Jack LaFountain's Blog, page 11

Know Jack #428 Want To See Something Really Scary?

Horror fans will recognize the question taken from the opening scene of Twilight Zone The Movie. One definition says horror is a monster, villain or threat that plays on the fears currently being experienced by society. There is some validity to that. After all, what could be more frightening than four more years of Joe Biden and his cronies?

I write horror stories, among other things, and so I am often asked about the scariest book that I’ve ever read. My answer without a hesitation to weigh the possibilities has been the same for about forty years. I have read everything by Stephen King up to Mr. Mercedes. I’ve read Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, Lovecraft, Poe and Robert Bloch. They are all excellent horror writers. However, none of these have written anything that scared me.

The scariest book I ever read was written by a former White House correspondent by the name of Allen Drury in 1973. The name of the book is—drum roll please—Come Nineveh, Come Tyre.

Set against the Cold War, it examines the fate of America when one political party, the media, and activists join forces to have peace at any price. No crime, including infanticide, is evil if it is done for the “right” cause by the “right” people.

Freedom, justice, and truth are among the things sacrificed to the cause of peace. Neville Chamberlain was a rank amateur at appeasement compared to Drury’s politicians. I won’t give away the ending—it’s just too good.

Horror must be plausible to truly frighten. Now, I do find rougarous, vampires, voodoo curses, and the like plausible. What keeps them from frightening me is that they can all be defeated by an ordinary person forced into taking action against them. What makes Come Nineveh, Come Tyre so frightening is that we can look out our window and not only see it happening, but good people cheering it on. Even extraordinary people have no chance of defeating the demand of the masses for peace and safety.

St. Paul told us long ago: “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”

Lost Crusader #220 Let’s Make a Deal

And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint…”

And Jacob said, Sell me this day your birthright.

Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright. ~Genesis 25

 

I read a comment on this passage yesterday that struck me as odd. The person commented that while a deal is a deal, having your brother sell his birthright to you for a pot of lentils is theft. Sounds a lot to me like typical modern thinking. That is, you make a deal but as soon as it is no longer to your advantage, you were taken advantage of and cheated.

I feel certain a great many Christians agree with the comment—until put in a modern context. I am comfortable saying so because I’ve heard it from their own mouths. Here's a paraphrase of the modern context.

I desperately want to go to college and make a deal for tuition money. I seal the deal and go my way, get a degree. Then the predator who loaned me the money wants to be repaid. But it’s hard on me to repay so my wealthy Uncle must relieve me of the burden of my deal because the terms now seem unfair.

No matter what he said or thought, Esau was not going to die without those lentils. If he really thought that he would have just taken them. The biblical picture of him leads me to believe he was bigger and stronger than his brother—and he was dad’s favorite.

In a job market like today’s no one is going to die or even be unemployed without a college degree. It is not a necessity for a full, happy, and comfortable life. However, refusing to honor the commitments you make and that no longer suit you is a prescription for unhappiness.

But what does God think about it? I point you to Psalm 15.

“Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? …he that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.”

Salvation is essentially a deal we make with God. It’s made on His terms and it sometimes hurts, but it’s a deal God will not go back on—ever!  Be like God.

Maranatha

 

Know Jack #427 Out of Thin Air

“Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.” ~Bullwinkle J. Moose

 

Every week the moose tried to produce a rabbit out of an empty hat and failed. However, he did manage to come up with lions, bears, rhinos, and even Rocky himself. That goes to show you it’s always possible to come up with something when the show must go on.

My memories of the moose and squirrel come to mind when, on days like today, I sit down to pull an idea for a blog out of an empty hat. I’ve tried more than 427 times (I didn’t number them when I started). I don’t always come up with a rabbit. An old adage from my military days advises that when one cannot dazzle with brilliance, it is best to baffle with…ah…well, never mind.

Not everyone agrees with me, but I consider my life boringly bland. A single episode of Jerry Springer has more excitement than a decade of my life. So does Cupcake Wars for that matter. Thankfully, the blog is more about brief glimpses of the real me than the exciting me.

So, they just have to be real. I have to remind myself of that from time to time when I’m wracking my brain for something exciting, humorous, or interesting to say. There are untouched areas of my life that will probably stay that way—here. They tend to leak out in the heroes and villains in my book because they can appear disguised as fiction.

I hope that doesn’t sound like the shameless self-promotion it was meant to be. Oh, who am I kidding, yes, I do. The one thing you must know to know Jack is how much the desire to write drives everything else.

Lost Crusader #219 The Ever Ready God

“And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”  ~Isaiah 65:24

 

The prophet is speaking of a time when Christ returns to physically reign upon the earth in the midst of His people. Our perception of Him then may be clearer, but the readiness of the Lord to hear our voice and respond to us shall not be increased by His presence.

We often think of God on a grand scale. It is true He is a big God and does things so big our minds cannot comprehend them. His design and creation of the universe is a marvel beyond words. However, for the Christian, God’s greatest miracle is very small. It is no bigger than you or I.

The world was fashioned so that we might have fellowship with God. We were created to this end; and every situation we ever encounter is designed to bring us into His presence. He is the Creator of heaven and earth, the omnipotent, omniscient, God who commands the universe. It is in His power to command us and force obedience. Yet, in love, He calls us.

He seeks us, draws us, and receives us by grace. Our life and our path are in His hands. Why should it seem strange, that before we even think to call, He has already heard? He knows just where we are—He placed us there. We need not wonder that the answer He gives is not to alleviate trouble, steer around trials, or spare us sorrow. Those too are part of His design. God does not delight in our pain. He walks with us through it so that we might have joy in our victory over the world.

We will have victory over all things. That is God’s will for us. When He has given us that victory; when we will have triumphed over earthly things; we shall be ready to sit together with Him in heavenly places. In this, He truly is both the Author and the Finisher of our faith.

Maranatha

Know Jack #426 Fade to Gray

“The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.”

Solomon

 

When you’re approaching the beginning of your seventh decade, it is not unusual for the mind to drift to the final book in the series. If that is true for the author, it is no less true for his hero. Let me put you at ease. I hope to be around a while longer and keep my invisible friends close.

I am currently working on the seventh book in the Ed Landry series and the only regret I have is that Ed, like his creator started out late in life. I’m not sure how long I can realistically keep him crowned with glory. Realistically is the thorn on the rose. Perhaps I should not have set him in time. That would have opened the door to endless books, but it would have robbed them of some of the realism—and the challenge.

The upside is that he and Jazz are now parents and what parents don’t want their children to follow in their footsteps? The only thing that’s better is being able to actually have the kids do what you want them to do. That’s not realistic, but it is challenging.

Life should be a series of ongoing challenges. I work at that on my own. I became a nurse at 41, and a full-time writer at 65. I take online courses, read, and, at times, take on way too many jobs. But nothing keeps my mind as young as those characters who visit to ask me to tell their stories.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #218 Willfulness

“For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” Paul to the Galatians

 

Christianity is a free will offering of oneself to Christ. The focus of that life is Christ and how we might please Him. We are not required to please any other. All the world has ideas about how a “real Christian” ought to live. They do not understand that none of their opinions are binding upon us or Christ. Neither are those opinions a valid measure of how well we are succeeding in pleasing Christ at any given moment.

Unfortunately, many Christians do not understand the concept either. They live as though we must make the world like us; to cater to the world that we might woo them. They are constantly on guard to never give anyone offense lest that person turn from God’s salvation. I sometimes wonder, do these people really believe their actions are capable of thwarting the work of the Holy Spirit?

A person who hears the call of Christ and desires the salvation God offers cannot be kept from it by any power in heaven or earth. In like fashion, any person seeking a reason to refuse God will find one and lay the fault at God’s feet (or those of His people).

Christ became flesh and blood to do the will of God the Father—period. That will of God encompassed a demonstration of God’s love in the form of being crucified to purchase the salvation of the world. In the ultimate moment of decision, “thy will, not mine” decided the issue.

The prophet Isaiah said Christ has no form nor comeliness and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. While Jesus was a people person, He was not a people pleaser. He commanded people to leave their lives and follow Him. He told scholars that they didn’t know what they were talking about. He called one of His own disciples Satan and another the son of perdition. He regularly chastised people for their lack of faith and their fear. He refused to go along to get along.

To this day, He still calls on people to do things they don’t want to do, say things they don’t want to say, and go places they don’t want to go. And why? Because the will of Christ is still the salvation of the world and God would not that any should perish.

He is love on His terms and only His terms. This offends some people. So be it. If my service to Christ causes others to be uncomfortable or offended, let them go to God and complain. I have been corrected by the Holy Spirit more times than I care to mention. I prefer that correction to being chided by Christ for my failure to serve His will.

Maranatha

Know Jack #425 Real Monsters

“…our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.  ~Thomas Paine

 

Those words are from Paine’s Common Sense and I am taking them out of context. If you read the news or watch it on television, you’re used to that and so I feel at ease doing it. It is taken out of context only in the sense that Paine is speaking about the suffering caused by government.

However, our being the chief cause of our own suffering can be readily applied to most humans.

Monsters are our own evil come to life, a reflection of those things we see within ourselves, fear, and hope to conquer. That is why the best heroes in horror are ordinary people. I am not interested in superheroes—they don’t exist. Monsters, however, are very real. They are us.

What is the werewolf, but the person so consumed by rage that they act like a beast? I’ve seen that monster. I know him intimately. He may not sprout fangs and claws, but they are there in the inner man. We have all seen him—we have all been him.

Those who study dreams say that dreaming of vampires is the subconscious feasting on desires we are ashamed to act out. The vampire is the ultimate narcissist, existing forever on the life blood of others. They are never really dead or alive, empty husks without empathy and dwelling in darkness.

In the tale of Frankenstein, who is the real monster? Is it the animated pieces of corpses or the man who presumes to play God by “bestowing” life? It is one small step for man to go from Frankenstein’s Creature to the radioactive monsters of the 50s and 60s. Tinkering with nature in the name of science is the stuff monsters are made of.

Monsters surprise us. They seem to burst onto the scene from nowhere in defiance of belief. Convincing everyone that the monster exists is the prelude to its defeat. As long as the monster can be denied, there is no stopping it. If the devil does not exist, we cannot be touched by evil or fret over letting it free.

I have been asked how, as a Christian and a minister, I can write horror stories. The answer is, in the same way I can speak of sin and evil. Horror stories are our way of combating the evil within by giving it a body and slaying it. As we all know, sometimes the monster does not stay dead. Wars have many battles before there is a victor. We have met the enemy, and it is us.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #217 Called

With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience.”  Metaphysics, Aristotle

To succeed as a Christian, you must live out the everlasting experience that began with your redemption by God. A diligent study of the scriptures is essential to Christian growth, to be a disciple is to be a student. However, this is true only in as far as knowledge produces practical applications that strengthen the experience. Of course, the same inefficiency may be said of practical applications that are not an outgrowth of the redemption experience.

Christianity consists of neither words nor actions per se. That is, voicing certain beliefs and participating in certain rites does not make a person a Christian. In the same way, a Christian failing to perfectly act or speak in accordance with the demands of scripture does not nullify the experience. On the contrary, the Christian experience advances through the learning experiences of repentance and renewal.

The world is fond of proclaiming that the only person who never fails is the person who does nothing and says nothing. While they claim this for themselves, Christians are excluded. There is a good reason for this. Christian imperfection is believed to be proof of the non-existence of their faith and their God. In point of fact, just the opposite is true. Christian imperfection and failures are proof of the mercy and grace extended to them by their Savior.

Failure is not the goal. However, it is a reasonable expectation for which divine provision is made. Repentance is not cheap nor is it pleasant. Hebrews 12:8 clearly states, “But if ye be without chastisement, where of all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons”. (Emphasis mine.)

The chastisement of God upon His children is not without mercy, but it is not painless either, growth never is. Growth from whatever place God received us to a state of Christlike perfection is the plan of God for every Christian. We are not called to be spectators or bystanders. We are called to fellowship in the life of Christ and nothing less.

Maranatha

 

Know Jack # 424 Oh, the Horror!

What’s the last horror film you watched that you really liked? I heard the question posed the other day and took a moment to think about my answer. As a lover of horror movies and sometimes writer of horror tales, my answer might surprise you. As someone who knows Jack, the answer still might surprise you, but for a different reason. The first to come to mind was The Wolfman, with Anthony Hopkins made about fourteen years ago A little reflection changed that choice to Winchester, with Helen Mirren made in 2018.

As a kid, I watched all the radioactive terrors of the 50’s. Godzilla, Them! The Thing, and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms were all made before I was born and I loved every one of them. But none of them compared to the thrill of watching those made a decade or more earlier like—Dracula, The Wolfman, Frankenstein, and The Mummy. I still watch them every time they are on, so obviously, for me, special effects do not make a movie great.

Many today confuse gore with horror. I was a nurse for 25 years and I can’t remember the last time I was grossed out by anything—except maybe the current president and his cabinet. I find the slasher movies boring and, as far as I can recall, have never watched one all the way through. I am quixotic enough to appreciate the idea of an unbeatable foe, but realist enough not to accept his defeat until the next sequel.

It could be that I expect too much of modern filmmakers. Interesting scripts, realistic dialogue, clear photography, and actors with talent are a lot to ask. It’s not that I don’t try. I’ve watched the first ten minutes of hundreds of movies. Still, I keep hoping to see The End again someday.

Lost Crusader #215 Walk This Way

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.     Colossians 2:6-8

 

Above all else Christianity is an experience. There are certain things Christians believe, but Christianity is not rooted in a doctrinal or religious belief. There are things Christians do, but neither are these things the root of Christianity. Christianity is something that, by our choice, happens to us.

 

The experience is called a new birth or being “born again”. Like most experiences, it loses something in the translation. That is, if you haven’t experienced it yourself, it is difficult to grasp the depth of the reality. This truth is evident in the biblical invitation to “taste and see, the Lord is good.”

 

My description of the taste of, let’s say, apple pie is nowhere near as clear or as real as taking a bite for yourself. Some may say, “Not everyone likes apple pie”. True and not everyone likes Christianity. Our scripture text today is one of the reasons Christianity is not for everyone.

 

Christianity is not a one-and-done experience—it is an everlasting one that calls for personal transformation. That transformation is driven by pursuing the life of Christ for the same reasons, and in the same manner, that drew us to him in the first place.

 

Recognizing that our imperfections are not, merely flaws, but acts of rebellion against God, we have chosen to surrender, unconditionally to God’s sovereignty. God’s will becomes our command—that’s the way a kingdom works.

 

Furthermore, we understand that we are not worthy of the price of obtaining peace with God. As it is an everlasting experience, we never become worthy of our position. It is only by God’s grace that mercy has been shown to us. If we wish to continue in that mercy, we must extend it to others.

 

If you’d like to spend hours on this, I invite you to Liberty Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama on a Sunday or Wednesday night.

To sum it up quickly for those not inclined or able to pursue it further:

“Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”

Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

If you can spend eternity perfectly doing these two things, in word, deed, and thought, you already have peace with God. If you have failed in the slightest, you need God’s forgiveness to have His peace. The choice is yours.

 

Maranatha