Jack LaFountain's Blog, page 17

Lost Crusader #191 We’re Having a Party

“And in that day the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and for mourning. For baldness and for girding with sackcloth. But instead, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep. Eating meat and drinking wine: ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’… ‘Surely for this iniquity there will be no atonement for you, even to your death’…”

Isaiah 22

One of the greatest single lines of wisdom ever penned was Solomon’s instruction that there is a time and a purpose to everything under heaven. In the days of the prophet Isaiah, times were uncertain. The people were at a loss for direction. They’d had some very good kings and they had some very bad ones.

Their lack of direction had little to do with kings. It had nothing to do with a lack of resources. They had a Temple at which they might pray and seek God. They had the Law of God. They had priests to point the way. And they had prophets sent by God to provide specific information as to what God wanted them to do.

Isaiah had the answer. The solution to their problems was quite simple. (Christianity is often criticized for being simple by those who have never given it an honest try. How easy or difficult Christianity is, is dependent on what you’re trying to do. But that’s for another time.)

The simple solution the prophet proposed was a heartfelt prayer of repentance for their personal moral decline as well as that of the nation. Baldness referred to shaving one’s head in making a vow. Sackcloth is a garment of sorrow.

The response of the majority was to go out and party. They put some beef and mutton on the coals, poured a glass of wine, and ignored the old stick-in-the-mud, gloom and doomers, like Isaiah. They were determined to do things their own way and have a good time doing it. They identified as carefree and encouraged others to play along.

The situation sounds a lot like what I see going on around me every day. There is a truth to life—a good, a bad, a right, and a wrong. There’s room for different interpretations. Pretending as if there is no objective truth or pretending that believing makes something true and therefore acceptable is avoidance, not a solution.

God grants everyone the freedom to choose how they will live. He’s having a party whether you chose to attend or not.

Maranatha

Know Jack #398 I Object!

“A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.”

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

“Follow the science” was the mantra of the pandemic Of course, it was a lie. However, like good lies, it had a whiff of truth and sounded intellectual, progressive, and modern. Objective data was suppressed in favor of subjective reasoning to sell an agenda, and it was labeled science.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the fact is the government conducted a successful experiment in bending the nation to its will without questioning its wisdom or methods. That was the recipe for acts of tyranny that forced families apart, confined people to their homes, and shuttered businesses. Like slaves, people complied.

In the words of an old rock and roll song:

“A thousand pictures can be drawn from one word, only who is the artist, we got to agree. A thousand miles can lead so many ways, just to know who is driving, what a help it would be.

Objective values invite questions and grow stronger under investigation. Yet, so much of the “news” we see and so much of what our government promotes cannot be questioned. We came close to having a government agency tasked with monitoring and preventing resistance to the current administration’s social agenda which is built on subjective data.

When peace and safety are greater priorities than truth, the door is thrown wide open to anything that is promised to produce them. People become blind to the fact that the only viable means to produce peace and safety is to introduce tyranny—force people to comply with slavish obedience “for their own good”. In the end, even this does not work.

However you may judge the founders of our country, they hit upon an objective truth demonstrated by human history, we are endowed with a yearning for life, liberty, and the ability to work for our own happiness. Those things are our rights as human beings.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #190 Faith Comes By Hearing

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork…there is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.”

Psalm 19

Step away from the dull haze of city lights to a night sky lit only by an innumerable company of stars. Leave the concrete jungle behind and climb into the pine-scented mountains. When you arrive, stop, be still, look, and listen. God is speaking.

“He that has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The idea of God comes easily when gazing out on the awe-inspiring beauty of our world and the stars beyond. We cannot linger there long before life begins to call us away. Duties, jobs, and commitments have their voices too. Sadly, admiring God’s handiwork does not supply us with food or shelter. (Though God has been known to send ravens by with food.)

We must leave, but we do not have to leave God there. That look into God’s creation is only a seed. The decision about what grows from it is left to us. God has in mind a life that He desires for us. He wants the best for us. However, He will not force it upon us.

I will tell you this, the seed of belief is not enough. Neglected, it will not grow, it will not flower and bear fruit. You believe in God—so does the devil. I dare say Lucifer’s belief in God is stronger than yours. Yet, no one thinks the devil is the better for his belief.

It is an all too handy God that can be left behind in the woods to inspire us when we deign to visit or call upon Him in times of distress. Such a God will not intrude when we want to do something shady and if He should, He is easily brushed aside as too judgmental.

Read on into the psalm, the revelation of God displayed in His creation is also a warning. The Creator is not neutral nor indifferent. The awe-inspired glance is not to be simply admired. It is to be acted upon.

“Come unto me, all ye that labor and, are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Maranatha

Know Jack #397 Caught Dead in Deadwood

“Damn you. Take that!”

Jack McCall to Wild Bill Hickok

I just returned from Wild Deadwood Reads, an author’s book fair that takes place each June in Deadwood, South Dakota. For me, the event was as mercurial as my personality. If you know Jack, you know that’s about par for the course. The conclusion of the matter is that I want to go back next year.

Life is for learning, so I’ll do things a little differently next time. That too is the usual course for those like me who want to see what’s over the next hill without peeking first to see what may be lurking there.

I did enjoy the opportunity to read one of my stories on Friday night. I wrote that particular story knowing that I was going to Deadwood. It’s about a writer who goes to Deadwood for a book signing and stumbles into an adventure of sorts.

After almost dying from a heart attack at the book signing, my hero finds himself playing poker with the dead men from the other stories as the murder of Hickok takes place anew. There is also a short bit of history about the title, Dead Man’s Hand.

This isn’t meant to be an advertisement for the book. It’s more a look at how I, as a writer, find ideas and participate in the story. More often than not, my stories begin with a vision. In my mind’s eye, I “see” a bit of the story unfold. What triggers the vision varies.

It can be a song. New Mother Nature and She’s Not There came together in Lady on the Edge (not published yet). It can come from a sight accompanied by a little voice that says, “Hey, what if…”. My little Schnauzer, HyDee, yapping at the door inspired Bayou Moon. Titan refusing to walk the lake trail with me opens the story The Ghoul Next Door. Other times, the inspiration is actually a vision. That is, I see it happen much like watching a movie. Ed Landry waking up in a Love’s parking lot at the start of Blood Moon was like that. So too was the opening of the yet unpublished Trails of Trouble. That one had me stumped about what came next until my grandson’s third-grade story brought it together.

I’m not sure whether or not the process of starting a story is purely egotistical, but it does require a personal connection. I am sure it’s all in my head and I’m okay with that.

Maranatha

Know Jack #396 About Face! Charge!

“We’re not retreating, we’re just advancing in a different direction.”

Gen. Oliver Smith

Surrounded at the Chosin Reservoir by multiple Chinese divisions, that his superiors assured him did not exist, General’s Smith men fought the elements and the enemy on their way to freedom. Criticized for retreating, Smith replied with the words that introduced today’s blog. When you’re surrounded, every direction is the front.

The “Chosin Few” are men I admire and will never be able to emulate. They are American heroes, I am not. I mention them for two reasons. First, I admire what they accomplished and I’m going to take the blog in a new direction. I hope to move from the writing front to a more personal line. That being said, I realize that I cannot speak about my own life as though it exists apart from writing.

So, why change, and why change now? It is a question that deserves an answer—even if you didn’t ask it. The simplest answer is that I have multiple interests. Using Occam’s Razor, that should be answer enough, but there’s more to it than that. There always is where people are involved.

My interest in sharing writing advice has waned. I believe in Jesus’ admonition, “freely ye have received, freely give” and try to practice it. I also recognize that sometimes people just need to step in poo to truly understand how it stinks. I should allow them the learning experience.

After all, you’ve got to pay the dues, if you want to sing the blues. I am amazed by the number of people who want to write without ever having counted the cost. If you know that I am not speaking about paying editors and cover designers or buying author copies, move to the head of the class.

Before I fall down that rabbit hole, I want to say this blog was never meant to dispense “expert” advice about anything and it has succeeded in that sense. So, I’m going to let my mind wander across these posts and see what happens. I know the voices in my head aren’t real, but they really do have some good ideas.

They also have a much-maligned perspective. I am not the straight, white, Christian male over 40 who has sworn an oath to defend the Constitution, but I am one of them. Like the voice of one crying in the wilderness, I plan on expressing my personal take from viewpoint on multiple topics in future posts.

You’ve been warned.

Lost Crusader #188 Unconditional Surrender

Then said Jeremiah to Zedekiah, “thus says the Lord, the God of host, the God of Israel: ‘If you surely surrender to the king of Babylon’s princes, then your soul shall live; this city shall not be burned with fire…’

Jeremiah 38:17 NKJV

King Zedekiah was in a tough spot. His capital was under siege by the Babylonian army. The Egyptians whom he had made a pact with to help him defend Jerusalem failed to lift the siege (as Jeremiah told him they would). The court prophets agreed all would work out well, but Zedekiah was still not sure. So, he asked Jeremiah. Why? Because Jeremiah would go to prison rather than relay a false message.

Jeremiah’s answer was for the king to go out and surrender, throwing himself on the mercy of Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah was fairly certain of three things. First, life was cheap, and he was of no real value to the Babylonian king. Secondly, Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t known as a man of great mercy. Finally, Jeremiah spoke for God.

What to do?

Zedekiah took the popular option. Relying on his own craftiness, and his friends, he slipped out of the city and made a run for it. He was not about to try it God’s way. Everybody knew the kingdom wouldn’t be in such a fix if there really was a God. Zedekiah also knew that, if there was a God, He had to see things Zedekiah’s way.

A real God would be celebrating Zedekiah’s life and his choices and have nothing to do with a stick-in-the-mud like Jeremiah. The man was so negative. Zedekiah would never admit he was wrong, never surrender his pride, and never beg for mercy he didn’t need.

I know many Zedekiahs. Some have heeded God’s message. Most did not and for the same reason King Zedekiah refused it—it just didn’t fit them. There’s no room in their self-image, lifestyle, or life plans for the kind of God who sends Jeremiah-types with instructions to surrender it all and do it His way.

Self-celebrants often suppose God is “the man upstairs” who indulges rebels. However, God says of Himself that He is not a man nor the son of man. He is the true self-existent One, who speaks universes into existence and yet, humbles Himself to regard the lives of His creatures.

He will not be bargained with and respects the right He gave people to reject Him. Unconditional surrender, those are His terms. Take it or leave it.

And what of Zedekiah? His sons and the princes of Judah were killed before his eyes, then he was blinded and led away in chains. His home and Jerusalem were burned to the ground. Zedekiah remained in prison until he died.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #187 The No Win Scenario

“Is not this the carpenter’s son...Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him.

Matthew 13

Socrates thought he was the most intelligent fellow in town. He thought that because he realized that he knew nothing. Knowing nothing and asking questions that provoked thought got him sentenced to drink hemlock, so there is that. Realizing a long time ago that I know nothing. I have spent years collecting testimony to that realization.

However, there once was a time when like most young, indestructible, and incredibly good-looking men, I knew everything. I knew there was no God. I knew that every man was subject to the whims of chance. I knew that if you worked hard, did your duty, and were willing to stand against the crowd, respect and success would be yours. How I came to my present state of ignorance in just fifty years is just one more thing for which I have no answer.

I seemed to be doing fine until I ran into God. That confrontation really blew my no God, and everything is chance theories out of the water. I have to admit I breathed a sigh of relief to know God was all about working hard, duty, and standing up. Now, I’m not saying that God is against any of those things. I am here to tell you that it is no secret that these things bring neither respect nor success in this world.

Now, no matter what stage of life you are in, those outside of Christianity will question your sanity, service, and sincerity. That’s a given. It’s part of the price of peace with God. So be it. I walked away from that years ago.

What I suspect is true has changed very little in the last forty-eight years. It is not because I am resistant to change or know anything at all. It is that I’ve found that at any given moment my faith in God is too liberal, too conservative, too quiet, too vocal, too modern, too old fashioned, too literal, and too figurative. In other words, I know nothing as I ought. That is as it should be. I am nobody, the son of a man who built houses and roads. I am without a university education and of no reputation.

A Christian man of great learning once confessed that he made it a point to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He believed such knowledge was sufficient in itself. If Jesus’ knowledge was called into question, well, I am certainly no better than Him. I am content to allow my steadfastness to offend those, within and without the faith, who are looking for offenses.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #186 Sorry, Not Sorry.

“Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? But he answered and said…Let them alone, they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

To set the scene, Jesus’ disciples had been criticized for not washing their hands before eating. This was more ceremonial practice than a matter of hygiene. The ceremony was also more traditional than scriptural. Jesus had the unmitigated gall to call into question His detractors’ practices that served to circumvent the Law and call it hypocrisy. He then pointed out that true defilement came from within.

In answer to the question “Is Christianity hard or easy?”, C. S. Lewis once wrote that it is both hard and easy. The answer all depended on what you were trying to do. He pointed out that most people approach Christianity the same way an honest man goes about paying his taxes. That is, he does as little as possible to pay what he considers his due while keeping as much as he can for himself.

The Law said to honor your mother and father. But that was a costly proposal before Social Security. So, the Pharisees “dedicated” all their resources to God. It seemed a very godly thing to do. Except all it really accomplished was to shelter their money from being used to support Mom and Dad. It was legal, even celebrated, but the thought and intent were contrary to God’s decree.

The point I wish to make from all this is that Jesus was right on spiritual and scriptural grounds to call them on it. He offered no apology for doing so. Then, He told His disciples that once the message was delivered, leave the hearer to his own devices. Of course, they later killed the messenger.

Christians aren’t appointed to save the world. We are commanded by Christ to deliver the message that salvation is available. That we are afraid, shy, don’t know what to say, or that it will offend people are not acceptable reasons to tacitly deny Christ.

Maranatha

Know Jack #395 True Lies

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful.”

George Orwell

I think fiction writers would do well to have a touch of politician in them. Making a web of lies sound true enough to draw the reader into it, well, that’s what we are all about. The difference is that fiction writers presume their audience knows they are lying. Moreover, readers will not tolerate lies that are too outrageous or that contradict earlier statements of fact. In fiction, a writer can only stretch reality so far before it breaks. So, the writer has a disadvantage not shared by politicians.

I haven’t ventured into the creation of new worlds often. Only once springs immediately to mind and that story is yet to be put into print. However, when I did venture off this planet, I felt compelled to make a world familiar enough to require little explanation without being completely earthbound. I didn’t realize back then that I worried needlessly about using “male” and “female” rather than “man” and “woman” to describe non-humans.

As politicians might tell you, one way around unpleasant truth is to use a very narrow spotlight and shine it only in places that fit the storyline. Let’s face it no one wants to read about a romance between a working stiff with a beer gut and plain Jane who works at Wal-Mart. While I advocate cramming as much reality into a story as possible, that’s too much reality.

Like voters, readers don’t want to hear about their rather ordinary lives, they want the lifestyles of the rich and famous. My characters are harder to convince that a rougarou is real than my readers. My readers want the rougarou to be real and so do I.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting fiction writers to tell fabulous lies to entertain people. Mr. Orwell, a master of fiction himself, has a different take on politicians horning in on the genre.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #185 Making a Living

“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?”

Ecclesiastes 1:2-3

The Preacher has an important truth to share. What good was his wealth, his throne, and even his wisdom? Long after he was dead the sun would still rise and set, the wind would still blow, and the rivers still run to the sea. All his labor invested in a thousand endeavors would not change that. It was all in vain.

He tried everything “under the sun” and his opinion concerning the vanity of life remained unchanged—until he discovered that there is in every person God-shaped emptiness that is vain to try and fill with anything but God. With that discovery, he learned how to reckon profit and invest in things that endured.

At the Judgment Seat of Christ, the works of all who stand before Him will be tried by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Some things will endure while others are destroyed. Jesus (the Judge at this trial) once posed this question to His hearers.

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Rather than allow people to guess, He supplied the answer.

“Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life…”

That’s not very specific, is it? He once claimed doing the will of God was meat. But honestly, that’s still not specific. The Holy Spirit that Jesus left to guide people into the truth offers this word on the subject. In the fifth chapter of the Book of Galatians, there is a list of actions/attitudes that ends with this thought: “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God”.

It is followed by this word: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance: against such there is no law”.

One more word about the judgment of Christ. Innocence and guilt go beyond words, and beyond actions (no matter which speaks louder) down to the thoughts and the intent of the heart. It is not enough to do right. The thought behind the action must be equally pure.

Enduring riches cannot be labored for and can’t be earned. They can only be given away.

Maranatha