Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 2

The Russian people did not wake up pokey one morning last week and decide to invade Ukraine.  Neither did the Russian people occupy Poland and impose the Iron Curtain.  The average subject of the emperor didn’t care where Pearl Harbor was if he even knew it existed at all.  The Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland spent decades blowing each other up… why, exactly?  The typical Palestinian when pressed on the matter can not say why he wants to shove every Jewish man woman and child into the sea.

 

I’m reading stories now about Russian soldiers in the field crying and wanting their mothers.  They didn’t want to be there.  Many of them claim that they didn’t know they were going into Ukraine to begin with.

 

I’m also reading about the Ukrainians holding Russian soldiers hostage and parading them in front of cameras for social media.  And showing photos of dead Russians.  Some are claiming that doing so violates the Geneva Convention.  To quote Patrick Swayze from Red Dawn: “I’ve never heard of it!”  Swayze then answers his friend’s concern about what makes “us” different from “them”: “BECAUSE WE LIVE HERE!”

 

It’s hard not to sympathize with the Ukrainians.  They didn’t ask for war.  And war is hell.  Why shouldn’t they reciprocate in kind?  If someone breaks into your house, you have the right to stop them by any means necessary including acts of violence.

 

But I digress.

 

All of this and more, did not come about because entire populations simply decided to go to war and wipe out another people.  They instead came about by the machinations of a relatively small minority.  Sometimes not even that much.  Too often it comes down to one man.  One man whose sanity is questionable at best.

 

(Sometimes I find myself thinking that there would have been peace in the Mid-East a long time ago already, were it not for that idiot Yassir Arafat rallying his people toward hate and violence.)

 

There have been many such men.  Men who by accident or design have come to control the lives and deaths of millions.  I can tick off a bunch right now: Stalin, Pol Pot, Amin, Kim, and of course Adolf Hitler.

 

Right now, that man is Vladimir Putin.  Dictator of Russia.  And he is following right along with his predecessors.  The big difference is that Putin has it in his power to destroy the world as we know it.

 

So the question that’s been running through my mind, the question that has been asked by many before me and will no doubt be asked by many more to come still, is this…

 

Why do we allow ourselves to follow madmen?  Why do we even tolerate them?

 

Solzhenitsyn was right.  If the people had only resisted.  If only they had chosen to fight back.  Had decided that they would kill Stalin’s agents when they came instead of cowering in fear.  But instead they played along as the victim.

 

Why is it so hard to say “no” to lunatics?

 

When are people like the Russians going to say “enough” and topple the madman controlling their country?

 

 

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Ash Wednesday

I woke up this morning wanting to die.

I was having the most beautiful dream.  About all the people who I've ever known and loved.  Especially the ones who I've hurt along the way: so many relationships that were broken because of me.  Because of this mind that God let me have.  But in this dream, everything was okay.  The people I'd hurt, were telling me that they loved me.  That it didn't matter anymore.  We were all going to be together forever.  And I thought that was what was going to happen.  And then I woke up and until the alarm went off from its final round of snoozing I was just laying in bed... wanting to die.  Wanting to be there, where there is no hurt.  No past to be reminded of.  No brain that has turned against me.

Instead I got up, and shaved and showered, and went into the office.  There was a three hour training session done over Zoom this afternoon, about disclosure as peer support specialists.  It was a continuation from the day before yesterday, and I gained a lot from it.  But one of the exercises today triggered me.  Triggered me hard.  Reminded me that for all of my attempts to have some measure of happiness in this life, I might forever come up short.  It will always be someone else who has the things that matter most.

I never wanted much.  Just a little family.  That's all.  But would someone want to be associated with one with such a mind?  That mind destroyed a chance for family.  Hurt people I cared for and still do care for.  Poisoned me from having another shot, when it had been so close.  How close?  I was going to buy the ring the next day.

I'm tired of hurting others, and I'm tired of being hurt all of the time.  I want it to stop.

I'm tired of doubting God, more often than I really care to admit.

A few weeks ago something happened and, I told my friends that it was definitely a God thing.  My car had a breakdown coming off the loop onto Pleasantburg Drive in Greenville.  But the car had enough to coast into a friend's driveway.  They drove me to work while my car was being worked on, and in the end it was fixed.  It's the car I've had since 2007, the one that drove my dog Tammy and I across the country and back.  I want to believe it will make it to 300,000 miles.  Maybe it can now.  But how the car had just enough to make it into their driveway, and how it resolved in the end... yeah, that was "a God thing" I told people.

I can see God in the small things.  Is it wrong to hope that He will be good in bringing some big things along the way, too?

Am I going to die alone?  If I am, what difference does it make if I die tonight and get it over with?

Why am I writing this?

I asked a friend today, since it seems a lot of others are doing it, what can I do for Lent this year.  I don't really have any luxuries to give up for this period leading up to Easter.  She suggested maybe write something every day.  A gratitude journal, she said.  Something along that line of thought.

It reminded me of one time, some years back, when I gave up blogging for Lent.  It was hard, but I did it.

It would be too easy to do that again.  My blogging has become pretty lax.  I want it to make it at least until its twentieth anniversary in 2004.  But there are times when it seems I'm just ready to give it up entirely.  But I don't really want to do that either.

So the idea hit, that maybe for Lent, I could write a blog post a day, every day, until Easter.

Just writing something.  Anything.  Whether it's stream of consciousness or a book review or whatever.  Just WRITING, whatever comes to me.  I can do that.  And maybe it will help me along with some other things that have grown stale in my life.  I've lost something as a writer, I blame the meds more than anything.  Maybe writing despite them will help me find it again.

Maybe it can help me draw closer to God again.  I used to write about God... more than anything.  I used to write about Him in college, for our newspaper.  I've written essays about Him for newspapers.  Maybe writing again here will let me find my way back to Him like that.  If so, this will have been an exercise well worth undertaking.

So that's what this post is.  The first of Lent, 2022.

I'll do my best to resist the doubts.  I have to resist.  There are forty-some posts left to write and I've got to get to it...

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New recipe: barbecued wild boar ribs!

Remember the hit television series Lost?  John Locke (magnificently played by Terry O'Quinn) would sometimes go off into the jungle hunting.  More often than not he came back with a wild boar, upon which the castaways would enjoy feasting.

It turns out that if you want to eat like Locke, you DON'T have to go to a mysterious island.  In some places, you can buy boar already prepared to cook in your kitchen.

I've been having a hankering to try wild boar ribs ever since first spotting them on sale at Country Meat Center in Woodruff, South Carolina.  I was with a client (let's call him "Rufus") and we came across them while perusing the products at what I good heartedly refer to as "that crazy meat store".  I call it that because of the positively BONKERS variety of food items they have, everything from porterhouse and ground chuck, to kangaroo and octopus.  If it's meat, this place has it.  Anyhoo, I saw those and told Rufus that I had to give that a shot.  Had some time this afternoon so I decided to go to the crazy meat store on my own and see if they were still in stock.  Turned out they were.

I barbecued them, adapting from a recipe I found at Emerils.com.  They came out beautifully!  Although I think the specimen these were taken from was a rather small one.  Boar get MUCH bigger than this, I believe.  But for an introductory to the dish it was plenty.  There is a wood-ish aroma to cooked wild boar, and it tastes a tad bit like pork ribs you'd find in a good wood-pit cooked barbecue restaurant.  Quite a pleasant experience.

So if you come across wild boar baby back ribs in your own neighborhood meat market, here's how I prepared mine if you need some idea to work from...

Barbecued wild boar ribs

Fill a small baking pan with cold water.  Place this on the lowest rack of your oven.  This will keep the ribs moist and juicy during the fairly long cooking time.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Place the ribs on the foil and cook uncovered for 2 hours.

When the ribs have been cooked, remove the baking sheet from the oven.  Using a basting brush and tongs to turn the ribs over and coat both sides of the ribs with your choice of barbecue sauce (I use Williamson Brothers Bar-B-Q Sauce).

Bake for an additional 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, remove the sheet from the oven and turn the ribs over.

Bake for another 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and enjoy!

 

EDIT: I'm kicking myself for totally forgetting about Obelix: the giant best friend of Asterix!  Obelix has an affinity for wild boar, not unlike that of a meth addict.  Indeed, every story (I think) from the classic Goscinny and Udurzo comic ends with the whole tribe partying with ample amounts of boar.

 If you've never read an Asterix comic book, check your local bookstore or search out Amazon, and prepare for a treat.  Every issue, I'm pretty sure has been translated into English.  My first Asterix book was Asterix the Gladiator: as much a hilarious "fish out of water" story as there is ever apt to be.

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Canadian convoy: history in the making

It is now day #16 of the Freedom Convoy's presence in the Canadian capital of Ottawa.  What began as a group of truckers all the way west in Vancouver has become a movement inspiring many, MANY more around the world.  The truckers and their supporters want little: just the lifting of mandatory vaccinations.  But Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau - who has called the truckers "fringe extremists" - refuses to budge.  This despite his falling hard in the polls.  If this were England there would be calls already for his resignation.

Needless to say, this is extremely FASCINATING to me and I've been watching the Freedom Convoy's story unfold and evolve since it began.  The truckers and their supporters aren't going anywhere in Ottawa, and more are still coming.  Trudeau is in a tight spot: he either gives up and ends the mandate, or he chooses to end the occupation by any means necessary.

Personally, I think the man is in much the same position that Nicolae Ceaucescu was in during December of 1989.  That didn't end well for Nicolae and his wife: thrown up against the wall and shot as enemies of the people.  Averse to violence that I am, I hope that won't be Trudeau.  No matter how sleazy and out of touch with the common Canadian that he is.

Well like I said, I've been following this with extreme interest.  And if you want to also watch as history unfolds with our friends in the Great White North (and soon to be coming to Washington D.C. and no doubt state capitals across the fruited plain) there are several online live streams coming in from Ottawa, Windsor, Coutts and wherever else the convoy is making waves.  One of my favorites is Ottawalks: they've been doing hours-long live feeds from throughout the streets of Ottawa all the way to Parliament Hill.  Here's their most recent stream, and does it seem like a party has broken out or what?  Definitely NOT a gathering of "extremists" who have "unacceptable" beliefs as Trudeau charged.

I really hope this same momentum will be moving our own truckers and their backers when the American convoy kicks into high gear.

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New post on Substack: about The Book of Boba Fett

 

Just a friendly note that I have posted another article on my Substack page.  This one is a "review" of sorts about the new Disney+ series The Book of Boba Fett.  Maybe others will read it and chime in and let me know: what am I missing from this series.  Because so far it seems to have wildly misplaced... something.

Maybe it's the fact that it has violated forty years of tradition by showing us Boba Fett without his helmet?

From the article:

Maybe it’s because The Book of Boba Fett doesn’t fully understand who it is that it’s being made for. Or maybe it does, but it has forgotten its roots. See, Boba Fett was my generation’s most iconic man of mystery. We had no idea who that was beneath the helmet. And we liked it that way. Heck, for all we knew that could have been a woman in the armor posing as a man (no offense meant to the memory of Jeremy Bulloch). The only thing that mattered is that Boba Fett was the most infamous of the bounty hunters who answered Darth Vader’s call, and he succeeded in his mission to capture Han Solo. Come to think of it, Fett was the only character in The Empire Strikes Back who accomplished his purpose.

 Mash down here for more.

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So, I got hit by COVID-19...

It was only a matter of time, I suppose.  And based on what those who were in close proximity to me have said, it seems like it's the omicron (anagram for "moronic") variant.  Which is the most wildly contagious as well as apparently being the least malign of the strains found so far.  Two friends and I were at a movie theater on Christmas Day, watching Spider-Man: No Way Home and one of them believes she picked it up during a trip to the restroom.  She tested positive two days later and our other friend got a positive result the next day.  My symptoms began a few hours later.  It hasn't been as severe as theirs, but still... this has been a pretty cruddy way to end 2021 on.  Or a fitting one.  Or something.

It's almost miraculous that it took this long to contract it, given my work as a health care professional involves interacting with the public on a constant basis.  Two years' keeping ahead of the Wuhan Flu is a pretty good record, all things considered.

I'm day four now into fighting this thing but happily I'm on the tail end of it.  Body temperature had been oscillating like an accordion but that seems to have ended last night.  There hasn't been as much mucous produced as I had originally thought.  My chest feels like there's a weight on it, even now.  I never lost the sense of smell, however there is a weird taste in my mouth.  But that's been happening lately anyway, because of iron infusions I've been receiving to offset anemia.

I still do not believe in COVID vaccine mandates: something I've expressed on numerous other forums.  The choice to be vaccinated should be a very personal one, for a lot of reasons.  I was vaccinated this past winter, but I have chosen to not receive boosters.  Indeed, I wonder about the efficacy of the vaccines, given the reports that have accumulated of people being severely injured and even dying after getting jabbed.  We should have been addressing this with medications like Ivermectin, which is what countries like India have been doing to counter COVID.  But I suppose "big pharma" couldn't make enough money on something they tout as a horse dewormer (and the drug companies have better paying lobbyists too).

In hindsight, I'm taking a perverse view on getting COVID-19.  Coming through like this, my body has been working overtime to cook up some all natural antibodies.  My chances of catching COVID again are significantly diminished.  I'm going to be able to head out the office door to meet my patients with much more confidence, and that's a good thing.

Until the next plague that our friends the ChiComs whip up in their laboratories...

 

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We saw GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE last night

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the movie we didn't know we needed right now, is better than we deserve, and blew away expectations.  It is a MAGNIFICENT tribute to the original film while standing on its own and setting the stage for more still to come.  Be sure to stick around until the end of the credits for two extra scenes.

And we had some fun with our going to see it:

Who you gonna call?

Some friends and I went to the theater wearing our finest Ghostbuster attire.  That's my bestie since college Ed in the center.  The whole thing was his idea :-)

Anyhoo, go see Ghostbusters: Afterlife.  It's the perfect motion picture and quite fitting for this Thanksgiving season.

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Remember my prediction from this past January?

 Here it is if you've forgotten: my most serious prediction ever...

 

Make a note of this.  January the Sixth, Two Thousand and Twenty-One.  Just before 1 p.m. EST.

If I'm wrong about this I'll eat my fedora.  No really, I will.

Here it is:

I do declare that four years from today, the United States will be in the WORST condition it has been in, in at least the past fifty years.

Hold me to this.  Do it.

I am dead-#@%$ serious.

 

 

 That was ten months ago.  Much less than the forty-eight I allocated to Biden.

Out of control inflation.  Soaring gas prices.  Less food.  Energy costs set to skyrocket.  A military more dedicated to being "woke" than defense readiness.  Americans still stranded in Afghanistan.  Supply chains strangled because of over-burdening regulation on truckers.  Vaccine mandates.  No effective counter to a China becoming more belligerent by the month if not quicker.  The list goes on...

But hey: no more mean tweets!!

"Let's go Brandon."

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I'm now on Substack

In trying to return to writing on a regular basis, I'm looking to broaden my reach.  So it is that I've just joined Substack, at christopherknight.substack.com.  Expect more serious commentary than what I usually have on this blog.  Like, the first post is about an ethical issue that has been on my mind the past several days.  Substack has the feature of letting authors charge a monthly subscription for their work.  I'm not going to  go that far.  I doubt my own humble page will get more than a hundred views a month.  But the idea is there, at least.  Anyhoo, see y'all on Substack!

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Medication mementos

So, it's been a few months since I last shared anything with all two of this blog's regular readers (actually it's more than two, and I am thankful for every visitor, including our friends in County Meath, Ireland).  Lots has happened since then... and relatively little of it much good.

Let me go back a bit to earlier this year.  I had been having some issues with the medications I take to manage my bipolar disorder.  It was so bad that I took two weeks off from work to address them, at a daytime outpatient facility.  It did enormous good in some aspects.  The involuntarily shaking of my body when certain memories arose, that has been remedied with the addition of one new med.  When I got back to work, things were pretty good... for awhile.

But then it seemed that other problems arose to take the trembling's place.  Serious lethargy, chronic headaches (especially in the morning), some weight gain, an increase in racing thoughts, elevated depressive episodes... these and more became the bane of my existence.  What did I do to counter them?

Yup.  More meds.  So many during these past ten months that I can't remember all of them by name.

In August I was prescribed another medication.  One I had taken already, mostly in the early years involving my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  This was going to make me less lethargic, it was thought.

I wish that I could tell you what happened after that, because I have no solid memory at all.

My neighbors have told me that they found me outside in the rain, dancing about barely clothed.  At one point I was trying to open other people's car doors.  There was other bizarre behavior also.  Some of it I only discovered later.  Like, how I found an oven mitt in the washing machine.  The mitt was filled with my dog Tammy's dry food.  The bottle of pink salt in a closet.  My toothbrush on the coffee table.  I have not one whit of memory about any of this but I trust my neighbors.  One of them said that he had seen this before in other people: a medication reaction.

Then came the next day, when I was found face-down and unconscious on the asphalt on the side of the road next to my house.

I don't remember the ride in the ambulance.  I remember my face hurting like hell though.  I also vaguely remember thinking that I had been attacked by someone.  Now, I'm not sure at all about it.  My face was beaten to a pulp.  It could have been somebody hitting me. It could also have been simply me falling forward face-first onto the side of the road.

At the hospital I had to have stitches in my left knee, and was given a CT scan.  I barely remember a sheriff's deputy taking me home that night.

My supervisor later showed me some of the texts I had sent her.  Something about a Dr. Pepper can "pulsing" and one about Perseus and Medusa.

It had all been a reaction to the new medication.  Thank God I didn't do anything else, or did something that would have harmed my dog.  It's an enormously disturbing thought, that I could have gotten behind the wheel and tried to drive off.

Well, I'm blessed to have some very good people in my life.  One of my best friends and her mother came to my house the next day and we agreed that I needed some time in an inpatient environment.  I called the same place where I had been earlier in the year as an outpatient, and arranged to voluntarily check myself in.

I was a patient for a little over a week.  That's the second time I've been voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility.  Involuntary?  Four or five.  Which is almost certainly what would have happened had I not gotten off the med.  That med was the only one of my regimen that I was not given during my stay.

And now?  After missing almost an entire month I'm back at work, as a peer support specialist for the local mental health center.  I'm trying to regain confidence in me, because this ordeal has caused me to no longer fully trust myself.  If I don't remember most of one month, what else don't I remember?  Were there times in the past where I was an entirely different person, but I have no memory of it?

I really could have ended my own life during that month, and not even know that I was doing it.  There have been times when I've had suicidal ideations.  Some of them, quite recently.  But there was always something stopping me from going too far.  I think that letting down my friends, and not being there for my dog, are what keep me from straying past the line.  But what if I lost my faculties completely, and did something to harm myself without my conscious mind knowing it was happening?

Suddenly, my world is a very different place.  One that I can no longer take for granted or believe that I can have complete control over.

And that's what's been happening these past few months, my friends.  Nothing more or less than trying to hold onto some shred of sanity.

Will have more to write again soon.

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My favorite movie hits forty years old

I had no idea that Raiders of the Lost Ark had returned to theaters for its fortieth anniversary until my iPhone suggested it from a list of movies playing nearby.  Whatever other plans I'd made last Sunday got dropped like a hot Sankara Stone as I headed to the big cinema the next town over.  And that's how, for only the second time in my life, I got to behold my all time favorite film on the big screen.

 

I was far from alone.  About forty-some others had shown up too.  Including the family of four that sat in front of me.  Two little girls, maybe seven and eight.  Just how old I was when I first saw Raiders.  I could tell this movie was giving them thrills and chills, just as it did me.

 

Maybe it made some of the same impact on them that watching Raiders had on me.  In the days and weeks following my first time seeing the movie, I was obsessed with finding out everything I could about the real life history behind the story.  Every encyclopedia volume must have been pulled off of our bookshelf as I read up about ancient Egypt, the Nazis, the Ark of the Covenant...  All of that and more was fodder for my young mind.

So it's safe to say that Raiders of the Lost Ark is not just my favorite movie of all time.  It's also the film that most affected my life.  Yes, the Star Wars saga was a wide-eyeing wonder of story and spectacle that imprinted onto my imagination.  But Raiders ignited the love of history that has followed and guided my life all along.  It taught me that academia and learning could be a very cool thing (though my own scholarship never involved wielding a bullwhip... though I rock in a fedora).

It was also the start of something special between Dad and I.  He loved this movie too.  And we never failed to catch an Indiana Jones movie together in the theater whenever one came out.  He was a real authority on the kinds of vehicles that moved about Indy's world, particularly the aircraft.  I think that from the very first moments of 1936 South America, Dad recognized this movie as being a homage to the Saturday serials of his childhood.  Raiders of the Lost Ark was like a meeting place between his generation and mine.  And for just that alone I will forever treasure this movie.

 

But what it is to all of us together is a kick-butt movie that, like any treasure in the desert, has become priceless with time.  It is also something that has never been replicated so perfectly.  Certainly its sequels tried, and sometimes approximated the success.  But Raiders of the Lost Ark was too much like lightning in a bottle.  It was the intersection of the era's most successful actor, its most successful director, its most successful creator of worlds, all come together with the edgiest of cutting edge special effects and a rollickin' score by John Williams.  Something like that just can't be done all over again like that first time.

Forty years later, and it still holds up.  As perhaps the most perfect motion picture spectacle ever committed to celluloid.  There was nothing like it before and there does not look to  be anything like it since then.

 

So let us raise a glass to Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Happy fortieth anniversary to Indiana Jones.  Remember: it's not the years, it's the mileage.

 

 

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A message to the Christians of Generation X

 

What I'm about to share, has been a long while percolating. It's not going to be taken well by too many people. Especially by those around my age and fellow Christians. But it's time that it be said. Maybe there can yet be some salvaging what has come of us.

A few weeks ago I came upon some music. It was a collection of MP3s. I was the one who made them, all the way back in 1999. They're MP3s of a night of singing from Elon's chapter of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Real, home-grown and heart-felt praise and worship from a young people with their entire lives ahead of them.

 

I listened to them and wept tears of remembrance at how FRESH it sounded. I will never claim to have been fully immersed in the IV culture, it seems more like I was playing on the edges. That, despite my having become a Christian in no small part because of the ministries of friends there.

 

But I recognize the purity of the motivation for that singing well enough. I heard voices that to this day, I can recognize and put a name to. A friend from Florida. A quartet of ladies. My discipleship partner, who opened my eyes more than he knew and maybe someday I’ll get to tell him that.

 

I couldn’t help but listen to the singing, and wonder about what has become of us through the crucible of time. Many of us of course got married, had children of our own. Some didn’t. Some, like me, were married and then one day saw it come crashing down. Some of us crossed America to find a place where God might want us to be, and others held firm to their roots.

 

I envy those. It means that they found real love and affection without having to go searching for it. They had stability. Others, did not and may never know stability other than as some far-off dream. I think of all the wacky things that happened in my life. Some of them aroused a bit of notoriety. Those aren’t things that happen when you’re stable.

 

I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other. They are instead what God calls for each of us as individuals. It is left to each of us to seek the path God would have for us to be on, and to adhere to that path, trusting in Him.

 

So, my old friends, I love them and always have and always will.

 

And I wonder where it was that we… that ALL of us… failed. And I mean as Christians.

 

To understand what I mean, we have to go back to another time. Roughly a quarter century. To the Christianity of America and the “civilized” west. I emphasize that because it’s been impressed upon me that the Christianity of our culture is far removed from that of other places. Such as North Korea. And communist China. And regions of Africa, where it seems not a week goes by that an atrocity against born-again Christians doesn’t transpire. Weirdly, we don’t seem to listen to news about that. We don’t stop to consider our brethren in distant lands where Christ is met with hostility and persecution.

 

If that had registered at all with us it was only in a peripheral sense. We were too busy doing “the God thing” in our own way.

 

We wore the scripture-festooned t-shirts. We tied on the “WWJD” bracelets. We listened to DC Talk and Audio Adrenaline and the other Christian music acts at events like Winter Jam. We patterned our relationships on I Kissed Dating Goodbye. We engorged ourselves on apocalyptic pulp fiction like the Left Behind series, so very sure that ours would be the generation swept up in the Rapture.

 

Well, here it is, well over twenty years later. There has been no Rapture. The books and clothing are food for rats and roaches. Relationships were destroyed by I Kissed Dating Goodbye, not built up. The music stopped.

 

And then there was “the prize”. What we wanted most: to lead others to Christ. To win even one person over to God. To give the angels of Heaven reason to rejoice.

 

I wonder now: how much was that for God, and how much was for ourselves. “Converting to Christ” to some became like a notch on the belt. Something to boast of, when boasting was the LAST thing we should have done. Rejoice, yes… but never to have pride in.

 

And what came of it? How many of those we led, still clung to Christ?

 

The “mighty generation of prayer warriors” we were told we were, ended up a generation as mundane as any other.

 

It seems that all that is left is an archive of MP3s, listened to by someone who tried to hold fast to his faith only to see it buckle and break and now is left wondering:

 

“What happened to me? Come to think of it: What happened to *us*?”

Granted, some escaped total blame. Again I sense envy in myself. But as an entire generation of young Christians… we messed up.

 

The world is no better for the enthusiasm we had. Indeed some will argue that the world is much worse. I don’t care to tick off in how many ways, that’s not what this essay is about. Except that the number of people in America claiming to be Christian has ebbed significantly.

 

I believe it can readily be said: things are not better compared to what they were two and three decades ago. Or perhaps I’m wistfully reminiscing about the way things were before we stopped looking to God and began gluing our pupils to all of those screens we surround ourselves with.

 

Our generation of Christians – at least the Christianity of the “civilized” world – had its chance to leave behind it a legacy like none other. With great abandon we threw our lot in with the cause of Christ. Ours was love for one another utterly. We were the edge of the sword of the Word. That is what we thought of ourselves.

 

But we failed.

 

Maybe it’s not entirely our fault. What most threw shade on our righteous ambitions was 9/11. That act rattled us to our core. It taught us that we were NOT invulnerable. Also too, we have come to acknowledge that from the top of mortal authority on down, there was a lack of real leadership. We put too much of our faith in “leaders” who glorified themselves, instead of truly serving others.

 

Our eyes were shaken off of the eternal, and made to rest on the things of this temporal realm. And that was one of the tests we had to endure. Can it sincerely be said that we passed it?

 

Because, we didn’t.

 

My work in the field of mental health involves interacting with a lot of different people. About a month ago one of my clients lent me a book about the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Reading it has brought back memories of watching its aftermath unfold.

 

The first victim was a seventeen-year old girl who with a gun aimed at her head answered “You know I do” when asked if she believed in God. And then someone else – it was unclear at the time who exactly – in the library told the assailants “yes” when she was asked if she was a Christian.

 

One thing that was reported in the book that has been lingering on the edges of my mind these last few weeks. It’s about how despite the tragedy, the Christian community of Littleton, Colorado coalesced and grew. The blood of Rachel Scott, Cassie Bernall, and others killed at Columbine were like seeds let to fall to the ground, bringing forth new spiritual life to a generation most in need of it.

 

That was the effect, for a while. The churches were packed, especially with young people. Commitments were made. Wavering hearts became more steadfast.

 

God had brought some of our own to the point of martyrdom. And what should have been a clarion call for us to abandon our pretenses and throw in that much more behind the Throne… well…

 

What happened to that? According to Dave Cullen’s Columbine ten years after the tragedy, the swelling of the churches in the Littleton area had subsided. More than an extra decade since then has likely not made the situation any better. It’s almost enough to ask: “What did they die for?”

 

The Christians of Generation X had everything going for them. We had our own culture and were making an impact on the larger world. We *mattered*.

 

But we blew it. And in doing so we let *them* – the ones who have come before and have come since – down.

 

We were proud. We were arrogant. We were the furthest thing from humble. And if there is any one thing that God will not abide, it is pride in our own works.

We could have still mattered. We really could have been the generation that God used in a mighty way. 

 

But we didn’t have humility enough.

 

We were going to change the world for Christ. Instead the world changed us. Our temerity and zeal for Christ was beaten upon and worn down.

 

In short: we were defeated, in great part.

 

I don’t believe that it necessarily must be a failure we are damned to.

 

Look, I’m NOT saying that we have to go back to “the way things were”. Those days are behind us. We have grown up. That’s not who we are anymore singing those songs in a fellowship group of college kids.

 

We have lost much of our innocence. But that doesn’t mean that all has been taken from us. The parts that matter most.

 

Because right now, there are few who are as poised to change things more than Generation X. We are still plenty young enough to have a spirit of fire. Wedded to that is a maturity that comes with age and experience.

 

Maybe we *had* to blow it. Perhaps the flaming metal of youth needed a tempering quench.

 

I have to believe that even the worst things in life, if given over to God, can bear precious fruit.

We can still be used by God. IF we let Him.

 

But if we do not learn from our missteps, our generation really *will* have failed. Failed those who have come after us especially.

 

It wasn’t “our time” then. But it certainly is now.

 

And it’s time we made good on what we promised God.

 

 

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Mah Na Mah Na! New article at American Thinker

I might have broken whole new ground in op-ed writing by using the word "Pufnstuf".  But anyhoo, American Thinker this morning has published a new article by Yours Truly.  "And then they came for the Muppets..." delves into Disney's slapping an "offensive material" disclaimer on several episodes of The Muppet Show.

A sample from the piece:

These declaimers are micro-sermons about the virtues of inclusion. They are meant to “foster dialogue.” But anyone who sits the children down for a heart-to-heart discussion about Muppet morality probably doesn’t get the point of the Muppets anyway. These disclaimers, along with all the others that Disney is slapping onto Lady and the Tramp and Peter Pan and other films, accomplish nothing of the sort. They are nuisances at best. By the end of the show the average child will have forgotten all about them.

That's the second article in a row (counting the one about Gina Carano from last week) that's addressed Disney+. I'm not out to "get Disney", honest. But it has to be said: that company is pumping out some real fodder for opinion writing lately.

Anyway, cue the music, light the lights, and read my new article.  Do you think Statler and Waldorf would approve?

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YouTube videos: Song parodies from The Rush Limbaugh Show

Two and a half days later and Rush Limbaugh's absence from the airwaves continues to haunt.  I tried calculating how many hours I listened to him over the years, and couldn't do it.  From summer of 1992 until I started college at Elon three years, I was listening to him at least nine hours a week.  In the past few years I sort-of rediscovered him and listened as much as possible.  There was none like him before, nobody compared when he was with us, and it is doubtful that anyone will ever really succeed him.

It wasn't just his brilliant commentary, it was also the hysterically funny comedy that was a huge part of Limbaugh's show.  Especially the song parodies.  Most of them came courtesy of a chap named Paul Shanklin.  There were a few others also.  I remember one guy who was in the Bay Area.  Another was from Massachusetts.

So in Rush's memory I thought it would be appropriate to share some of the song parodies and other material that he played on his show.

I forget who made this one.  It might have been Shanklin.  "The Philanderer", a spoof of "The Wanderer":

"In A Yugo", parody of Elvis Presley's "In The Ghetto":

This next one is a clip from "Weird Al" Yankovic's movie UHF, Rush played it on his show every so often.  The commercial for Spatula City:

One of my personal favorites: "They're Coming To Take Ross Away", a parody of "They're Coming To Take Me Away" by Napoleon XIV.  And I liked Ross Perot!

The Barnacle Brothers 60-Second Sale spot:

And finally (but far from the only remaining parody that Rush did on his show), "Al Gore Paradise", a send-up of Coolio's "Gangsta Paradise":

If I spot any more I'll post 'em here! :-D

EDIT April 9, 2025: Wowsers!  In the four years since publishing this it's become one of the most popular posts on the entire site.  I'm going to look around and see what other songs from Rush Limbaugh's show could be featured here.

This is one I just found on YouTube, and I've got this on a cassette tape somewhere too (along with my call to Rush in December 1993).  Not so much a song parody as much as a style parody.  What does it sound like when a gospel praise choir sings about Limbaugh?  Here are the Rush Hawkins Singers!

Another of Paul Shanklin's handiwork: "The Little First Lady With Megalomania".  Rush had a bead on Hillary Clinton from the get go and it's arguable that the derision of her turned enough people off of trusting her with their votes.

Here's one I discovered just recently: "Obama Man Can" (a spoof of "Candyman"):

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Rush Limbaugh is gone

 The very sad word broke a little while ago that Rush Limbaugh passed away earlier today.

I learned more from listening to his show, especially in my late teens and early twenties, than from a lot of other things put together.

Going to forever treasure the audio cassette of when I called into his show in December 1993.  I was nineteen.  I started off the call saying hey to my coworkers at Libby Hill Seafood in Reidsville.  For the next week and a half people kept coming into the place wanting to meet the guy who talked with Rush.

That's my own little anecdote about the life of Rush Hudson Limbaugh III.

I did not agree with him on everything.  Indeed, at times I posted some very harsh things about the man.  He was often too much of a partisan (dare I say even a "hack"?  Or might that be inaccurate?).  And I stopped calling myself a "dittohead" long ago.  But even so, there was a lingering respect for Limbaugh.  He was always honest about himself, and to his listeners, wherever he happened to be along the road of his ideologically self-discovery: something I believe he was earnest about.

Going to pay homage to him with the photo of the time when I first discovered him.  The cover of his bestselling first book.  How I'll always best remember Rush.

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New article at American Thinker: Disney's cancelling of Gina Carano

I have a new article up at American Thinker this morning.  "Cancelling Gina Carano: Work Worthy of an Evil Empire" addresses what happened last week in regard to Disney firing one of the lead actors of its series The Mandalorian (image: Disney).  Gina Carano made a post on social media that some allege was anti-Semitic and overly controversial.  But was it really?  Especially in light of the fact that others associated with the Star Wars franchise have made statements just as "controversial" and saw no repercussion.

In short: was Carano let go because she leans conservative?

As always, comments are welcome.

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Taking a break

Apart from posting notification about any new published articles, I'm going to step away from the blog for the next month or so.  There are a few things on my plate, a number of projects, and I'm choosing to take time to focus on those.

'Course, if something REALLY drastic happens - like me having a near-death experience from the COVID-19 vaccine (the first shot made me sick for days) - then I might blog about that.  The second shot is tomorrow.  My right arm is bracing for it.  But anyhoo...

Y'all try to behave while I'm gone :-)

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