Jack LaFountain's Blog, page 10

Know Jack #435 Fallen Heroes

I was sitting in a funeral home the other day when a phone rang in the office across the hall.

 

“Hello, Valhalla,” the woman in the office answered.

 

I think I’m in the right place, I thought to myself with a smile.

 

My unintended eavesdropping ended there as I was lost in her greeting. Being in Valhalla sounded just fine to me. I can certainly think of worse destinations. What I know of the value system that determines a person is fit for entry into Valhalla is not so different than the one I embrace. In fact, fidelity to duty, truth, loyalty, and bravery in battle are the same things about Christianity that I value.

 

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis points out the weakness of the argument that human values are radically different across cultures. The truth is that we are more alike and value the same things far more than any differences people imagine. Free of a political system that seeks regulate every aspect of life, people want freedom, peace, safety, and to retain the fruit of their own labor.

 

Ask most people why immigrants flock to America and they will likely say it’s economic opportunity. There is certainly some truth to that, but I don’t think that is really why they come. I think they come for freedom. A free man can create his own opportunities. Give him freedom and he will make connections to community, protect himself, his family, and the weak. Secure in his freedom, he will relieve the oppressed and give to the unfortunate.

 

Why? Because, except for politicians and the mentally ill, people want the freedom to pursue peace, love, and kindness to those around them. Exchange the freedom to do these things for a chain tied to a taskmaster that exacts them and people will do only what they are compelled to do. At the same time, they will hate doing what is demanded of them and rebel against it.

 

This weekend we celebrate the sacrifice of men and women who, given freedom, chose to defend it, not only for themselves, but for all people. Welcome to Valhalla brothers and sisters.

Maranatha

Know Jack #434 The Quick and the Dead

My last trip to Deadwood caused some unnecessary worries about my health. I’m known for killing off some of my readers’ favorite characters. So, when people I know ask me to name a character after them, they are quick to qualify the request with, “But don’t kill me”. I usually offer them a word of consolation by assuring them that just because you die in my stories doesn’t mean you’re out of the story. What’s good for the reader is good for the author.

I’m going back to Deadwood in June and plan on reading a new story called, What Dead Again? So, you guessed it, the unnamed author dies—again. Whether that’s the end of the story depends on how well his trick of disaster sells. Wit and humor can only carry me so far. Sales drive the train. However, I have a feeling Ed Landry isn’t going to let anything too terrible happen to me.

Death is easy in fiction. It’s planned, scripted, and nothing is really lost, not even the storyline. It’s not real. Writers are told to write what they know. When it comes to death, that can be difficult. It’s not easy to be open and honest about our own deaths and the aftermath. I think that’s because we tend to approach the reality of death like writers do the fictional version. There’s more story to it than reality.

The young are superheroes, death isn’t a possibility. It becomes a real fear when you have children, if not for yourself, then for them. When you reach your seventh decade, the Reaper moves into your neighborhood. When it comes to exactly how our story ends, we’re all pantsers writing by the seat of our pants trying to set the stage for a sequel.

Maranatha

 

Know Jack #433 What’s That You Say?

“A veteran is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to the United States…”

 

So, a popular saying goes. The fact that it is completely false seems to matter very little…unless we want to qualify the statement to say the check was just a loan. That qualification does not negate the giving or service of those men and women. It does, however, make it less altruistic and more utilitarian. It was not a gift given with no expectation of reciprocity.

 

Now I don’t begrudge anyone who expected Sam to feed, shelter, train, and pay. them in return for their service. That was part of the bargain. In return, many did things they don’t talk about—things they will never be rid of. Sadly, others died. That too was part of the bargain.

 

It troubles me, though it probably should not, that the ones who made the bargain of their own free will should now greedily try to twist the terms to their own ends. Lest I offend unnecessarily, I will use myself as the villain in an example of what I’m talking about.

 

I was an aircraft mechanic for seven years. I was never shot at and glad of it. I did do some shaky things that could have gotten me, and a bunch of other folks blown to bits—because, well, the job had to be done and it was on me. Thank God the big boom never happened just a lot of whining jet engines over the years. Now, I don’t hear so well, and no, it’s not selective.

 

In light of our opening statement, should I expect Sam to pay me for the rest of my life for that hearing loss? I made the deal. That deal included doing stuff that might get me blown up. Is loss of hearing worse than dying? I don’t think so. I’ve had a pretty good life since parting company with my Uncle. But I agreed to die if need be.

 

It’s true that I was just seventeen, invincible, and not planning on ever being a seventy-year-old man who has trouble hearing when I struck that deal. But is my neglect to consider everything that might happen grounds for going back on the bargain?

 

If so, I’d do well to reconsider my opposition to Sam forgiving student debt. So would those listening to the lawyers flooding social media with promises of making the government pay for every ill a veteran might experience. I guess it all depends on the repayment each person feels they are entitled to for their loan. Thinking the government owes me anything more for my service is one of the many things for which I have repented.

Know Jack #432 Living for the Moment

I wrote last time about my retirement stealing, plan frustrating, worst enemy. He’s still around lurking in some corner ready to pounce. Before he went into hiding, he opened the door to a much stronger foe. This one doesn’t really bother with disguise and camouflage. He’s confident in the weapons at his disposal.

 

The battle began with a phone call that I was not totally surprised to receive. It was a surprise that I answered it at all. It came from a name and number that I did not recognize. Those usually go unanswered. This one did not. Before hanging up, I had agreed to preach at my church on Sunday. That is not a bad thing by any means. On the contrary, it is an honor just to be asked and a privilege to have the opportunity to do. It’s not a duty to be performed; it’s a desire to experience.

 

I understand that my accepting such a request has consequences that make the first week of boot camp seem like a picnic in the park. Murphy’s Law immediately kicked in with a vengeance. Completing the simplest of tasks became complex exercises in frustration. My existing physical problems were exacerbated—my back hurt, my knee buckled unexpectedly. It’s not really a physical problem, at least I don’t think so. Phones and computers hate me every day, but it got worse this week.

 

This diabolical attack is the opening gambit in a bigger game called self-doubt. What better way to get a person to feel worthless than to have everything go wrong? Like a Greg Maddox sinker, I can know it’s coming and still strike out. I don’t doubt the work of the Spirit when the time comes or doubt about being delivered out of my distresses. I doubt my worthiness to do the job at all.

 

It's fine to say we all have our faults, but I’ve been around long enough to know that doesn’t apply to preachers in the same way it does everyone else. All Christians encounter this prejudice to some degree, but it’s magnified when one presumes to stand in the pulpit on Sunday morning. I don’t mind it a great deal because I know that no one is as hard on me as I am on myself.

 

I anticipate beating myself up until about 11:15 tomorrow. About that time, something I can’t explain, something inexplicable, will happen.

Maranatha

Know Jack #431 My Worst Enemy

Sherlock Holmes had Moriarty. Jean Valjean had Inspector Javert. Peter Pan had Captain Hook. Epic heroes need a ruthless villain. Like my literary hero Don Quixote de la Mancha, I have myself. I am the ever-elusive, unbeatable foe whom I do battle in every episode.

 

While that fact comes as no secret to me, I have my peaceful moments when his schemes seem far away. That is always when he is most dangerous. He always seems to know what I am thinking—sometimes before I know it myself. He adds to the danger by being a master of disguise and concealment.

 

I retired four years ago expecting a life of semi-solitude spent reading, studying, and writing. Whatever subject piqued my mind at any given moment was fair game for these pursuits. It worked—for a while. Then, using me against myself, my enemy hatched a diabolical plan to derail all my best laid plans.

 

If you ask me, my Achilles heel is a tendency to take on jobs nobody wants thinking that I’m being, if not a good member of the cause, at least a momentarily useful one. I can say “no” I just rarely do if I see a need. My wily enemy has an army of needy people and causes. That’s how he traps me. Next thing you know, I’m not just climbing into the white van with the Free Tacos sign, I’m cooking them.

 

Once I’m hooked, it’s difficult for me to walk away. I can easily picture me at Thermopylae, Masada, or the Alamo. I thrive on the idea of fighting a battle against impossible odds. That those who do often die in that battle makes no difference. The only real antidote is for me to find out that those standing behind or beside me aren’t really invested in the notions of honor, duty, and most of all loyalty. In those circumstances, I have been timed at going from gentleman to as…er…not a nice guy in 0.325 seconds.

 

I looked around the other day and found my time filled with exercises in futility, serving people who didn’t seem to care. Some were outright opposed to my efforts, others were aiding and abetting my foes. In that moment, I knew I had been had. There was no time in my day for me to read, study, and write for myself. I had tricked myself into wasting that retirement I wanted.

 

In all honesty, I quit those retirement destroying activities at least once a week for the last year. I have never been as close to walking away as I am now. The heat of the moment has passed, and I see my enemy in the mirror every morning. He thinks he’s winning. A little further down the garden path and—plot twist.

Lost Crusader #223 Do You Have the Correct Time?

“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Philippians 2:10-11

I remember a song from my youth entitled, Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is? I don’t know how philosophical Robert Lamm was trying to be. I think teachers of literature, poetry, and the like tend to read more into the writer’s intentions than is actually there. However, the song struck a chord with me.

 

Does anyone know the answer? I don’t think so, at least, not anyone living on earth. Someone might say, “God knows.” In a sense that’s true, but God doesn’t experience time as we do. Even though He took on human form, could His explanation of time be comprehended by the human mind? Again, I don’t think so.

 

Though we experience time, measure our lives by it, and order our days by it, I believe we are incapable of true understanding. We count a day and a night, a single rotation of the planet, as one day. Yet, on the first “day” of creation, there was evening and morning, to equal one day, before the sun and moon were created. That leads me to believe days, weeks, years, and so on, are more our attempt at reference points than a real concept of time and what time it is right now.

 

I do believe there is a time to every purpose under heaven. However, with one exception, it is not the same time nor the same purpose for everyone at the same moment or stage in life. This idea has serious implications when it is related to the verses that opened this blog.

 

There is a time when every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. It is an act every creature will perform. We are not told what time our turn will come. In this case, above all others, it pays us to know what time it is. God has told us the proper time to make peace with Him.

 

“…I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold now, is the day of salvation.”

 

There is no moment but now. What time is it? It is now. All other moments are past and there is no promise of another.

 

Maranatha

Know Jack #430 Out With the New, In with the Old.

I’ve heard it said that everything old is new again. I pray that is not true of men’s bellbottom jeans. However, given the flamboyant costumes that pass for men’s fashion today, I’m confident that I won’t see that happen in my lifetime. I’ve seen some great new things in the last sixty years though. (I don’t remember that many changes in my first ten.) I’m not a change for the sake of change kind of guy. I’m more of an if it ain’t broke don’t fix it type. Except for software updates, I’ve welcomed most of the changes I’ve seen.

But I digress. This week an old manuscript from the dawn of my writing days made it into print. The idea for the book, more of a vision really, dates back years before any writing began. I had this picture of a winged creature moving through the trees of a tropical rainforest toward a shining city crowned by a golden dome. You’d think I could make something of that, but I never did.

Then, my grandson left a story he wrote at school on my desk. I say he wrote it at school, but I don’t think it was what he was supposed to be doing at the time. I don’t know where he got that trait from. Anyway, he left it on my desk, I read it, and the story I visualized sprang to life. It took me 62 weeks to write it after which, it sat in a drawer and then a file for years.

The old fantasy story is new again. The celebration is on hold, however. Every book launch carries with it the real prospect that the book will crash and burn. At least that’s the case for guys like me. I have seen some well-known authors launch a smoldering wreck and have it make the bestseller list.

After all the horror novels, releasing a fantasy book may not be a good strategy. Only time and readers will tell, but it does feel good to see the old story test its wings. It also gives me hope the stories that suffered similar fates might one day live again.

Lost Crusader # 222 Seeing and Believing

“Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw, and believed.”  ~John 20:8

 

I resisted titling this “seeing is believing” even though that is how the old saying goes. There are two reasons for that decision. One is that it is not true. The other reason is because that is not what happened.

 

As far as I can tell from the narrative, on its own merit, the sight of the empty tomb inspired belief in no one until John came along. A number of women who followed Jesus had taken in the sight, as had a guard detail, and most importantly of all the Sanhedrin.

 

Granted, the Council is not specifically mentioned in scripture as being present at the tomb. However, are we to believe that the ones who went to such lengths to crucify Jesus, and whose position and power depended on Him staying dead did not go have a look? The entire Messiah business would be over simply by producing the body. Unless they were complete fools, the Sanhedrin had the city turned upside down before concocting the ridiculous story they fed the Romans.

Everyone involved knew something strange had happened. Other than those assigned to guard the tomb, everyone assumed it was graverobbing—that’s the belief engendered by the sight of the empty tomb. Wrong though it was, and with Jesus’ testimony to the contrary, that is what people who saw believed.

 

John seems to have bypassed the logic the rest of the witnesses rushed to in favor of the supernatural explanation Jesus provided before He was crucified. That is, John sought understanding for what he saw from the words Jesus had spoken. The significance of the empty tomb was not just that Jesus was missing, but that He was missing in the words of the angel—as he said.

 

So, what happened to John to explain his reaction? Faith, faith happened. The writer of Hebrews said that through faith we understand our world, not what our senses tell us but what God has told us. Faith hears God's voice, considers the message, and acts to test the message. The tested message is the foundation of belief.

 

John looked into the tomb, thought about it a moment, followed Peter inside, and came to the simplest explanation. “He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come see the place where the Lord lay.”

Faith in that confirmed word has changed the world, but not as much as it has changed those who look into Jesus, see, and believe.

Maranatha

Know Jack #429 Join the Crowd

“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.”  ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

I’m not saying that I’m any good as a writer, but that being many people part is spot on. In a way, it’s true of most humans. We play different roles as needed. I find that this idea of playing many roles in life is skewed in writers. At least, I find this to be the case with me on two different levels.

First, there is my rather checkered background. While still in high school, I enlisted in the Air Force planning to stay for thirty years. That didn’t work out. I became a Christian, was called to the ministry, and gave up the Air Force. I didn’t take a vow of poverty, but I ended up living one. I decided to add nursing skills to my hospice ministry, but never worked in hospice a single day after getting my nursing license. Later, back surgery made me a full-time writer.

All of these people are still alive somewhere inside. They break out in my writing from time to time. Usually, they do so in subtle ways like stealing a scripture reference or lines from a book, a movie or military wit.

I am tempted here to say those people are real, but that might lead you to believe the others inside me are not. The characters I create are imaginary, yet they are also very real. They vie for attention, demand my time, and wake me up in the middle of the night with their ideas. They correct my writing and the storyline.

Characters sometimes say things I might be hesitant to say and do things I might not do. I read somewhere that dreams are the subconscious mind working out desires that we won’t otherwise express. Like Landry, I’d want to put a bullet in Magic Mike, even consider it the right thing to do. But in real life, would I act on that desire? I don’t know but doubt it. I do know that having Landry do it is a very real way of carrying it out.

Kit Mann and Vern Carson provide “safe” outlets. My stories rely heavily on dialog. Dialog amounts to little more than me talking to myself in different voices. And you thought Norman Bates was psycho for speaking his mother’s role.

Lost Crusader #221 The Day the Word Rode into Town

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  ~John 1:1

 

The Word that the Apostle John wrote about was not letters printed on a page. The Word is a person who is the complete and creative expression of God Incarnate. By Him and for Him were all things made. He is before all things and by Him all things consist. Jesus is the Word in a way far more real than the scriptures.

An author writes to show the reader experiences, people, and places the reader might not discover on their own. The scriptures are a portal to God. They reveal the heart and mind of the Author and Finisher of our faith. The pathway to God is clear—it is His Word.

In His Word, God tells us how to find Him, what He expects of us, and what He offers us. The answers to these things are simple. Answers often are. It is the application and the execution of the answers that are difficult. That difficulty is generally compounded by a natural distaste for the answers. As St. Paul explains, “Because the carnal (fleshly, natural) mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be”.

That is, God wishes to share His life with us, but we would rather do it our way. The scriptures illustrate this point in the story of Jesus’s Triumphal Entry or Palm Sunday. For those who love Westerns, call it the day the Word rode into town.

The Word rode in to save the town from the bad guy. Some folks cheered, some protested, and most of the town turned a blind eye to the meaning of it all. That’s humanity’s natural course where God is concerned. It is true God allowed it to be that way. He gave all the townsfolk a choice. With each choice, there comes a set of consequences. When you order from a menu, you expect to get what you selected, right?

The Word is still here to express God’s desire for all to come to Him. Open the scriptures to hear Him. Open your mind and heart to His voice. “Behold, now is the accepted time, behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Maranatha