Ethan Renoe's Blog, page 2

Just take the next right step.

With my Master’s Degree wrapping up next summer, it feels like another big life change is just around the corner for me. That means that I, like all of us from time to time, am in a season of probing my life for what is my ‘calling,’ or purpose, or meaning, or eudaimonia. I’m asking the big questions as I look forward to this upcoming seismic shift.

But then I step back and ask, is the pressure to find a ‘calling’ from God or from our culture?

Could Jesus care more about how we treat the barista, how wise and self-controlled we are in our relationships, our habits, or our day-to-day lives than our vibrant, over-arching goals and aspirations?

Perhaps the idea of a calling could even overshadow the need for small day-in, day-out obedience. Not that this is the only factor, but isn’t that what has happened with so many of the celebrity pastors who fell from grace? They answered the call to the bigness of their platform but overlooked the small, daily acts of obedience which shape a life and impact those nearest to us.

Founding president of Denver Seminary Vernon Grounds said, “The ruts of routine become the grooves of grace.”

Are we practicing the daily minutiae that will ultimately point us toward God in the long run? Or do we just expect Him to show up for the big events and we can keep the reins the rest of the time?

Maybe ‘God’s plan’ is for Him to know.
Maybe that’s why it’s called….God’s plan.

All we have to know is where the next step lands. And if we are faithful with each footfall, we will surely end up in the right place.

We may not know God’s ‘plan for our life,’ but I’d wager that we could figure out God’s desire for this thing right here in front of me right now.

Kinda like dieting and fitness: don’t get overwhelmed by thinking, How do I overhaul my entire body? Instead, look at what’s right in front of you — should you reach for the apple or the ice cream? I wonder if I should cut down on soda in order to become healthier? Do you think I should run more and sit on the couch less?

We know the answer when it’s put like that. So what if we became more aware throughout our days and could ask smaller questions, instead of stressing about the big ones —

Does he want me to be kind to your waiter?
Should I pressure this person to do the thing I want to do right now?
Would it be wise to take a few more shots?
Even more innocuous things like, Will lying in bed another hour, scrolling on Instagram benefit my spiritual formation?

Maybe relegating what we are supposed to do with our lives to some abstract destination further up the road allows us to avoid being faithful, obedient, and wise in the present.

We talk about things in the Bible like the call of Abraham, as if he knew what his calling would be for his whole life. In reality, God ‘called’ Abraham when he was 85. Moses was called when he was 80. And even then, they didn’t know where exactly they were going, just that they had to start moving.

They had to take that first step in a certain direction.

And maybe that’s all you need to do now too: take one step in the right direction. Then another.

Then another.

e

Day 96 of 100 Days of Blog

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Was Christianity the first religion?

This has been blowing my mind lately, and I can’t seem to articulate it in a way to others so it feels as earth-shattering. It came from an interview with Tom Holland — the historian, not the actor.

He said that Christianity was the first religion, in the sense that there was never anything else that was purely ‘religious’ before it.

Now, today, we live in a world where you could more or less walk down the shopping aisle of gods and pick and choose which religious bumper sticker you want to slap on your life — or your Instagram bio — because you’re merely adopting the spiritual dimension of this system. But this was not always the case. In fact, one could argue, this is only the case because of Christianity.

If one wanted to convert to be a Jew, they would have to adopt the entire ‘system’ of Judaism, rather than just picking out the ‘religious’ bits of it and leaving the rest.

Another way to put it is, say a Chinese man wanted to become a Jew and worship Yahweh. He would have to leave behind his cultural ‘Chinese-ness’ and fully become, culturally and religiously, Jewish. He would have to follow their laws and traditions and customs and follow the rules that make one Jewish; the laws that hold them in the bounds of Moses’ covenant.

The same is largely true of Islam (even though it came after Christianity), and any other ancient belief system. They are less of pure religions and more entire ways of life.

But if this Chinese man wanted to become a Christian, he could retain all of the cultures and traditions of his Chinese heritage and still be a Christian; he could still be in relationship with Jesus and take on this spiritual identity as a Christian.

My cage was rattled recently then, after coming to understand this and then returning to familiar Bible verses like Galatians 3:28, which reads, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

By becoming a Christian and entering spiritually into this religion, you become a member of a family where we have males, females, Greeks, Jews, and all other types of people on earth. They are not washed out and cleansed of their former identities; rather, they come together and bring those differences together into the church, where their different backgrounds come together.

This is also why Paul so adamantly condemns the idea that the males must be circumcised in order to become Christians — they are not merely switching from one culture to another; rather, they are opting into something that transcends all of these categories. The New Testament spends a good chunk of text making it clear that all these older traditions are done away with, or fulfilled, because Jesus has come to implement a new system. A way of connecting with God that is not cultural, but purely spiritual.

One misconception people have is that becoming a Christian washes away their previous cultural allegiances or traditions. But this isn’t the case. There is not just one ‘Christian type of people.’ Look at Revelation 7:9, where “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” come to worship God. Note that it does not say that they all speak the same language, or they are all just one big tribe or nation now. Instead, they have retained their cultural identities and still come together to worship Yahweh.

God is not against culture.
God is not in the business of whitewashing the things that make people and people groups unique and making them all conform.

Christianity is a system of spiritual interaction with God that is able to transcend theocracy, rules, cultures, governments, systems, and tribes in order to bring people into relationship with God. This is something that cannot be said of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or any other religious system on earth (discounting Buddhism, which has not proper deity and is more of a philosophy…despite how depressing the temples are when they pressure people into paying for them under threat of receiving luck from their ancestors…).

So either, Christianity is the first religion — a system where one can adopt the spiritual dimension without having to adopt all the other factors — or it is not a religion at all. It is something greater; something that bends our categories of what religion is altogether. It’s a family that unites African tribes with Chinese businessmen and white suburban housewives from Michigan. And all of them, all of us, with God.

e

Day 94 of 100 Days of Blog

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There are no futures here. (a poem)

I work at a home for the elderly and I can tell you,
there are no futures here,
only pasts.

Only those deaths before death.

And in the homes of the dying echo
mainly the regrets of things undone;
no one regrets the being wild
and free,
or the buying the ticket,
or the falling in love and squeezing out a kid
before they felt ready —
because who can possibly be ready?

And the bodies of the dying ask me always a
wordless question:

Will you regret this?

This thing you’re doing now,
the place you are,
or the one you’re headed.

Are you living or crawling?
Creating a life, or reading a script?

Because rest assured, there are script writers.
They say, take pills and work.
If your brain doesn’t fit the span of our two rails,
take more pills and get back on track.
The average person is depressed,
anxious, scared to death, and they
owe a lot of money.

So don’t be average.

Cut your hair weird.
Commit to one pair of shoes (or none).
Forgive. Pushmosh.
Buy a flight.
Read the classics.
Go hard in the gym
and hard on the ramen.
Move. Quit. Restart. Put down roots.
If it’s not perfect, break up with them.

What are you waiting for,
a room to open up in the home of the dying?

e

Day 88 of 100 Days of Blog

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What it means to live in the new creation, today.

Sitting in class today, something really clicked together for the first time — which, I suppose, is the purpose of school overall. If you’re not getting little breakthroughs, are you really getting educated?? Or at least, this is what makes education enjoyable and meaningful.

Anyway.

Today we were discussing the new creation and how the Bible talks about how we experience that new creation life now, today, here.

So of course, I asked the question, “Pastorally, what do we say to congregants who don’t feel like they are really living in a new creation? They feel very much like the rest of the world: stressed, anxious, bills, taxes, work, resentment, etc. The promise of a heavenly afterlife appeals to them, but they don’t really taste it yet. Is there a promise that we should feel this now, or is it really a promise to give us hope for the eschaton?”

His answer may seem simple, but it hit me in a fresh way.

“When the New Testament talks about the life of the New Creation, it is largely ethical. The church lives out the way that humanity should live, here and now. It can be an example, or a picture that appeals to the way we are all called to live.”

It clicked. Not just the New Testament’s explanation of what is meant by the new creation, but also an ethical imperative. It’s not just about behaving so you can get to heaven, or so God won’t be mad at you; it’s a much larger call to live out life as it will be perfectly in the new creation. We cannot live it out perfectly yet, but we can attempt to live out that sort of life now.

That’s the way the church influences culture: by demonstrating God’s picture of a perfect society of people, living humble, generously, justly.

“Walk in step with the Spirit.”

It makes so much more sense to me that a big part of the ‘already but not yet’ is not a feeling, not miracles, not a perfectly healthy body, but an ethical imperative to live like heaven is descended to earth. To treat people the way we will for eternity. To grieve the present pain and brokenness and fallenness of the world we still inhabit — there will always be that tension — but to try as often as we can to act out an ethical, moral picture of life in the kingdom.

(Of course this does not mean some sort of self-righteous, “we are better than them” type of utopian view, but a genuinely humble, loving, and selfless people. The way Jesus in John 13 told us that we will know we are His followers by our love.)

Thoughts?

e

Day 84 of 100 Days of Blog

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What is true masculine strength?

Today someone messaged me on Instagram after digging up an old post of mine from like 2016 on why Christian men should be more assertive. That post had come about as a result of hearing complaints from numerous women about how all the dudes in their churches were passive or boring, and that’s why so many of them had begun to date non-Christian guys.

And I’ve seen this in my own life too. I know that there can be shame presented about dating and relationships and anything with even a whiff of sexuality, therefore, Christian men retreated to the opposite extreme of being overly polite, passive, and boring. And therefore, terrified to ask a woman out. 

…which leads them to date non-Christian ‘bad boys’ because at least they’ll be assertive and at the very least, interesting. 

I don’t think I worded it too well in the old post, and should have clarified some of my terms, but that was the gist. And I stand by that idea — that Christian men need to get better at being more forward and asking women out, and so on. 

But the guy who messaged me today took that encouragement as a negative. He thought that by encouraging men to be more assertive and masculine, I was encouraging them to become school shooters, sexually assault women, and use their power to manipulate people (yes, really…I could show you the screenshots! He also included the stat that more men commit suicide than women for some reason). 

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth!

I tried to explain that being assertive or courageous to go ask out a woman is not remotely the same as being assertive enough to shoot up a movie theater. One is rooted in courage and goodness, the other in fear and hate. Our culture has a serious issue of conflating strength and masculinity with all (or, only) the bad aspects of it. Or the twisted, toxic version of masculinity, at the expense of all the good things it brings. 

After all, is strength inherently a good or bad thing? I would argue, good! Regardless of whether we are talking about physical strength or mental or emotional, being strong will always be a positive. 

Do you want weak firefighters or coast guard troopers coming to rescue you? 

Do you want weak construction workers building the buildings you live and work in? 

Would you prefer an emotionally weak romantic partner who just crumbles at every little hiccup that comes their way? 

Of course not! 

Yet we have an aversion to strength, because we conflate it with power. And power is also an inherently morally neutral entity, but it can be so easily misused. I would argue, however, that the type of strength I’m talking about when I use a term like ‘strong men’ is inherently, always good. 

A strong man chooses to love his wife, and only his wife, even when there are countless temptations trying to pull him to the right and left. A strong man is not the man who uses his power or physical strength to force women to be with him — that’s not strength, that’s weakness and insecurity.

A strong man is able to be gentle. My definition of gentleness is ‘strength restrained.’ Gentle is not synonymous with weak. So, a man who is strong is able to be gentle when it’s appropriate, like a father wrestling his toddler. A man who is powerful but not strong has no restraint — they lash out, fight, dominate, etc. It takes strength to truly show gentleness. For the best example of this, look at Jesus, who could have clicked His tongue and eviscerated His persecutors, but chose to suffer for their sake instead. That is strength restrained — it shows the strength of Jesus that He did not do that.

Strong masculinity protects others. I think there is a misconception that this means the guy whose home is filled with 14 assault rifles and wants to shoot anyone who trespasses on his property. But I think the idea of protection is much more multifaceted than “stop anyone else who would come and touch my family.” Like the Apostle Paul says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood. So what does it mean to protect the spirits and souls and hearts of others? To make sure they don’t get hurt by my own shortcomings, or in a fit of rage I may throw? I think that, in most situations, strength protects all others, not just my own tribe. And that’s not an easy thing to do. Sometimes it means having the strength to forgive someone who wronged me.

I also think there is an ethical dimension of strength — choosing to do the right thing, even if it is not the most beneficial. For a simple example, look at Batman, who chooses not to kill people, even if that would be both easier and probably feel better. Wouldn’t it be easier to take an uzi and mow down all the mobsters? But Batman is able to restrain himself (not necessarily gently, lol) and choose the most right thing while executing justice.

What about other forms of strength, like mental, inventive, emotional resilience, etc? How many times did Edison try to make a working lightbulb? (over 2,000) There is a strength in forging ahead to paint a better future for our world, and often it starts in the mind. 

This is not a comprehensive list by any means. But I think it’s enough to show that (masculine) strength is not an inherently bad thing, as it is often portrayed today. I would argue that it is an inherent good, like many things that can be twisted and misused, on the same shelf as sex, power, ambition, or even speech (with the same tongue you encourage people and tear them down). 

And I would wager that most women out there don’t want a weak, passive, or boring man. Navigating masculinity, and becoming a man who is strong but not aggressive; assertive but not overbearing; interesting but not narcissistic, is quite a challenge. What do you think?

e

Day 83 of 100 Days of Blog

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The Heart: A Guide for the Intellectual

The language of ‘using one’s heart’ has been used for as long as I can remember. And I’ve been confused by it for even longer. What does it mean to break a heart, or play with one, or guard one, or follow it? How can you check in on your heart?

Of course, for the pedants, we are not talking about the organ that pumps blood out through the body, but the vague and ambiguous term that kind of refers to emotions, kind of to your self.

In Hebrew, the word translated ‘heart’ could more accurately be translated ‘guts.’ Like when you fall in love or have a scary meeting with your boss, and you feel it in your guts. That’s the core of yourself. It’s the being that feels for you and guides and directs you.

As a man especially, it’s generally known that we are ‘farther from our hearts, or more out of touch with our hearts’ than women tend to be.

So, a couple years ago, I set my mind to thinking through what we mean when we talk about our hearts. At an intensive type of retreat, I was repeatedly told that I’m ‘head-heavy.’ I just want to think through a problem and solve it, than spend any time feeling, or getting in touch with things my heart (and body…more on that in a sec) were telling me as well.

I learned that not everything can be solved by braining it.

So it took me an embarrassingly long time to come up with a definition of what the ‘heart’ is. For the longest time, I thought that ‘heart’ and ‘feelings’ were synonymous. And I didn’t like that because feelings come and go; one day I’m angry, the next I’m happy. Why would I care that much about the heart if it’s such a transient thing? But then one day I had a breakthrough:

The heart is the thing that does the feeling.
It is the part of us that feels.

And that may sound trite, but that’s just because we (brainiacs like me) undervalue feelings. They’re not important because they can’t make big decisions, create, be productive, drive the kids to practice, fix drywall, book flights, fill out a spreadsheet, etc.

But the heart is the thing that gets hurt, or stirs up anger when it’s unjustly wronged, or feels deep desire for another human. It does the feeling.

And if you perpetually dismiss it as unimportant, you spend more time with a heart that is bent toward negative emotions, or possibly worse, numb.

If we numb out our heart, it can’t do the one job is has to do, which is to feel all the things it’s supposed to feel which help adjust us to reality (That’s what emotions do — I’ll say it again: Emotions help adjust us to reality).

And if we don’t adjust enough to reality, you become just like me: Living mainly in your head, thinking about all the things that should be done to the world to adjust it to your liking, instead of letting yourself become adjusted to reality as it is via ‘feeling the feels.’ Or you’re angry about how things aren’t the way they should be, so there’s always a low-grade anger simmering beneath the surface because you haven’t let your heart adjust to your life, as it truly is.

Does this sound healthy? Even as a rational being, I must admit, it does not.

There are physiological health risks to storing all these things in, not to mention, emotional and relational setbacks.

So perhaps it is, after all, worth taking care of our hearts, despite how vague, amiguous, or vacuous that may sound. So the first step, as I mentioned above, is recognizing that it is intimately connected to our bodies.

As a Christian, the Bible makes it clear that our souls, spirits, bodies, minds, and hearts are all intimately intertwined. We are to love the Lord our God with them all; we are not to misuse our bodies, in part because of how that will affect our minds and souls. Look at how many bodily instructions are given in the Psalms: lift your hands, kneel down, etc. Why does this matter? Because our body reflects our heart.

And vice versa: Our body can often inform us of the state of our heart.

Your heart is racing and your breath is short and your muscles are tense? Might be anxious. But have you ever paused to listen to your body, or do you just brain your way through it all, like me?

You’re relaxed and feel 40 pounds light as you walk and you’re breathing easy and laughing a lot: You’re probably happy.

And so on. We can turn off distractions and check in with our bodies as a means of connecting with our hearts. I don’t want to sound all new age or woo-woo, but God gave us a body, so we should pay attention to it. It’s part of who we are. We are not souls hiding inside a body like a yolk inside an eggshell; our body in this sphere of being, is us.

My body is not separate from me; it is me in a very real way. It’s how I experience the world and how I make my impact on it. How else would I?

So for someone like me — especially men who feel like we know nothing about what’s going on inside our own hearts — we need to get in touch with them. And with our bodies. And not live in some equally ethereal and abstract world of the mind, but to attempt to unite them all.

We need to get our mind, our body, and our heart (the thing that does the feeling) on the same page. Or else we will end up always feeling angry, upset, off, or just numb.

Jesus was a man in touch with his emotions: He cried easily but also rejoiced easily. Same with David, the man after God’s heart who “flooded his couch with tears” (Psalm 6).

We will all benefit from getting more in touch with our hearts — not for the sake of being mushy gushy, or just to cry for the sake of crying, but because it will heal us, it will guide us healthy into the future, and it will make us more like Christ.

e

Day 80 of 100 Days of Blog

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STAY INSIDE! (part 5)

Read Part 1 here!

“My plan will work if we can get in touch with the Tonic Woman,” said Splind through the phone line. “She always knows how to open and close The Dimension and work her magic.”

“But her tricks don’t always work,” said Officer Gurt. “They worked with Timmy and Bearhair, but they don’t always.”

“Well, I mean, Bearhair is a moving pile of sloppy guts and Timmy is two-dimensional… And we don’t know what happened to Little Bailee.”

“True. So what is your plan?”

“Well like I said, we need to get in touch with the Tonic Woman.”

“I can talksh to her,” said a voice behind Gurt. He turned and saw that the little creature named Dangling Jerry had come up the stairs and overheard his conversation.

“You can?” asked Gurt. “How?”

“Eashy. She gave me her number,” replied Jerry.

“No she didn’t, she doesn’t have a telephone!”

“Yesh she doesh, she’s just particular in who she gives her number to,” said Jerry coolly.

Gurt was baffled. Why would the Tonic Woman of Crumb Hill give this little beast her number? He got off the line with Splind and let Jerry dial the number (Jerry made him turn around as he did).

Gurt listened as Jerry began talking to the mysterious woman.

“Mmmhmm….Yesh. No, jusht today…. Yesh. No, but I can ashk.” Jerry turned away from the phone and asked Gurt, “Do you have any dynamite?”

Gurt was shocked, then answered, “Uh, maybe at the station?”

“Maybe at the station,” Jerry said into the phone. “Mmmhmm. Yesh. Mmmhmm. Ok, thank you. Bye,” and he hung up.

“Well, we need the dynamite,” said Jerry. “And, she said, the entrances and exits to The Dimension have different rulesh every day. And only she knowsh what they are.”

“So did she say what we need to do today?” asked Gurt.

“Yesh, here ish the plan. It all hash to be done by 1:17, sho we only have one chance…” and the creature explained it all to him.

An hour later, Gurt had called one of his deputies to bring him as much dynamite as he could.

“That’s an awful lot of ‘splosive,” he said.

“Yup,” said Gurt. “We have to be sure it works the first time. We have one shot.”

Gurt then told him what to do. He and Jerry told the deputy which tree to set all the explosives on, and to blow them at exactly 1:17. He did not tell him about the hatch or the beasts or the newspaper.

“Uh, you’re sure about this Officer?” asked the young deputy.

“Nope. But it’s the best shot we have.” Then he added, “and if you see Principal Hairbear sliming his way around town, feel free to invite him to come watch the explosion with you. It may be good to give him something to do.”

Half an hour later, things were in place. At least, Gurt thought so. He assumed the deputy would have the dynamite wired about now, and he hoped Bearhair would be near.

And all he and Jerry had to do was step outside his home right at 1:17. Currently it was 1:15 and he kept nervously checking his watch. He and Jerry and his wife stood inside the front door.

They had one shot.

The Tonic Woman had said that the beasts would come running for them as soon as they stepped outside. Then the dynamite would blow up the hatch and for just a moment, there would be a tear in The Dimension that would suck in the monsters and squirt out Splind’s daughter.

1:16.

Gurt had his hand on the doorknob and could feel his heart pounding out of his shirt.

Ten seconds.

Then he was turning the knob and they were stepping outside. He heard the furious patter of footsteps rushing toward them, standing on his porch. The beasts were moving too fast to be seen. He braced for the impact, preparing to be dragged to The Dimension. His eyes were closed tight.

Then he heard what sounded like a strong wind, or some sort of gigantic suction. The sound of the beasts was gone.

Then a moment later, he heard the delayed boom. The deputy had done it!

Gurt took another step out onto the porch, then onto the street.

Nothing happened.

The Tonic Woman’s crazy plan had worked.

But suddenly he heard a scream coming from high above him. He looked up and saw a large, round girl falling down toward the street. The scream got louder as she hurtled closer.

She hit the street twenty feet from Gurt and again, he flinched as she struck the pavement, hard.

But then she bounced up, dozens of feet into the air. She kept screaming.

She came down in his neighbor’s back yard and launched up again ten feet into the air. This hopped her over the fence and into the Gurts’ back yard.

They ran through the house and found her lying there, unable to get up because of her rotund middle.

“Splind?” asked Mrs. Gurt. “Are you Splind’s daughter?”

“Yah,” she replied from the far side of her bulbous body.

As they got closer, they realized her skin was made of tough rubber and she seemed to be filled with air. She was crying — shocked and confused.

“Wh-where am I?” she asked.

“You’re back in Crumb Hill,” answered Mrs. Gurt gently.

“I-I was in this place where everything was balloons. I was bouncing around on them. There were so many colors.” She cried a bit more. “And then I bounced too high and it felt like I got launched out of the atmosphere, then I landed back down here and bounced around.”

Mrs. Gurt continued to comfort her until the deputy arrived to debrief Officer Gurt.

He also seemed to be in shock, but unharmed.

“Well, I did find Principal Bearhair…but…but I think he’s gone.”

“What happened?” asked Officer Gurt.

“Well, I had everything wired up and from behind me, I hear someone gooping around. I turn and sure enough, it was Principal Hairbear. He was looking all suspisious. I mean, I know he’s just a pile of guts, but he was acting suspicious.

“It was pretty simple. I waited till 1:17, and pulled the detonator. It exploded. But then…then I see all these beasts flying past me, faster than a horse, and they’re going right into the hole I just made with the explosion.

“Then I hear screaming and look and bit by bit, Principal Hairbear is being sucked into the hole too. But weirdest thing, I don’t feel it sucking me in at all. I just stood there. Then after all of Hairbear was sucked in, I hear this escalating sound of a loud wind. Then a pop and kind of, excuse me officer, kind of like a fart? Like breaking wind? And it shoots a little girl out of the hole, high into the sky.”

Officer Gurt pointed out the back window to where Mrs. Gurt was still talking to Little Splind.

“Yes! Her! She shot out of the hole! And then finally everything was quiet and then I came here.”

“Well good work, deputy,” said Gurt. “We pulled that off perfectly.”

The deputy looked confused. “You’re not going to tell me what happened?”

“Maybe someday. Well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure myself how it all works here. Just know for now that you did it perfectly, saved some people from The Dimension, and sometimes…that’s just the way things go here in Crumb Hill.”

the end

e

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Day 78 of 100 Days of Blog

The post STAY INSIDE! (part 5) appeared first on ethan renoe.

STAY INSIDE! (part 4)

Read Part 1 here!

They found a place in the basement where Jerry could dangle. They set up some bolts in the rafters and hooked him up so he could have a nice long hang. But the Gurts were clear that he is not to smoke his chains in the house. 

After Jerry had dangled for a while, Officer Gurt went to ask him more questions. He descended the stairs and Jerry was hanging there, gently swaying back and forth from his chains which made a faint metallic creaking sound.

“So what was the deal Principal Hairbear made?” he asked the creature.

“Well, he wantsh to get hish body back, right? He doeshn’t want to be a pile of shloppy goop for the resht of his life, right?” 

Officer Gurt nodded along.

“Sho, the deal was, he’d get his body back to the way it wash before he had a little munch from The Dimension beast. And in exchange, he would open the hatch that letsh the beasts in.”

“What hatch?” Officer Gurt was confused. “Everyone knows that no one can choose to come back from The Dimension. There are only entrances to it, not exits. Bearhair got lucky when it spat him and Timmy back out!” 

Dangling Jerry looked straight at Officer Gurt. “You don’t know about the hatch?”

“Where is it? What is it?” Gurt was getting worked up.

“It’s out in the woodsh on the path to the Tonic Woman’sh place. I have a little poem to remember where it is:

“In the trunk of a tree,
you move a few leaves,
and you tug on the root
and you unleash the beasht.”

Gurt paused, waiting for more. “That’s it?”

“That’sh it.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything about where it is. There are a million trees on the path to the Tonic Woman’s.”

“Well yesh. But I know what tree it is.”

“So it doesn’t help me at all??” Gurt yelled at the dangling creature.

“Well I’ll go with you to look at it. But we can’t go now becaushe we can’t go outshide.”

“Oh…right.” Gurt thought over what he’d just heard. “So, Hairbear would open this hatch in the tree to let some beasts in from The Dimension, and in exchange, he would get his body back so he’s not a sludgy mess?”

“Think sho.”

“And you don’t know who he made this deal with?” 

“Right.”

“So there are monsters from The Dimension running around and taking people when they go outside right now. But then how did that get in the newspaper, and how would it know when people read their paper or not? And why would they frame you?”

Jerry thought about this for a moment while hanging from his chains.

“Maybe they know I heard them. They could have heard my chainsh and knew I had information. I don’t know, Offisher.”

Things began to come together in Officer Gurt’s mind. He went back upstairs to call Splind again. 

“Ok, Splind, you need to be honest with me this time. What was your deal with Bearhair?”

“I’m sorry, Officer, I don’t know what you mean.”

“You made a deal with him to open the hatch and let the beasts in. Why would you want them running all over Crumb Hill and taking our people??”

The line was silent for a moment. Gurt thought the line had gone dead. Suddenly he heard Splind crying. “I’m sorry, officer!” he sobbed some more. “My little daughter — sob — she fell into the entrance to The Dimension in the woods, behind the Old Crumb Factory.” He sniffled.

“Okay,” said Officer Gurt. “So then what did you do?”

“Well I went back looking for her and saw that an entrance to The Dimension had opened up. And you know the saying, ‘If you yell into the abyss, the abyss will yell back to you.’ So I did, and a voice called back to me. It said that if I open the hatch, it’ll spit my daughter back out.”

“So that’s why you let all the monsters out?”

“No. I was conflicted. I would never just let monsters from The Dimension run amuck in our town.”

“But then Principal Hairbear sweetened the deal?”

Splind’s voice was still shaky. “H-he wants his body back, and apparently The Dimension had talked to him too.”

“What were you going to get from him?”

“He was going to subscribe to the newspaper.”

Officer Gurt was shocked. He expected a massive exchange of money, or a wild favor. 

“That’s it? Just subscribe to the paper?”

“Yes, our readership is down.” When Officer Gurt didn’t reply, he went on. “We are down to eight houses. You are one of eight people to get it still. So now we have nine with the Bearhairs.”

“I can’t believe this,” muttered Gurt. 

“I’m sorry officer,” Splid said, crying again. “I wanted to save my daughter and my paper. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, which is why I tried to warn everyone to stay inside today!”

“Well I have one more question. Why would people only get taken by the monsters when they knew about the paper? What difference did that make?”

Splind thought about this for a moment. “I have a theory. Haven’t you heard that the beasts can smell fear?”

“Yes, everyone in Crumb Hill knows that.”

“So maybe it’s just those who were warned, they become afraid and then become targets for the monsters.”

“So basically,” said Gurt, restraining his anger, “you simply made targets out of everyone who gets your newspaper by making them afraid?”

Splind was silent again. “Well…when you put it like that…”

“Now we just need to figure out how to shut the hatch and get the beasts back to The Dimension.” 

“I might have an idea,” said Splind.

And Gurt hoped he was right, because so far, Splind had just made this whole day a disaster.

e

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Day 77 of 100 Days of Blog

The post STAY INSIDE! (part 4) appeared first on ethan renoe.

STAY INSIDE! (part 3)

Read Part 1 here!

Officer Gurt’s keen mind was piecing something together. The Nattingers didn’t seem to be in any trouble outside until after they knew about the newspaper and its headlines. Perhaps people were only in danger when they read the paper. It gave him an idea for how to get in touch with Dangling Jerry.

He ran back up to his bedroom window, hoping more people would be walking by. No one was there, so he had to wait. He paced back and forth before the window for five minutes, then ten.

Finally, he saw someone walking down his street. As they got closer, he saw that it was two people: Martin and his Gleeb, Melk.

He opened the window, careful not to let any part of him go out through the frame.

“Martin!” he yelled down. “Hello, Melk!”

The pair looked up at him. “Good morning, officer!” yelled back Martin.

“Have you two seen Dangling Jerry today?” shouted back Officer Gurt.

“You know, we did see him chain smoking out in front of the old warehouse on Plum Street. He really got those chains heated up hot!”

“Well could I ask you two a favor then?” Officer Gurt didn’t even pause for a reply. “Could I ask you to go up and tell him to come see me here at my home?”

Martin looked at Melk, puzzled by the request. Why couldn’t Officer Gurt just go see Jerry himself?

Thinking quickly, Officer Gurt added, “My wife is sick and I can’t just leave her alone, but I really need to speak to Jerry as soon as possible.”

“Okay, if you really need him, I suppose…can we tell him what it’s for?”

“The pape — “ Gurt caught himself before it was too late. “The paper chains are better for smoking than the metal chains. I need to talk to him about…his health. But it’s urgent.”

Martin still looked confused, but he and Melk shuffled back the way they had come from, and Officer Gurt waited eagerly for Jerry to arrive.

Almost an hour later, there was a knock on the door. Officer Gurt rushed to it and swung it open. Just as he expected, there stood Martin, Melk and Dangling Jerry.

Jerry marched right in past Gurt and as he did, said, “Eyyy, you got shome plashes I could hang-gup theshe chains — eh?”

“I’m sorry Jerry,” answered Gurt, “I don’t think we have any dangling spots in here, but I won’t keep you long.” He turned to Martin and Melk and said, “Thank you both for bringing him. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day!” and shut the door. He felt bad being so curt to the pair, but he also knew it was for their own good.

From the dining room, he heard “What’sh thish?” and knew Jerry had found the paper.

He walked over and explained everything to Danging Jerry. He told him about how there was supposed to be a normal paper, but no one knows why it sent this. Then he told him about the Nattingers, and how they disappeared when they went back outside.

“Shoundsh like The Dimension to me,” said Jerry. “Alsho, didn’t you now make it sho I can’t go outshide now?”

“Well yes, I suppose that’s the case,” said Officer Gurt. “I’m sorry, I guess you’ll need to stay here with us until this is resolved.”

“Well then I’ll need a plashe to hang up my chainsh and dangle for a bit.”

Officer Gurt looked at his wife and shrugged. He hadn’t thought this all the way through. But then he realized he’d left out the most important part. He flipped to the back page and showed Jerry the poem.

“I almost forgot! This is why I invited you here. It seems to be pointing directly at you! Do you know anything about this?”

Jerry looked at the poem and then started laughing. “Well firsht of all, I can’t read. But if it says what you shaid it shays, then I know exactly who you need to talk to next.”

“And who would that be?” interjected Mrs. Gurt, now curious herself.

“Well, Principal Bearhair of courshe!”

“You mean… the glops and goops of him that came back from the black cube? From The Dimension?” asked Officer Gurt.

“Well yesh!” Jerry looked at both of them and then explained more. “I dangle all over Crumb Hill, right? Right. Sho, I hear things and I shee thingsh. Shometimes, people shay things because they don’t know I’m nearby, dangling. But I lishten. In fact, I tried to get shome of my friends to call me The Lishtener. The Lishtener of Crumb Hill. Got a nice shound to it, eh?”

Officer Gurt racked his brain to figure out who Dangling Jerry’s friends could be, but continued listening.

“Sho, a few nights ago, I hear what’s left of Principal Bearhair gooping hish way down the block. I hear whishpers. He’s talking to shomeone, but I can’t shee who. I hear the other guy shay shomething about The Dimension and shome monshters or shomething. I lishtened real good, and I hear them shake shlimy hands and make a deal.”

“Did you hear what the deal was?” asked Gurt.

He looked straight at Officer Gurt.

“Yesh, but I needsh to dangle now.”

e

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Day 76 of 100 Days of Blog

The post STAY INSIDE! (part 3) appeared first on ethan renoe.

STAY INSIDE! (part 2)

Read Part 1 here!

Officer Gurt figured he’d better not go outside, since in Crumb Hill, when weird things happened or messages appeared, it was best to pay attention to them. But he was worried about the rest of the residents. Would they all stay inside? And what about those who didn’t get the newspaper, or simply didn’t look at it?

He looked again at the cryptic poem at the bottom of the last page. Everyone in Crumb Hill knew Dangling Jerry — the little beast who loved to hang from chains and chain smoke. Most of the time, that term means smoking a lot of cigarettes, but for Jerry it meant smoking his chains. He was addicted to them, so he’d smoke them while he hung from them.

But this was strange because there was no way he could pull off a stunt like changing all the copy in all of the newspapers in Crumb Hill. Either he had help, or someone was framing him, or at the very least, pointing to him.

Officer Gurt knew he had to get in contact with Jerry, which would be difficult because Jerry didn’t have a telephone…or even a house. He just hung from his chains in random places around Crumb Hill.

Officer Gurt went upstairs to his bedroom window, which had a decent view over a good portion of Crumb Hill. He stood at the pane and scanned the yards, parks, and houses he could see. Several people were walking around as usual over in Crumb Park, and one couple was walking down his street, about to pass his house.

He yanked the window up and yelled down to them. “Hey, you two!”

The couple looked up and he saw that it was the Nattingers.

“Morning, Officer Gurt!” the man yelled back.

“Didn’t you see the newspaper today??” he shouted, ignoring their greeting.

They stopped walking, intrigued. “No, officer. We stopped getting it years ago. It was nothing but So and so got thrown into The Dimension this week, and such and such monster crawled out of it this week.”

Well now I know which radio stations they’ve been listening to, thought Officer Gurt to himself.

“So you didn’t see the headlines today?” he yelled down to them.

“Well no, why?” shouted up Mr. Nattinger. “What did it say?”

“It just said ‘Stay inside’ over and over. I’m trying to figure out what it means and who wrote it.”

“Oh, what does the article talk about?”

“Nothing. It’s just those two words. Stay inside.”

“Well that’s curious. Can we look at it?”

“Sure.”

He descended the stairs and met them at the front door, careful not to pass through the door frame, just in case. Even though the Nattingers were fine outside, Gurt wanted to be extra cautious. He opened the door and let them in. They walked to the dining room, where Mrs. Gurt sat with the paper on the table.

They greeted each other and the Nattingers looked at the paper for themselves, flipping through the pages and seeing that indeed, each page said the same two words.

“Well,” said Mr. Nattinger, “clearly we were outside and nothing happened. It’s some sort of hoax!” He chuckled to himself and they walked back to the front door.

“Well please be careful,” said Mrs. Gurt warmly.

“We will and have a great day!” called back Mr. Nattinger over his shoulder. They stepped out the front door and Officer Gurt closed it behind them.

A moment later, the Gurts heard screams from outside. The screams lasted only a couple seconds and then stopped. Officer Gurt ran to the front door and looked through the peephole, but saw nothing. Just an empty street in front of their house.

He leapt up the stairs and ran to the window in their bedroom again. He looked down on the street before their house and still saw nothing. It appeared to be just a normal day. The Nattingers had vanished. There was no way they could have made it out of view that fast, yet they were nowhere to be seen.

He descended again to his wife with concern in his eyes. “They’re gone.”

“What happened?” she said, mainly to herself. “They were fine before they came in here…” her voice trailed off.

“Well I don’t know, but I know two things: We are staying inside, and I need to find out how to get in touch with Dangling Jerry.”

e

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Day 75 of 100 Days of Blog

The post STAY INSIDE! (part 2) appeared first on ethan renoe.