "Our policy, sir, is to either send you to the drive-thru or serve you outside if you won't put on the mask."

  A word here; she isn't the enemy. She is an  employee that is being paid to enforce stupidity because her corporate paymasters are concerned about their own liability.  But I wasn't going to wear the mask.  So I left my mask-wearing wife in line to get our food and I waited outside.

  Once again, causing a scene is not what I'm after.  And getting the manager in trouble with corporate  isn't my goal either. 

Example 3

 From time to time my children coerce me to take them an hour or so away to an ice-skating rink so they can be with some of their friends. Last night was just such a night, and it was the first trip we had made there since my decision to be maskless.  I stood in line ,walking right past mask signs. We got to the little booth and the teenage girl asked "Sir, do you need a mask?"

  "No." No explanation given. I simply answered her very specific question.

  "Sir, you're going to have to put on a mask."

  "I appreciate your concern, but I'm not here to skate. I'm just the transportation, and besides, I'm medically exempt."  Keep in mind that as I'm saying this, approximately 10% of the skating population is maskless out on the ice, including the employee in charge with watching the skaters.  But the teenage employee opted to call for backup.  While the line grew behind me, I waited for the next round.

  "Sir, is there a problem?" Another teenage female.

  "No, I was just trying to pay for my kids to go skating, and your coworker  asked me if I needed a mask. I don't. I'm medically exempt."  I gestured back to the growing line. "Look, can I just pay, so that I'm not holding up the line and then you and I can discuss this in more detail?"  She let me pay, which is an important win. I am now a paying customer with a receipt to prove it.  We stepped off to the side.

  "What is the nature of your exemption?"

  "It is medical in nature, and personal."  An awkard pause, Eye contact, casual, cheerful demeanor.

  "Do you have any documentation?"

  "Nobody has ever asked me for documentation. What sort of documentation are you looking for?"

  "Something that establishes your disability."  Another quick word here. She used the word 'disability', not me.

  "Well, I have a government-issued Veterans Adminstration card that  proves I'm a vet with a service-connected disability. Will that do? " I showed her my card. She looked at it for a few seconds and then went to go get her manager.  By now my kids are on the ice and I'm just running out the clock.

 "Sir , is there a problem?" This fellow was presumably the manager. Bigger guy, early 20's.I rehearsed the entire scenario again, and he assured me that I would have to put on the mask.  

  "You  mean this company doesn't have a policy for exemptions?"

  "No, sir."

  "You are aware that the Americans With Disability Act requires accommodations for the disabled? I mean I'm not a lawsuit kind of guy, but you might want to recommend the owners think about that."  Now I know that's not really germane to the situation, but by now I was just having fun.

  "That's fine, but.." he sighed " you need to put the mask on."

  "Even though I'm exempt?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'll tell you what, man. I know you're just doing your job, and I'm really not here to cause a ruckus. We drove a long way to get here and I paid to get in, so here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to go stand just outside the rink doors out by the indoor soccer set-up. Now, your rules don't allow me to leave my kids here unattended, so I'm going to have to come in here from time to time and check on them. I hope that doesn't cause any problems between me and you."

  He sighed agian "Look, maybe if you just...stood way over there away from the crowd."

  "No, it's ok. I told you I'd stand outside the rink doors in the lobby, and I will. I'll sit on one of those benches and read." I shook his hand, thanked him for his time. He treated to his office, and as far as any onlooking flunkies knew, whatever I did next I was doing with his approval.

  I did go into the lobby where a mob of maskless Latinos were holding an indoor soccer game. I also went to the bathroom and wandered around inside. I checked on my kids. About 15 minutes before the rink closed I went inside to make sure everybody could find their shoes. I, in other words, acted and behaved like a free reasonable man.

My #VSS365 Writing Exercise- Part 1

  Note: This is an old post pushed back out into the cold cruel world.  I no longer have a Twitter account.  Now on with the show....

 I have a twitter account, and honestly, I'm not sure why. But one of the things that have come out of it is a daily (ish) writing exercise flying under the banner of #vss365 that quickly became a semi-autobiographical story, at least on my part.. I have had to take some liberties with  the sequence of events. I have had to condense some conversations and I've changed some names, including my own.
 But here you have it, one screenshot at a time, assembled for your edification.

Is God A Genocidal Madman? -Part 1

"When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:"  Deut 20:10-17

 It's a common trope among scorners to present passages like this one to the Christian in order to confront the Christian with the presumably bloodthirsty and vengeful God of the Bible.  This  highlights the tragic misunderstanding the scorner has towards the Bible, and their insincerity while 'searching for the truth'. Even more tragic , however, is how many Christians have no real reply for this, instead adopting a sort of embarrassed stance with some believers drawing at least a mental distinction between the 'mean God' of the Old Testament and the 'nice guy Jesus' of the New Testament.
  The Bible offers no such path of escape, though. The Bible claims to be an accurate, inspired, consistent revelation of the Creator to His creation.The same God quoted in Deuteronomy 20 is, according to scripture, the same God who took on the likeness of sinful flesh and gave His life on Calvary in order to redeem His enemies. The Bible does not allow an honest reader to  draw any distinction between the two.
  I submit to you, as a Bible believer, that we owe it to ourselves to face this issue. After all, a Christianity that cannot withstand the scrutiny of intellectual midgets like Voltaire or the scribbling of a self-professed monkey man like Dawkins is not a Christianity worth defending.  Rather than dismiss this attribute of God, we should examine in the full light of scripture. In doing so, we will find that the removal of the Canaanites was not only consistent with God's character throughout the Bible, but was the morally right thing to do.

1. You Aren't God, He is.

  In the same way an ignorant child draws incorrect conclusions about the world, the scorner assumes that just because God didn't do things they way they would have, God was either wrong or non-existent.  In order to establish the proper perspective, let's be frank; God doesn't solicit opinions from His creation. In fact, God says many times in scripture that His opinions and judgements are superior to that of man on the basis of Who He is and what He has done.  In Isaiah 40, the Holy Spirit says;

"Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him?

With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. ....All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity."

  In Isaiah 59:8-9 God says, in unequivocal terms that he is smarter than you.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

  God asserts in Romans 9 that he stands above mankind, and outside the realm of man's ability to appropriately assess His actions.

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

The Lord, when speaking to Job, makes it very clear that Job should remember his place in the grand scheme of things.

Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed? Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? ..... Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all. Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof? Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great? Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth? Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? ... Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven, When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together? Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions,When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait?Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.

  In Deut 32, God claims to have the final authority in matters of life and death.

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever. If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.

 Just to reiterate, God is smarter, wiser, and more powerful than His critics.  He has superior intellect, superior information, superior ability and regularly does things that no man is even capable of understanding. He made all things, and He sustains all things. In fact, He is so far ahead of the curve of human intellect that His ways are "past finding out".  God doesn't always explain Himself because not only are we not owed an explanation, but we wouldn't understand His explanation if He did.
  That's interesting, because according to Romans 1, God wrote His law  on the hearts of men, giving them a hard-wired sense of right and wrong, however marred by sin and muddled by culture it may be.  God, as a moral being, created beings with a sense of morality derived from Him. He then interacts with those beings, knowing that His creation has the capacity to assess His actions in the light of the rules He laid down and based on the information He has provided them. He ensures, through scripture that an accurate record of these interactions exists for future humans to see.
  It's perfectly legitimate for a man to look at what God has revealed about Himself, and, use his God-given sense of morality to assess those actions taken by God. But to make a proper assessment, a man must weigh all the factors before him, not just he ones that fit his bias against his Creator.  The scoffer and the scorner see what they want to see, blinded by the darkness of their own heart.

Fret not, this is not my entire argument.  I'm just laying the groundwork.

Life is Ministry, Ministry is Life

 Our community has an annual event; a downtown festival of sorts  that they dub 'The Scarecrow Stroll.  When it began  it was truly a community endeavor in which families would  build a scarecrow and display it in the local downtown area for several days, culminating in 'the Stroll'.  We built a scarecrow every year for years and used it as platform to get the gospel out.  As of late though, the Stroll has turned into a promotional event; a Halloween festival with local businesses and politicians throwing together some half-hearted scarecrow and handing out candy to kids in costumes.
  I’m opposed to Halloween, but I can’t rally a consistent argument against free candy, so my wife takes the kids down there with gym bags and we load up, sans costumes.  Later on, I extract a small portion of the proceeds that my children call ‘the chocolate tax’.

  The way this particular day worked was that I went street preaching, and then met my wife downtown. We walked around, looked at scarecrows, talked to our neighbors and scarfed up free candy. But I was unsettled the whole time. Maybe it’s because I was still in ‘street mode’ or whatever, but I looked at this crowd of  easily over a thousand people, including church folks , and realized that, other than me getting rid of  20 or 30 tracts, there was no visible gospel witness at this event. Nobody was preaching, nobody was handing out tracts, nothing.

  I’m not advocating a church get a booth down there as that would be inappropriate. Besides most church booths are, in my opinion, horribly ineffective and come across as a plea of  ‘Please like us! We’re nice!’. For example,  if the early church had opened up a booth at the Jupiter festival in  pagan Rome and made balloon animals, I hope we can agree that would have been a little bit 'off-mission'.

 I freely admit to you, dear readers, that I  don’t know what I think should be done.  I think the church has an obligation to distance itself from some aspects of the culture, and to purposefully visibly abstain from some of the more questionable cultural practices.  I think you can be present at an event without being part of it. You do what you're supposed to do and people will understand that you aren't with them in their revelry. You wont even have to tell them.

  What is our obligation, as the church, and as individuals, to the community at events like this? I think it’s clear; the people in our towns need to be confronted with the gospel at every opportunity.    That usually means they will hate you, and  most professing Christians will be annoyed with you. That’s my little red wagon to pull, and I pull it with gusto.

  I also freely admit to being a workaholic in the ministry. I see every public gathering as an chance to present the gospel. If it's within 100 miles of my house and I can make it there, I try.  I preach at street corners and football games and parades and festivals. I preach on vacation. I preach when I'm sick. I've preached in every weather condition except snow. I relish in buying tracts and putting gas in the car to drive hither and yon preaching.  Jesus Christ took the handwriting of ordinances that was against me and took them out of the way, nailing them to His cross. I owe Him my life. I owe Him my time. I owe my fellow man the chance to hear what God has done for them and what He will do to them in they persist in their rebellion.

  But I also have a family, and  I also have a wife that sometimes just wants to walk around and look at scarecrows and scarf up free candy without me being 'that guy' that disrupts everybodys good time.  She wants to be, for lack of a better word,'normal'. I do have obligations to her. I have an obligation to not make her life any harder than it has to be.  But I also am under orders from the King.

  This tug of war takes up a significant portion of my thoughts.

 I left the Stroll, as I  leave many public gatherings, thinking about the people there. I thought about what I have and what they need and how to balance  family life and ministry life.  I thought about how they ought not be separate things, but sometimes they are. 

 I'm only one guy who has been given the biggest job ever. How do I do it? And how do I get the gospel to them next year?

 

What Every Muslim Needs to Know About the Prophet Jesus (PBUH)

 

  The Quran clearly points to Jesus Christ, as being a holy man, and a prophet, and so he cannot be a liar. The following essay presents to you, my dear Muslim friends, the words of Jesus himself. I ask you to carefully consider these things and search out whether they be true.


1. Jesus Christ claimed to be God.

In Mark Chapter 2, Jesus is preaching inside a man's house, and a sick man is brought to him. In verse 5, Jesus says 

 "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee."

 Now consider, my friends, what an amazing claim that is to  make in front of other people.Everyone understands that the power to forgive sins belongs to God alone. I would not make the claim to be able to forgive sins, and I  suspect you would not either.  In fact, the assembled crowd responds, saying "Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?"
 Jesus answers them and says:

 " Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk. But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house."

 In John chapter 10, Jesus is being pressed by the Jews to give a plain answer as to whether or not he was God manifest in the flesh. He answers them:

 "I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one."

  The people listening responded by offering to stone him. Jesus asks them why they want to stone him, and they answer "For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God."  
   Now my dear Muslim friend, by Jesus's own words you can see that he claimed to be able to forgive sins, he claimed to be able to give men eternal life, and he claimed to be equal with God. All of these are attributes of God alone. Was this holy prophet telling the truth when he spoke of himself?

2. Jesus Christ Died on the Cross, and Rose again

 Before he was captured and crucified, Jesus Christ predicted his own death, and his own resurrection. In John chapter 10, he says:

"I lay down my life, that I might take it again.No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again."

In Luke chapter 18, Jesus prophesies again regarding his own death, and says:

 "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again."

In Mark 9, Jesus is teaching his disciples and tells them:

"The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day."

 In Matthew 26, Jesus says:

 "Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified."

 After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and told them:

 "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."

 "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing."

 In the first chapter of  book of Revelation, John encounters Jesus Christ again, and Jesus tells him:

"Fear not; I am the first and the last:I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."

 Consider these things, friend. By his own words, Jesus knew he was going to die on the cross before it happened. He knew he was going to rise from the dead. He appeared to his disciples with the wounds of death in his body, and proclaimed to John that he had been dead, but now was alive. Was Jesus telling the truth?

3. Jesus Christ is the Only way to Heaven

  In John chapter 11, Jesus is speaking to the sister of his friend Lazarus, and he tells her:

"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

 In John 14, Jesus tells his disciples:

"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

 Jesus Christ, from his own mouth claimed to be the source of eternal life and the only way for men to achieve a resurrection from the dead. He claimed to be the only way for a man to get to God. Jesus Christ claimed that your good works cannot save you, your devotion to God cannot save you; only he can save you from your sins. He accomplished this by paying the penalty for your sins with his own death upon the cross. He displayed victory over death by raising himself from the dead, and he promises the forgiveness of sin to all those who will put their faith and trust in him alone.
  What if the prophet Jesus Christ was telling the truth?
  I beseech you to consider these things in your heart. Are these things true? And if they are, why have you never been told?

Mostly Human

 I have sitting, in my yard, a  broken green 1995 Geo Metro. We'll get back to that in a moment.
  When I got saved  in 1995, I was 21 years old, and without any undue embellishment, take my word for it, I was a hard man.  I had seen tragedy and heartbreak and death, and although others have doubtless seen worse, the experiences of my brief life thus far had hardened me. I understood rage, and I understood anger, but I had done my best to jettison from my  soul everything else. I walked around in a human body, but the affections and sentiments that are supposed to be common to the human experience were, from my vantage point, something that happened to other people.  I had no friends, and I was OK with that. I had no close affections, and I was OK with that. You could hit me, but you could not hurt me, and that was on purpose. I don't say this to make myself sound like a tough guy, but rather to lay the groundwork for what God has done.
  Of course now I sit here, more than 20 years later a new creature in Christ. I look at the man I used to be with  a certain amount of detachment, and with two decades of experience on him.  He's gone but not gone. That hard-hearted brawler still roams the hallways of my mind, and his influence bubbles up from time to time, but God has helped me in ways I could never explain.  God has patiently stripped away the dross and is preparing a vessel for His use.
  When I got saved, God gave me friends, or at least people who endured me for the ministries sake.  I'm still not the life of the party, and I'll never be voted Mister Congeniality (thank God) but God has, over the years, placed some people in my life, and used those people, whether they knew it or not, to help reassemble the broken man that He redeemed.  Of course, that sort of thing comes with a price.
  Doug is one of those friends.  I wish I could say that I had been the help to him that he's been to me, but that simply wouldn't be true. Really, my association with Doug has always struck me as pretty unlikely, but somehow it's worked. A few years back I was in a bind car-wise, and I bought this 1995 Geo from Doug and his wife.  The car has always been sort of moody, and it's always been prone to failures that defy explanation and that come and go on their own, but I took that little car with its unmatchable gas mileage and put around 100,000 miles on it in the last  3 or 4 years.  In that time, as I've worked through one issue or another (often with Doug's guidance or muscle) , many people have wondered why I didn't just get another car. My extended family have questioned my very sanity as to why I would  strive over and over again to keep this one car on the road.  I have bought other cars in this time, but it always comes back to this Geo.  This time around, it has sat still for several months plagued with a host of symptoms that have the best and brightest shrugging their shoulders. People ask me, "What are you going to do with that thing?" I'm sure I could muster up a handful of practical reasons to keep the car. It's paid for. I know it inside and out. It gets 50 miles to the gallon. But that's probably not the real reason.
  Look, I'm a smart guy. I can understand intellectually that this car is simply a 2,600 pound pile of metal and glass and rubber and plastic. I may talk to it, but it does not hear me. I get that.  I understand the concept of 'diminishing returns'. I'm far from stupid. But an unintended side-effect of my restored humanity is that I am, on occasion an irrational, pathetically sentimental sap.  I look at this pile of non functioning mechanical parts and I think of how I asked for prayer one night at a Saturday night prayer meeting because I needed a vehicle, and how Doug and his wife sold me that car for less than they could have. I think about Doug's wife, and how I wasn't sure if I was going to like her, but how our family has grown to love her.  She is, like me, a trophy of God's grace, living proof of God's kindness, and a broken thing under divine reassembly. I think about how the newlyweds loaded up her stuff in a trailer and hauled it down here in that Geo, and how they both cast aside their own sentimental attachment to it and sold it to me.  I think about all the time and knowledge Doug has donated to get this car back up on the road; time he could have spent with his lovely bride and his growing family. I think of how nobody would have done that for the cranky scrapper I used to be.  I stand there in my yard with a tool in my hand and the hood up thinking about all of this, and with all the rational arguments to stop echoing in my head, I say to myself "well, let's try this one more thing...".
  Having bared this little piece of myself to you, Oh Internet Reader Person, can you blame me? After all, I'm mostly human.