Home, Again

Weakness sweeps me away in a torrent of familiar.

The trap encloses my mind as I seize deception.

Slowly, I fall down the tunnel of failure.

Old wounds rip open as scars ooze new blood.

The comfortable dank pit welcomes me home again.

Escape has no name here.

Heaving with laughter the eyes glow red.

Conquered again they scream relentless.

The mire has thickened with time and offense.

I’m lost beneath the bog of collapse.

Surely, I am home again
.

Death
.

Yet, I still feel pulse throb my neck.

A thunderous clap pierces my ears.

Swirling headlong I am plucked from the morass.

The gentle scarred hand bodes familiar.

I am Home, Again.

Free.

100

In my life I have always been known more for the things that I start rather than the few that I finish. I have had it as somewhat of an unofficial goal of mine to get better at finishing. Things like books, projects, even simple tasks. I am giving a bit more attention to finishing. This blog journey has been cool, I enjoy it most of the time and I like interacting with all of you but,

But nothing.

This is my 100^th post and God-willing not my last. So today I stretch my arm around my back and pat it for sticking with it for these 17 months. Here’s to 17 more! Hip, hip hooray!

Go Tigers and Red Wings and Pistons.
What a nice time to be a fan from Michigan.
Now if only them Lions would get their act together....

Dirty

I was propositioned for sex once by a prostitute. I was driving my truck ( I was a truck driver for 7 ½ years) in downtown Detroit, on the eastside, and as I pulled up to a stop sign near Warren Avenue, a scantily clad woman asked me if I wanted a date. A wave of emotion rolled over me, it was fear. I “sped” away as fast as I could make the truck move as I yelled over my shoulder: NO!

I was repulsed by her looks, by her “profession”, by the thought of disease and just by the idea. I was “grossed out” by her presence just outside my window.

36One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to come to his home for a meal, so Jesus accepted the invitation and sat down to eat. 37A certain immoral woman heard he was there and brought a beautiful jar filled with expensive perfume. 38Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. 39When the Pharisee who was the host saw what was happening and who the woman was, he said to himself, "This proves that Jesus is no prophet. If God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She's a sinner!" 40Then Jesus spoke up and answered his thoughts. "Simon," he said to the Pharisee, "I have something to say to you." "All right, Teacher," Simon replied, "go ahead." 41Then Jesus told him this story: "A man loaned money to two people--five hundred pieces of silver* to one and fifty pieces to the other. 42But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?" 43Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt." "That's right," Jesus said. 44Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn't offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45You didn't give me a kiss of greeting, but she has kissed my feet again and again from the time I first came in. 46You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. 47I tell you, her sins--and they are many--have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love." 48Then Jesus said to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven." 49The men at the table said among themselves, "Who does this man think he is, going around forgiving sins?" 50And Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." _{Luke 7:36-50}

At the time of the "proposition", if I had been in this story, I’m afraid that I would have been Simon the Pharisee. Considering only the woman’s reputation, dress, looks and lifestyle I would have forgotten her, the person. The mixed up, struggling lost soul that mattered to the Son of God should matter to me as well. Who have I looked at like this lately?

Scum

I used to work with this guy who was, well, I'm not sure, slow, I guess. His name was Tim and his job was to sweep the plant. All night long (we worked afternoon shift) Tim would sweep and smoke cigarettes and collect pop bottles. Tim was about 6'2" and weighed maybe 150 dripping wet. Many of the guys in the steel factory were not nice to Tim. He walked funny, kind of a stride with his cigarette dangling from his mouth, his long nappy hair and nasty beard flowing in the breeze. Tim rode a bike to work and it was an old bike with baskets for his returnables. Tim had bad breath and chunky stuff caught in his beard from his previous meals. Tim was weird. In the beginning I was mean to Tim. I would drive my Hi-Lo at top speeds through his just swept piles of dirt, laughing all the way. I would break my bottles rather than give them to Tim, just out of spite.

Then this guy got a hold of my heart and stories like:

¹³Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that gathered around him. ¹⁴As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax-collection booth. "Come, be my disciple," Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him. ¹⁵That night Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to be his dinner guests, along with his fellow tax collectors and many other notorious sinners. (There were many people of this kind among the crowds that followed Jesus.) ¹⁶But when some of the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees* saw him eating with people like that, they said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with such scum?" ¹⁷When Jesus heard this, he told them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call sinners, not those who think they are already good enough." _{Mark 2:13-17NLT}

Tim would have been eating with Jesus.
Eating, laughing, picking food out of his own beard and being loved by the son of God at his table.

…..I was such a scum.