THE FIRST GENERATION TO BE RIGHT

Though I champion and live by the letters of the apostle Paul, there is one other Bible book that interests me nearly as much, and that is the book of Revelation.

It was not always this way. Anyone first reading the last book of the canon (God help the individual attempting it in one sitting), usually reaches for an adult beverage afterward. It was the same with me (except I ate peanut M&Ms). All that changed, however, when I read The Unveiling of Jesus Christ, by A.E. Knoch.

In 1930, A. E. Knoch wrote the definitive work on the book of Revelation. I believe Knoch to be the first writer holding mature truth to tackle this difficult book. What do I consider mature truth? That would be a knowledge of, 1) the eons, 2) the sovereignty of God, 3) the goal of the universe, and 4) the distinct evangel of Paul.

Most Revelation commentators founder on all four counts. Being ignorant of the eons, they imagine the judgments described here to be everlasting. Unaware of God’s sovereignty, they miss divine purpose. Because they imagine the goal of the universe to be eternal torment (how delightful), they must make the lake of fire “all she wrote” for the majority of humanity (how fun). And no one getting Revelation explained by an author ignorant of Paul ever finds comfort—or enough alcohol. Escape out of the coming indignation? Not quite. (Paul begs to differ: 1 Thessalonians 1:10). Rather, take a dose of a certain fearful looking for ill-tempered locusts and ninety-pound hailstones.  

The ultra-intelligent A.E. Knoch is still childlike enough to believe God means what He says. Allowing for figures of speech (the author’s grasp of these is exceptional), A.E. Knoch audaciously takes God at His Word. Is taking God at his word a scary proposition in the book of Revelation? You bet! But only if you, too, miss the four planks of full-grown truth.

Why don’t many people know about The Unveiling of Jesus Christ? That’s what I’d like to know. There are more revelations in one paragraph of Knoch than in entire volumes of seminary-trained drones. Rather than griping about it, I’m going to do something about it.

God willing, I will launch a video series on the book of Revelation, next month. I will base the series—set to broadcast five days a week—upon Mr. Knoch’s seminal work. No sense re-inventing the wheel; A.E.K. has already written a masterpiece. My contribution will be to “Zenderize” his words and concepts, making them digestible even by seminary-trained drones. Heck, I may even make some of his concepts funny.

Please pray for me, as I cannot do this work alone. It’s too damn hard; I’m not smart enough; I’m not disciplined enough; I’m not good enough; I become too easily discouraged by the uphill task and the downhill world. I could give you 122,465 more reasons why I need help and prayer, but these will suffice. Are you praying yet? Why not? Please pray now.

Really. Exactly. Truly.

Here is a promotional video, fresh out of the production department:

Friends, we are the first and only generation since John scribbled his head off on Patmos to witness the beginning of events God showed him, “in spirit.” These are the end times. Yes, I know every generation has said that.

But we are the first generation to be right.

© 2012 by Martin Zender

ANTI-TEACHING

Sometimes, the best way to teach what is right is to put what is wrong on full display. I will do this in October, after returning from New York.

Many people believe that God is a well-intended old man who had such high hopes for his creation—up until Satan ruined his plans in the Garden of Eden. (I call this eternally disappointed personage, “the Christian God.”) Since then, the Christian God has scrambled night and day to salvage something, anything, of his universe. He sent his own son, Jesus Christ, to save as many as he could from a fate worse than death: burning in hell forever. 

Burning in hell forever is the worst thing imaginable. In fact, it is so bad, so evil, and so nightmarish (and so freakishly hot), that no one can possibly imagine it. Not even the Christian God can truly wrap his poor demented mind around it. He is sorry about it, really. But this is just what happens to people who don’t love him. All people have to do is love him. Is that so hard? The Christian God spends many long hours stroking his long, white beard in quiet contemplation, wondering why so many people can’t manage so simple a thing as loving him. Isn’t he the most loveable being in the universe? Of course. So why doesn’t his favorite saying, “Love me, or else!” attract more devotees?

The problem, of course (well, one of the problems), is that the Christian God gave every human being a free will. So while he may wish to influence these humans and bring as many as possible into his heavenly, air-conditioned home, he can’t. Once he gave away his sovereignty, he couldn’t get it back. Now, the best he can do is hope everything somehow works out. (He knows in his own heart—the one with the aorta and all the ventricles—that this is probably not going to happen. But it doesn’t mean he can’t wish for it.)

I have already shown you the Christian God in several of my Crack O’ Dawn Report videos. In case you have forgotten, here he comes now:

Some people get nervous about me portraying God. They think it’s sacrilege. But I’m not portraying God, I’m portraying a caricature of God—the weak, bumbling, co-dependent “deity” of the Christian religion. I can teach the truth about the true God straightforwardly, and often do. But sometimes the better thing is to let the error act and speak—give it its say—and let people see and hear for themselves how wrong it is. (This is the “show rather than tell” principle.)

I can stand under a tree, in a video, and—with accompanying violin music—talk about how great and wonderful the true God is. (Can you hear clicking sounds? That’s the sound of thousands of twenty year-old YouTube watchers rolling their eyes and moving to another channel.) Or, I can arrange for the Christian God to have his own comedy show, and put him on a stage before a live audience, to explain his sorry self.

I asked the Christian God about this possibility, and he jumped all over it. In fact, he was so excited he smoked seven filtered cigarettes. (Seven is the number of perfection.)

I have booked him into the famous Laura Ingalls Wilder Comedy Club in De Smet, South Dakota, for a series of engagements. The thing about this is, the Christian God is not intending to do a comedy set. He thinks he’s finally getting the opportunity to explain himself on YouTube in front of a friendly audience. See, I kind of didn’t tell him it was a comedy club. I kind of told him he’d be “giving a talk” at De Smet Community College. You may think it is mean to deceive the Christian God in this manner, and maybe it is. I am doing this for the greater good. When people start rolling in hysterics at the Christian God’s most earnest elucidations of how the universe got so whacked (“Shut up! What's so funny? You try creating tall grass, and then see if you can keep track of all the snakes!”), maybe he will get a clue.  

Here he is, last week, testing the sound system:

THE POP-ICON JESUS

The Pop-Icon Jesus is also booked into the Laura Ingalls Wilder Comedy Club, but on different nights. The Pop-Icon Jesus, however, knows it’s a comedy club. I told him, and he embraced my concept. He, too, wants to tell his story. He knows how funny utter futility can be, and is ready to let 'er rip. (Here he is at the dress rehearsal.)

The Pop-Icon Jesus is not the true Jesus. He is the handsome, popular Jesus whose glittering jewelry adorns the necks of rock stars and Super Bowl heroes. The events of the past two millennia have very much disturbed him. In the old days—as recently as the 1960’s—the Beatles were more popular than he. But now, he has all the frenzied teenagers eating out of his hand. It disconcerts him. He never wanted to be a cult-leader, he says. He suspects that his father—the Christian God—has something to do with the downhill roll of things since Calvary, and is quite happy to incriminate him. (“He has a bee in his bonnet, that one. Or a crawfish in his crotch—something. Everyone is afraid of him. It’s great for the money plate, but I used to fling that stuff across the sanctuary in the good old days.”)

The Pop-Icon Jesus looks back at those ancient days—at how un-popular he was then—and instinctively recognizes them as days of truth. The mainstream religion (as well as the mainstream media) snubbed him, yes, but that’s because his message was spiritual, rather than emotional. His no-frill message rarely appealed to the carnal nature. There were no titillating songs back then repeating his name 95 times so that people swayed and swooned and wanted to make love to him. There was no stained glass back then, no large cathedrals, and no marble statuary honoring his dear mother. Back then, his mother baked fig bars whenever he brought “the boys” over for a visit. She had no halo then, and the paparazzi shunned her. (I am not disparaging Mary; her fig bars were moist and delicious.)

Treading the road less traveled is so timelessly true. The real Jesus knows it, as do we who seek Him. “Wide is the way that leads to destruction,” He said in the day. In this day, the popular path finds happy receipt in every pulpit. The Pop-Icon Jesus hates that, and now he'll have his say.  

Tickets are still available for both shows. Call today. Operators will be wearing riot gear. 

© 2012 by Martin Zender

THE NINE

When we think of all the blessings that have come from Paul’s letters, we forget he was only one man. We tend to think God needs an army to conquer such a large thing as the world, and to overcome such a prevalent thing as the stupidity of the world. He does not. It pleases Him to do the most with the least. This way, the credit and glory go to Him, rather than to the vessels He chooses for such stupendous work. It is simply impossible for one man (Paul) to take over the world. And yet, he does.

Along with eight others. Nine people, in all, brought us our faith. Yes, Christ brought it, absolutely speaking, and God brought it even more absolutely speaking than that, but the Powers That Be handed this faith to a single man headed down that dirt road to Damascus. This man, in turn, handed it to eight others, who found in their soul a burning desire to receive it, understand it, and pass it on.

Sosthenes

Paul and Barnabas were the first believers of the new message (of the grace of God) to be called, “apostles” (Acts 14:4). In Romans 16:7, Paul refers to two believers named Andronicus and Junia, as being, “of note among the apostles.” In 1 Thessalonians 1:1, Paul associates Silvanus and Timothy with himself, saying in 2:1-1 that these men were “bold in our God to speak the evangel of God to you with much struggle.”

Paul mentions another man, Epaphroditus, in Philippians 2:25, calling him “my brother, and fellow worker, and fellow soldier.” Sosthenes (1 Corinthians 1:1) and Apollos (1 Corinthians 4:6) were with Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 4:9—“I suppose that God demonstrates with us, the last apostles, as death-doomed, for we became a theater to the world and to messengers and to humans.”

Andronicus

Paul

Barnabas

Andronicus

Junia

Silvanus

Timothy

Epaphroditus

Sosthenes

Apollos

Oh, what we owe this handful of faithful men who struggled in relative anonymity in a hot, cruel world, two millennia before any of us were born. They did it for God, but they did it, as well, for us. They gave themselves for the sake of people they’d never met, and for names they’d never heard. The men listed above deserve to be in the Faith Hall of Fame, and indeed, they are. Each of these will receive a wreath of glory from their Savior at the dais, rewarded for faithful service, compensated for the evils and frustrations endured here. We shall be present to see it.

I have written the names of these men on a small piece of paper that stays in my wallet. I feel close to them. I desire not only to see these men rewarded, but to stand with them. 

Timothy

In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul writes to his child in faith: “And what things you hear from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men, who shall be competent to teach others also.” By the time Paul wrote this letter, he suspected the era would be much longer than he’d originally anticipated. Thus, he commissions Timothy to commission other men after him—men who would be competent to commission yet others.  

It has come down to the present day. In my humble opinion, there are never more than nine people during any generation who struggle in relative anonymity to dispense the pure Pauline gospel of grace upon this same cruel proving ground on which the nine pioneers laid their sweat. The contemporary teachers, like their forerunners, herald the Word opportunely and inopportunely. Like these others, they hope, someday, to be compensated for their many and epic failures. 

In two days, I fly to Rochester, NY. I am meeting there with Clyde Pilkington and Dan Sheridan to herald the same word Paul taught, to a group of 50 believers to be gathered in a small building next to a lake. Four days ago, Clyde sent the following text message to Dan and me:

“Brethren, we are called of God, it’s our turn. We are the heralds of our day. We follow Paul in filling up what is behind in Christ’s suffering. We heed his parting challenge to endure hardness, to suffer evil with him, so that we can finish our course. We will fight a good fight together as a celestial band of brothers.”

Clyde

Tears welled in my eyes as I read Clyde’s text. It is an honor to serve with these men. In fact, it feels impossible to serve without them. Paul and his band of brothers were “the last apostles.” I pray we are the last teachers. I pray that the baton Paul passed to Timothy, ends with us. I pray this, not because I would rob others of the message, but because I wish to see, with my own eyes, the fullness of the era of the Gentiles. I will be so bold as to say: I long to be present when the last member of the body of Christ says, “Yes.” Then, the entire body of Christ—including the nine pioneers—will meet its Head in the air, and they shall ever be with Him.  

I intend to write you from New York with an account of the gathering, and photographs. Stay tuned to this channel. Pray to God that the last member of the body of Christ comes to Him in the small building, next to the beautiful lake. I will attempt to photograph it.

© 2012 by Martin Zender

A STRANGELY TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCE

Last Sunday was a stressful day. This eon is full of hits and hurts, coming and going, and these sometimes feel like raindrops in a downpour when you run and dodge, but can’t miss a one.

I have always known there was a place in Christ where peace reigned, and where love conquered everything, and where that protective Hand of God restrained the most evil of tides. This is not a physical place—at least not yet—and only comes by the girding of one’s mind, and the tearing down of the strongholds of mistakes (sin), death, grief, and these debilitated bodies. God is more powerful than our Adversary, though it does not always seem this way. Perceptions rule, most of the time. Things can be fine, and we think they are not. Things can be at their worst, and we whistle along.  

This is why Paul tells us to think on those things which are lovely and pure. It is hard to do. Walking by faith in a world of perception is like pressing a shovel into rock. Perception has its way of insisting upon its own delusion. It intrudes in living color and surround-sound. But there is a place in Christ that is a sheen of protection, an insulation against the hurt of things seen and heard. It is rare to find it. I don’t know if I have ever found it more than a handful of times in my life. This lack of perception fails to discourage the reality. Peace always lies on the leeward side of the iron curtain of perception. My inability to captain my own mind bothers not the peace. The peace only wonders why I am not with it.

Night came yesterday, as seems to happen frequently in this wicked eon. I was lying in bed. My phone was charging in a corner of the bedroom, lending the far wall a small, gray glow. The fan made pleasant white noise. The thoughts of the day wanted in, badly. They knocked and pressed the portals like the intruders of that city from which Abraham rescued Lot. God lent me a brief advantage against this tide: the fan, the darkness, the small, gray glow.

I perceived the anchor of the walls and the stability of the floor. My bedroom then became the bedroom of my childhood. This, in turn, became a wedge God’s spirit used to surpass present experience and transport me to the place spoken of by Paul—the place of the peace that surpasses understanding.

My eyes were open to the present room, but the room of the past came with a detail unremembered for years. In my waking vision, a summer breeze moved the multicolored, striped curtains in my bedroom; they blew in toward me. The plastic covers at the ends of the pull-cords clicked rhythmically against the wall. My sister Kelly’s room was down the hall.

(Click to enlarge photos.)

It occurred to me that in all the years I lived with her, I never knew Kelly’s experience, from her room. How strange and—is it selfish?--that we cannot enter the experience of another. On second thought, how can it be selfish when our minds are not presently suited to such miracles? But perhaps, in spirit, we can know. I now think we can. (Oh, how this would mollify and tenderize our opinions of others—to even for a moment walk in their history, to see their life in the way the light falls upon their particular walls.) Kelly lived a life in that same house, and though we were together there, hers was a life lived separately. Yet in this vision, God had me visit that life, and I saw it. It was such peace—not her life, but my experience of knowing it.

We lived in that house for over twenty years. It was the most stable home imaginable. I can still see and feel the wood grain on the interior doors. I can still see and feel the presence of my mother and father, both now dead. My mother is in the kitchen, putting something into an oven whose door squeaked, always, when opened and closed. (The oven was blue.) My father is the Rock of Gibraltar, a constant. The house has a basement, and I move my open palm up and down the cool, solid smoothness. Love is over everything, and in everything. It is always summer. The exterior of the refrigerator is white, the interior green. The shelves are fake gold, making us feel rich. I hear my friends tapping on the aluminum door off the garage, to come and play.

Mom always said, “Come in.” Everyone was always welcomed, none more than Kelly and me.

In my present room, I smile. At one point, I laugh. This was completely impossible just an hour before. But now, even that hour becomes crystalline. It has meaning and weight; it is necessary. It is—and was—meant to be. It is part of the whole, and thus had to come. As such, it is good. And thus, I see how the present can transform the past.   

For several moments, I thought I was on the edge of the snatching away. I thought, “This is it.” I know Scripture says it will happen in an instant, but the instant is only the thing it happens in. What happens just before that? Is there a brief, sweet period of awareness? Anticipation? Are there a few moments available to embrace the last parts of this world, before flying into the next? Is it possible that memories like this come flooding in? Is it possible that all pain becomes justified and a necessary coin in the new currency? Does all evil and pain gently float away like fall snowflakes blown from a porch railing? 

I breathed, but without thinking. The vision and peace settled. These did not go away, but only settled. My life had flashed before me. It was not yet time for the snatching away. This morning, writing in the still dark of the night just passed, I believe it was a foretaste.

I think all of this came in the wake of the spirit of forgiveness. There is such power in this. We hold on to so many things; it is only human—but this is the old humanity. The foreign thing—the new humanity—is letting go, and not only letting go, but thinking good, returning good, and being good.

Think of a world where this flows out from us, and comes back in like measure. God knows, we all need it. I wonder if this is the definition of love.

In the peace, I prayed for everyone. I prayed for my mom and dad, and for my sister. I prayed for my sons. I prayed for my wife Rebecca. I prayed for every person in the world. I was no longer fighting against flesh and blood; I was no longer fighting at all. Evil comes from the Adversary, but the Adversary comes from God. All is of God. One day, this will be my constant apprehension. For now, I can only embrace it when it comes. I hope to embrace it more often.

We lived life in the house I grew up in at face value. Things that were, were. And if they weren’t, they weren’t. Life this way is so easy to live. It comes in and out so naturally, like a breeze moving summer drapery. I credit this, today, to the blocks of that basement, to the smooth wood, and to the man and the woman who fashioned such a dream for themselves, for the God they knew, and for the two sacred beings, brought into this world, by their steadfast love.

© 2012 by Martin Zender

  

MY CAUSE WAS SLOTH

That I have stopped walking for two hours every day does not mean I have stopped exercising. Because to stop exercising would be to begin dying. Yes, I know I’m dying whether I exercise or not, but a soft body is its own little subdivision of lifelessness.

The longest I’ve ever stagnated is two months. And that’s since December of 1974.

It was on Christmas Eve of that year that I tried to lift one of the large presents under the tree with my name on it—you know, so I could shake it a little. Well, not only could I not shake it, I couldn’t budge it. I couldn’t raise even a corner of it off the floor. It was then that I said to myself, Holy smokes, Dad has gone and got me a weight set.

How could he have done something like that? What was he thinking? I went into my room to figure out how to let the old man down gently. Maybe I would open the present, look surprised, say, “This is really neat!” and then quickly ask for some eggnog, or grab a handful of tinsel and throw it around the room and yell, “Look how light and shiny this stuff is!” Or maybe I would ask how many Christmas cards we had gotten. I would ask if we broke last year’s record. Then I would say to my mother, “I bet it’s hard getting Christmas cards out every year. I don’t know how you do it. Do you ever get writer’s cramp? You’re amazing, Mother.” Then, after all this, I would let my eyes wander back under the tree and find a present for someone else. “Oh, look, Father," I would say. "Here’s a present for you. And look! I can lift it! It bet it’s not a @%!$# weight set!”

Honestly. What made my dad think that a fifteen year-old would want to lift heavy things for the sake of his health? I’d be better served, I thought, with a television for my room.

The more I thought about it, the more troubled I became. How could anyone lay such a burden on another person, let alone a loved one? Let alone an innocent youth? It was like giving someone a puppy. “We just thought we’d get you a little something to love and feed and worry about for the next fifteen years. We hope you like it. Please pass the fruitcake.” It was like giving someone a Mount Everest expedition. “It was such a great deal, we couldn’t pass it up. You’ll be flying to Katmandu on January 6th to acclimate, and the climbing party sets out in late April. Hey, open the one with the blue bow next—it’s your ice pick.”

I drove my head into my hands and paced my bedroom. My family would begin opening presents in an hour. I had to be certain of the justness of my cause; I had to believe wholly in it, for only then could I convincingly defend it.

My cause was sloth.

I paced and groaned and considered. I thought of my dad’s feelings, but most importantly, I thought of my feelings. But then I thought of my arms. I thought of my dad’s feelings again, in order to forget about the feeling I'd just had about my arms. Then I thought of Christmas cookies. Then I accidentally thought of my stomach muscles; then I accidentally thought of girls. I thought of my shoulders then—by accident. I tried to think again about my feelings, and succeeded. But then I thought of Mt. Everest—don't ask my why; I really didn't mean to think of Paula Mareno, but in she came, right after Mt. Everest. I thought of my dad’s feelings again, in the nick of time. But then I thought of my calves; hmm; what calves? I thought of resistance and the audacity of fighting it; that was a much better thought, and helpful. But then I thought of Laura Anne Williams, who sat next to me in Algebra—not helpful. I thought of my dad’s feelings again, but this was interrupted by the thought—the accidental thought—of removing my shirt in front of Laura Anne Williams; then—God help me—I thought of removing Laura Anne Williams’ shirt—I assure you that this was a complete and utter accident. For a diversionary tactic, I tightened my abs; nothing happened. I looked in the mirror and tried to find my stomach muscles. Lord Jesus and Santa Claus—where are my stomach muscles? In a panic, I looked into my eyes; I stared at myself. This was a big mistake because, as I stared at myself, I heard a strange voice, and the voice spoke clearly to me—inside my head—and the voice said: I think you want to do this.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I left it there. I walked from my room into a strange new world. Some would call it a darkened hallway leading to the place where the Christmas tree was, but I knew it as a new world. I understood then that climbers leaving Everest base camp felt more alive than other people. With every step toward that heavy box, I ascended a good slope. It was a slope of the simplest beginning. I knew then, for certain, that a man could change his own life.

I lifted those weights three days a week, religiously, for an entire year. I did not miss a single workout—not one. I found an inner strength and a personal resolve I never knew I had. It began on Christmas Eve, 1974, and sustains me to the present hour. I have applied it to all other aspects of my life. It is the second most amazing gift I have ever received, and it is all due to my dad.

My dad died two years ago, but he lives in me now, through everything I accomplish.

I am who I am because of him.

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

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© 2006 by Martin Zender

NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T

Every year after the Fourth of July Fireman’s Festival, I do a strange thing. I wait a day or two until all the rides and the concessions have been packed up and put away, and I go to the grounds and try to imagine that a festival had so recently been there.

On Sunday night of the festival—the last night—our family stays late for the fireworks. Usually we sit down at the edge of a large tent at the main eating place and watch the fireworks together. By my slowed-down standards, this is a heck of a good time. The lights of the midway, the smell of the food, the darkness, the teenagers ambling about, the leftover heat from the day, the good feeling of shared experience, American independence, family togetherness, the smell of French fries, community under the tent, the festive weight of the air—all these things combine for a delicious feeling, bittersweet at the same time because the feeling cannot last. Fall will come, the teenagers will go away to school, winter will come, some of these people will be gone from the earth, and nothing can ever be repeated exactly as it was.

So I return to the grounds to wallow in this, to take stock of it, and to try to imagine how it could recently have been what it was but is not. Early morning may be the best time to do this. The early morning after a nighttime festival may be the prime wallowing time for those so disposed to it.

This year I determined to record it.

Early evening Sunday I went about with my camera recording scenes, people, lights. I played the last two games of Bingo with my son Jefferson, photographing him in the warm and cozy light of the tent—a perfect moment in time.

Snap, snap, snap I went again, all over the festival grounds, recording it as it was so that I could record it, for you, as it is, and demonstrate for you the competing miracles of being and not being, and the terrible nature of change.

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My friend Charlie and I have agreed to meet, in the coming eon, at the site of the small brick patio next to my house. We were sitting there late one evening a couple years back—drinking coffee and looking up at the stars—when we decided that sometime during the thousand years of peace we would return to earth and meet at this precise place and marvel at how it had been, and how we had been then. We would be celestial beings, but in full possession of memories, knowing well how it was during the time of our humiliation. This present earth would remain for a thousand years subsequent to our change, we knew, being destroyed only later and replaced with a new earth. For a thousand years, then, the precise coordinates of any location on the current planet would be known. We would certainly know where this porch had been, and we would come here. And we would marvel and ask ourselves:

Is this really the place where we once sat, marveling and wondering at the stars? Was this truly the site of a wooden house in which the greater part of a man’s life was played out, where he loved a woman, raised a family, shared joys and shed tears? Is this truly the place? Could this really be it? We know that it is—we know that these are the precise coordinates—yet it does not seem possible that it could have been here. It is all so different. We are so different. And yet—confirm it—this is the place. We sat precisely here in wooden chairs in our bodies of humiliation, staring up at a world that was then so foreign to us.

I finish now with a photograph of this coordinate. It is know among the celestials by a name other than that given it by mortals. They know that we will return here. I believe that, since Charlie and I made a pact here and that we shall one day be seated at the right hand of God, it may well be a grand event. I want you to see how it is now. Look at it and remember it, for you shall see it again as it shall be, from the perspective of a future change soon to be spoken of in the past tense.

Present; future; past. What are these? Stare at this photograph and sear it into your mind in case you one day wish to find out.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

JOE COKE IN THE PURGATORY OF PORK

I love the Fireman’s Festival and Fourth of July parade. This grand weekend always occurs in July, a month that is famous here for warm weather. It isn’t always warm, but we’ve a better chance of it now than on Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, Easter, or even Memorial Day, when the last of our vast snow piles melt.

Like any good pagan, I cherish the sun. I cherish anything that brings people together and makes them happy, or makes them think they’re happy. A person eating cotton candy on the Fourth of July falls victim to this, including yours truly. I reserve my fluffy passion for this weekend, and generally buy two bags of 100% cotton candy, sometimes three.

Cotton candy is a piece of heaven come to Earth. Sugar, I think, is a scaled-down version of something divine. The earthly version is deadly sweet and so pleasurable that it eventually kills us, while it’s heavenly counterpart—whatever it is—gives life. Whoever dreamed of converting sugar molecules to this light, airy substance outmarveled Einstein. An angel touched this clever individual, I do believe that. God inspired a modern-day prophet to turn the miraculous substance blue and yellow and orange and green, and another spiritual pioneer, unnamed, thought to twirl it onto a stick.

The parade is only a part of the greater festival, headquartered at the village reservoir grounds behind the old high school. It is here that the Ferris wheel scoops up its waiting passengers, the ponies tramp patiently around rings of sawdust, and a matronly woman in an apron becomes willing—for only two dollars!—to measure the speed of your best-thrown baseballs. Guess the speed of your third pitch and you win a prize worth seven cents. A miracle akin to cotton candy occurs here: people bartering two dollars for seven-cent prizes walk away winners.

Besides the parade, the best part of the festival for Melody and me has always been manning the Coca-Cola trailer. We are asked every year by some of the firemen’s wives to man the Coke trailer. I cherish it. It is such blessed relief from my regular job.

For 364 days of the year I am an evangelist akin to Paul, suffering evil as an ideal soldier for the sake of Jesus Christ. For one day of the year, I sell Coke. It is a glorious day. Why? Everyone wants Coke. Everyone wants ice-cold carbonated sugar water. We are gods of this eon, Melody and I, whenever we sell the premier product of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Some people do this for a living; I can hardly imagine. I can hardly imagine the crush of accompanying love. “For God so loved the world that He sent them a sweetened beverage colored with caramel and flavored with phosphoric acid.”

I once asked a man who worked for the Coca-Cole Bottling Company: Have you ever been persecuted? He said no. Not even by Pepsi people? No, not even by them. One day out of the year, I taste this blessed state of belonging.

No one approaches the trailer to question our doctrine. For our doctrine is merely this: Drink Coke. No one questions our motives: Just why are you selling this carbonated beverage? No, we never get that. Who dares to attack the virtues of Coke? No text of any kind is ever brought against us to refute our position. For our position is merely this: Drink Coke. We are spared even the effort of announcing our evangel. Our evangel announces itself: ICE-COLD COKE HERE. This alone brings us more disciples and worshippers than we care to count. We are the friend of man, woman, and child. I never realized before manning this trailer how fond I could be of unfeigned love, respect and acceptance. If not for the shortness of the shift and the gig (three hours, once a year), I would give up everything and travel the country in this trailer. God, in His mercy, curtails the joy. But never so much as this year.

This year, Melody and I got overlooked for the Coke trailer. I was devastated. “They want us to make pork and beef sandwiches at the main building instead,” said Melody. I thought she was joking. I thought she was telling me a Coke joke. But no. There would be no Coke trailer for us this year. This year, we were damned to Pork and Beef Purgatory. I was damned to it, that is. Melody got assigned to cake and pie duty, leaving me to my torments.

I walked into the building after the parade and announced to one of the firemen: “Here I am. Do with me what you will.” He set me in front of several vast vats of shredded pork and beef. Some of the vats were pork, some were beef. Beside the vats were piles of hamburger bun packages and sheets of foil. The fireman showed me how to hold the bottom of the bun, scoop on the meat, top it with the upper bun, and wrap it. “Good luck,” he said. I asked if I would see him again, and he said, “No.”

I did my work as unto the Lord. I would become the best sandwich maker ever. With God as my witness, I made sandwiches as fast as I could. It was barely sufficient. Demand was great, for we fed the after-parade crowd, precisely at lunchtime. I scooped and bunned and wrapped with singular purpose. It was hot work; I did not care. In the midst of the battle, I caught myself dreaming of the Coke trailer. Each time the fantasy came, I banished it; I could not afford a pause, not even a refreshing one. I went back to work.

From my pork and beef purgatory, I caught brief glances of Melody. She carried pieces of cherry cheesecake, Texas sheet cake, apple pie, and many other kinds of delicious pie. She grinned and laughed with some of the other women. I dug my big metal spoon back into my meat vat and slung another load of muscle onto the round, white bread. Five hours later, it was over.

(Below: the building in which I slung my meat.)

“Did you have fun?” Melody asked.

“No,” I said. “No one loves me. No one loves the sandwich man.”

“I love the sandwich man,” she said.

I touched her hair and looked into her eyes. “I bet you say that to all the sandwich men.”

“I do,” she said.

We walked around the festival grounds and remembered being there when our kids were little. It was bittersweet—to think of the kids so small—and we were ready to cry, so we bought two large Cokes from the lucky person in the trailer and went to see how fast I could throw a baseball.

I walked away a winner.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

THE VILLAGE PARADE

Our Fourth of July parade here was fun. It always is. The police shut down traffic on the state highway for the Saturday event, and I always feel bad for the first car or the first trucker stopped. By the time the parade is over, the traffic stretches clear out to Kat’s Iron Skillet to the east of town, and Eastman’s Funeral Home on the other side. I personally believe that these two businesses are in cahoots, but that has nothing to do with this story.

There is not one traffic light here on Main Street. Main Street is the state highway. It is busy, busy, busy. My office is on Main Street and ordinarily I am busy as well. For one glorious day each year, however, Main Street becomes the parade route and the only thing occupying me is getting folding chairs out to the sidewalk and jockeying for the best spot. Being a Main Street businessman, I have an inside track. Not that I need it, but it’s fun to think that I do.

Three quarters of the town’s residents come out for the three-quarters of a mile parade. That sounds like a lot of people until you consider that the town contains less than 2000 people. In fact, this is not even a town, it’s a village. The difference between a town and a village is Kat’s Iron Skillet.

The parade is probably terrible by any standard other than ours. The entries that always stick out in my mind are the little baton twirling girls and the flag squads. No two girls are ever doing anything in unison. Not ever. It is as if the adult leaders of these groups tell their charges before the big event: “Here’s how it works, girls. It’s every girl for herself. Try to stay with the group, if you can. If you can’t, then we’ll see you at practice on Tuesday. Just move your flag around, is all I ask. Use it to swat flies, twirl it, scrape it along the road, scratch yourself with it, it doesn’t matter. Just keep moving. Those of you with batons, make sure you drop them every fifteen seconds or so. Throw them and drop them. Got it? We’re going to be aiming a Bob Seger song very loudly at you from the back of a pick-up truck for no apparent reason. Now move out.”

Lots of people throw candy during the parade, either from firetrucks, old cars, or tractors. In fact, this should be called The Candy Parade. It’s candy, candy, candy, non-stop for an hour. The candy comes flying in at your feet in waves so that you don’t even have to leave your seat to snag some. There are Tootsie Rolls, Smarties, Bit-O-Honeys, Fireballs, Sweet-Tarts, Pixie Stix, Dum-Dum suckers, and every brand of hard sweet known to man. Some of the local businesses on floats throw Frisbees. With a little planning and luck, you can snag a Frisbee first, then use it as a plate for your candy. This is the ideal, but few people obtain it. I have never obtained it. But I know that it’s possible.

The out-of-town marching bands are usually pretty good. For some reason, our local marching band is never good. The kids blow through their instruments and beat their drums, but no music comes. I remember the time the director wanted my son Jefferson to play trumpet in the fifth grade band. Jefferson wanted to play drums, but the director said she didn’t need another drummer. She said that what she needed was brass. She said she could train monkeys to hit drums. I had heard her bands, and I asked her when she would be teaching the monkeys to hit the drums at the same time.

Local firemen put on the parade and festival, so there is always a Fireman’s Queen, and she is always young and beautiful—this year was no exception. I do wish, however, that someone would some year teach the Queen to wave from the heart and not from the wrist. I’m not saying that we spectators want “howdied” like farmhands, but we would like to see something other than the standard mechanical parade wave. You know it well: the fingers are cupped and glued together, the hand rotates slowly from the wrist as if on a swivel—thirty degrees to the right, then thirty degrees to the left. And always the parade smile, tattooed on the face and sincere as the glossy façade of a teen mag. What we would not give some year for a living Queen, a genuine waver, a heart-inspired shower of teeth, a Queen who possesses her beauty as well as capturing those of us sideliners wanting to worship her. Until then, we look to the politicians—and avert our eye.

The politicians drag their kids and spouses from bed at 7 a.m. and drive them here armed with balloons and pens and buttons and flags. “Vote for Bill Reid, County Commissioner,” says a plastic trinket. I don’t even know what a County Commissioner is. If I did, I would not want it to be Bill Reid. I would vote for the man wise enough to stay home on the Fourth of July with his family, or take them to a parade they could watch and not prostitute themselves in. How dare Bill and his ilk use this national celebration for political advantage. I always hope that the politicians step in the fruit from the equestrian entries. If any politician on parade wants my vote, he or she can at least enter early and throw a Frisbee. I need a plate for my candy; I need a County Commissioner who cares that I get a plate for my candy.

The parade ends as it begins, with firetrucks blaring. The sirens are super loud. Kids stare google-eyed and dogs bark. The firemen are showing off their vehicles and their sirens, as well they should. I believe they wash their vehicles every day twice a day before the parade, because you have never seen anything so shiny as a firetruck on the Fourth of July, with the possible exception of the top of a politician’s head on the Fourth of July. The firemen deserve our homage, and we give it to them while our hearts move at the behest of their sirens. Our hearts are always moving, thanks, in part, to the firemen.

The truckers coming through after the parade are always somehow in a good mood. This is nothing less than a miracle. I guess they give up and give in to the parade. Most can’t see it, but they all get candy handed to them through their windows, which they gratefully accept.

Well, it’s the Fourth of July in the United States of America.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

FIRE TRUCKS, AMBULANCES, PLASTIC BAGS

A couple days ago while I was editing a ZenderTalk, the fire squad and an ambulance raced down the street because a nine year-old girl here walked her bicycle across the highway five hundred yards from my office and didn’t see a truck. So the truck cut off her leg and drove three of her fingers up into her hand. The medical people put the leg in a plastic bag. I don’t know what the girl did because I have not been told. By the time the mother got to the scene, her daughter’s leg was already in the plastic bag. The mother fainted (someone told me) because her brain turned away certain oncoming images, sending blood to other body parts unburdened by sensory perception.

I woke up at 2:30 this morning in a sweat of concern about everyone’s spine. I had a bad dream about my son and a chair and a truck and his spine. God surrounded the spinal cords of humans with bone pieces, but the arrangement is hardly good enough. God forgot to pack the world with Styrofoam peanuts. So He made fire trucks and ambulances and plastic bags. And does He ever know how to divert human blood.

Never go back to sleep if you have to be disturbed in the middle of the night. I follow my own advice and get out of bed before much time passes; boiling three eggs is easier than thinking.

I had to kill a spider. He (or she) walked across the edge of the counter while my eggs boiled. It was bad timing for the spider. He or she might have lived to inject venom into the bloodstream of a family member, so I had to choose death over life for the spider. I hastened the death of spider and did not like any of it. I notice that the longer chicken eggs boil, the farther and farther away they get from the lukewarm liquid form they assumed in the uterus of the chicken. Apparently, female chickens have periods once a day. I do not know if the spider had a family. I hope not. The goo of spider life is smashed in a napkin right now. The goo had life in it (or was life), but now it does not.

The girl is in stable condition. There will be no funeral this week; the funeral men can wear their casual shoes today. The girl lost the bottom half of one leg; the leg cannot be reattached, so I guess they’ll throw it away, with or without the shoe and sock. I am going to walk down the road now and take a photograph of where the girl lay in the road bleeding to death before God sent the paramedics. I think it was also around this area where the mother fainted. You will be able to see the skid marks. The road will be bathed in morning light because I look out my window now and the new sun looks orange. The truck driver said that he would never drive a truck again. The old man who first cradled the little girl’s head walked away with blood all over him. Human blood is similar in consistency to the brown goo of spiders. The man has yet to walk across the edge of God’s counter, but his wife died twelve years ago. The spider, unfortunately, died this morning.

Many women in this world have ceased ovulating, lucky them.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

LIGHT BULBS IN WAITING: JUDAS AND THE MENNONITES

My last fitness walk occurred on Monday, May 22. On Monday, May 22, my plan to walk to Pittsburgh died like a bird against a windowpane. To put it yet another way, Monday afternoon, the twenty-second of May, 2006, became my last eight-mile ramble into the rolling countryside. God withheld His new plan for my life until I saw the sign of condemnation planted by the Mennonites.

The Mennonites. Thank you, Menno Simons. Just what we needed: another religious sect wearing strange headgear. I had always hoped that condemnation could one day smell like horse poop—alas. And thank you, Jakob Ammann, Amish patriarch, for taking the religious severity of Simons to the highest methane levels possible. Your clippity-clop testimony to the world is: “We’re pleasing God and the rest of you are going to hell in a handbasket. Can we interest you in a pie?”

Several Mennonites in this area have become fond of driving condemnatory religious signs into the fertile, flowered soils of their property. The posts are wooden and uniform of grain and girth; they are birthed, apparently, at the same shop of carpentry. The signposts are as sturdy as the cross that Simons and Ammann crucified Christ upon. The most ingenious feature of the sign is the part of the post holding the epistle itself—it’s a slot, actually—allowing for interchangeable messages of varying degrees of spiritual harm. Oh, and guilt. I almost forgot the guilt.

The menfolk in these parts pound these posts out near the road so the hell-bound, driving past, might quickly imitate the Mennos and save their souls from perdition. Some gospels I have read in the past include: ■ BE YE PERFECT ■ CEASE FROM SIN ■ THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH ■ GOD SHOWS MERCY TO THE MERCIFUL ■ GOD’S WORD: HEED AND OBEY ■ THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH.

While these self-righteous salvos—in one form or another—are scripture based, the references are divorced of context and married to the distinct scent of threat. I have not seen a positive message yet. There is nothing of what God has done for humanity. If the cross of Christ has benefited anyone, free of charge, the gratuity is not mentioned, or even hinted at. Those parts of Paul’s letters full of grace, peace, thanksgiving, and the wonders of race-wide vindication, are ignored in favor of those parts deemed by the Mennonites as favoring them and damning the rest of mankind: CEASE FROM SIN. All right, I will. Cross my heart and hope to die, I will. But can I start Monday? I’d like to enjoy the weekend.

The sign in this particular Mennonite yard—located at the two-mile mark of my round—had for months read: GOD SHOWS MERCY TO THE MERCIFUL. True enough—as it stands. But this was an Old Covenant deal between God and man, void of the present grace. The question I wanted answered—directly from the horse’s mouth, as it were—was: What happens to the unmerciful? I often dreamed of asking. In my fantasy, I knock on the Mennodoor in search of a happy sequel. A plain woman answers. Her head is covered, she is aproned, and several Amlets duck and hide behind her skirts.

“Hello,” I say. “My name is Martin Zender, a sinner. Yes, I said, a sinner. I do not even own a hoe and—God help me—I eat cream puffs on the Sabbath. I bathe daily and tumble-dry my clothes. Forgive me; bear with me; have mercy on my mustache. I have read your wonderful sign for many months now, hoping to earn my way into heaven. ‘God shows mercy to the merciful,’ says your wooden headline, and I thank you for it. You are good people, merciful people, reaching out to a sinning man like me who has never once baked a single loaf of bread or fertilized a carrot. May God have mercy upon your household and curse mine in hades, naturally. But before I depart for the underworld, I must know, from a sanctified lip that has never been rouged or glossed: what happens to the rest? What happens to the unmerciful of our sorrowful race?”

In my fantasy, the Mennoness calls up a holy humph from deep behind her epiglottis. At the same time, she snatches up a firepan and a golden snuffer from the altar of God, next to her spatula rack. She then bangs me with the firepan and smites me with the snuffer. It hurts, but I know I deserve it. It is my penance for driving a red car. The Amlets giggle, bite me in the knees, then run away to play on their acacia wood swingset. Things look dim for me, but alas, I shall not return home void.

“The rest?” says the Mennoness. “The rest?” Imitating her favorite Old Testament Prophet, the Mennoness smites me a second time. “The rest?” she says again (She says it a total of three times, the third time accompanied, in my fantasy, by the third smite of the sacred snuffer.) Three more humphs emerge, each one holier than the last.

“Why, the rest are damned for eternity,” she says, “in hell, of course. Do you not know anything?” In comes the firepan, again, to my forehead. In spite of the ensuing headache, I manage a smile. The Mennoness intends to send me away happy, and she does. She concludes her sermon with a kick to my buttock area and a verse from the book of Exodus, chapter 38, verse 22: “‘Now Belalel, the son of Uri the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the Lord had commanded Moses.’ Go and doest thou likewise!” With the slam of the door, my fantasy is sadly concluded. I have not even received a gardening tip!

Back now to Monday, May 22, just past noon. My fantasy is not only dissolved, it is dead. For in the place of the MERCIFUL sign is a new sign that makes the old sign look like a peace sign:


Dear God, Moses, Abraham, and Lot. Why me? Why must I suffer so upon this vale of tears? Is it fair that I should have been made a modern-day apostle, a sent-one, a teacher, a bearer of the glad tidings of God? A light in the midst of the darkness? A fine-tuned discerner of all things dark? And what darkness! Poor Judas, a man, set apart by God from his mother’s womb for dishonorable use, chosen by Christ Himself, possessed in the end by none other than Satan, steamrolled by the God-machine of divine inevitability, freed at last from the demonic oppression, remorseful, self-loathing, hanging himself, burst open at the belly, disemboweled, buried, only to happen upon—today—this rude disinterrment, dragged from his peaceful sleep, hung from a new tree, used, abused, his same tangled bowels rearranged upon a Mennonite signpost for the admonition of moderns who could not—ever—offend the Deity in a like manner as he.

And Acts 1:25? Dear God, take me now.

“And praying, they say, ‘Thou, Lord, Knower of all hearts, indicate one whom Thou choosest, out of these two to take the place of this dispensation and apostleship, from which Judas transgressed, to be going into his own place.”

“To be going into his own place”—a simple euphemism for the grave. To the hell seeking Mennonite, however, it is synonymous, in the case of their favorite whipping boy, with eternal separation from God. That this is their proof text exposes both the state of their scholarship and the state of their hearts.

It exposed, for me, the course of my next sixty years.

The sign affected me deeply, powerfully—not in the way the Mennonites hoped, but in a way aligned with the purposes of God.

God, my father. He has called me, in this life, to defend His character. He has no need for such human assistance, but he condescends to inspire and accept it for the sake of honoring those called to it. I defend Him neither for reward nor for honor, but because I have to. It is woe to me if I don’t. It is woe to me either way, truth be known, because I feel the heartache God feels when He sees this sign. I have sympathy pains. The message harms me. I have a problem with it. The worldly man ignores it, the religious man applauds it, but the man standing stock still now in all his useless walking gear feels it grinding in his gut.

To unscripturally condemn a man to an unscriptural hell for an unscriptural eternity is to condemn the man’s God along with him. It is to condemn the One Who created him in His own image, for His own glory. The apostle Paul said of the Jews in Romans 2:23-24, “You who are boasting in a law, through the transgression of the law you are dishonoring God! For because of you the name of God is being blasphemed among the nations, according as it is written.”

Think if Paul had met the Mennonites.

It is true that Judas Iscariot disqualified himself, relatively speaking, from the glories of Christ’s millennial kingdom. The thousand years of peace will find the human betrayer of Christ still in the grave. He will rise at the great white throne, however, to be judged and adjusted by God for his sin. This adjudication does not satisfy some divine vindictive streak. Rather, it is for Judas’s own good. Here before God’s majesty, Judas will apprehend, at last, the glories that eluded him on earth. And yet God has not appointed him to live for the eons, so he is returned to the grave: the second death. Is this the end of him? It cannot be, for God is called, in 1 Timothy 4:10, “the Savior of all mankind.” Unless He saves all mankind, the inspired appellation is a joke.

The inspired appellation—I assure you—is not a joke.

The Apostle Paul, by divine inspiration, wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:26 that, at the consummation of the eons, death is to be abolished. For those in the second death, this means deliverance into life. The Apostle John, also inspired by God’s holy spirit, quoted John the Baptist in John 1:29, “Lo! The Lamb of God Which is taking away the sin of the world.” Did he mean all the sin of the world, or all sins except that of Judas?

Take a guess.

If you can’t get it right now, don’t worry. You will. You’ll get it right eventually. You’ll figure it out in a high place on a future day when you hear a voice louder than all others praising God for His wisdom, patience, mercy, and love—and worshipping the One he necessarily betrayed—worshipping Him for His plan, His purpose, and for dying, yes, even for the likes of him.

As for me, standing and shaking before this blasphemy in flowers, I realize that I am still not doing enough. With so much darkness in the world, I must make better use of my time. There are other paths to fitness besides those requiring a quarter of a work day. It is time to reclaim the era and take God’s light into every place.

Except here. This place already thinks it has it, so its eonian course is set. So I shake the dust off my shoes, finish my walk, and devise ten new ways to publish the truth.

The Mennonites? I leave ‘em to their fantasies. Their spiritual light bulbs ain’t coming on until Judas’s does.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

THE ALTAR OF THE SINK

You want to know what happened subsequent to the Gold in the Cave Wall entry, and of course I’m going to tell you. Obviously, I am still alive. But am I solvent? Is my family once again consuming generic pancake batter?

Things got worse before they got better—I made certain of it. Whenever things head south financially, I always do the irrational thing: I give money away. I think I probably do it to give God sport. God loves the impossible, well do I know. It’s only fun for Him if He can make a feast appear from a kid’s two-bit lunch, or make lame people walk, or make blind people see. David conquering Goliath is only fun for God if David is a seventh-grader and Goliath shaves with the blunt edge of a sword (or, better yet, not at all). As long as Goliath has every conceivable physical advantage—size, sword, helmet, shield, and full medical coverage—then God is ready to go with the uninsured shepherd boy. Same with His Son. As long as Christ is pinned helplessly upon a cross with not one thing left to His name but faith, then God is ready to unleash Satan and conciliate the world to Himself.

“Become, then, imitators of God.” Galatians 5:1. Okay, God. You asked for it.

I went to a Bible study the weekend following Gold in the Cave Wall. My new paperback, The Really Bad Thing About Free Will had just returned from the printers, so I took a handful of copies of that, along with my other paperbacks, along with How to Quit Church Without Quitting God, along with my CD, Part-Time Sinner.

The hostess had not so much designed this gathering as a Bible study, but as a time when I would talk and other people would listen. I always pray before these things, acutely aware of my weakness. I know it is my weakness that God uses, not my strength. My prayer, then, is that I would always remember that.

The first time I ever addressed a public gathering, I was so scared that I knelt at the sink in the bathroom of the hall and prayed for a miracle, which ensued. Ever since then, the continuous miracle is that, when God prods me to open my mouth publicly, He grants people knowledge and understanding. I’m no longer scared because I know from experience that God speaks in spite of me not because of me, but I still put myself, mentally, at the foot of the sink.

The same thing went on at this “Bible study.”

I talked, answered questions, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The hostess served pizza, the miracles occurred in the typical nonobservable fashion (I would hear the details later), and Melody and I prepared to leave—but not before I metamorphosed into a sort of celestial Santa Claus.

I felt the urge to give away as many books as possible. So before I left, I reached into my “Santa’s bag” and pulled out copies of The Really Bad Thing About Free Will. I talked a little bit about the book, and then handed out copies. Then I did the same thing with all my other books. Everyone was laughing, because all these books kept coming out of my bag like the loaves and the fishes. As the books flew out of the bag, I said crazy things like, “Bless you, my child,” and “Your troubles are over,” and “I hope you want these, because here. Here. Here. And here.” I worked so hard I could have used a couple elves.

The hostess walked Melody and me to our sleigh and eyed me with genuine concern. “Good God, Santa,” she whispered. “You gave away a couple hundred dollars worth of books there, at least.” She knew about my situation and slipped me a twenty for the reindeer. I gratefully pocketed the bill and said, “I know. But I loved it. It was fun. It felt crazy. Ho, ho. Need a book?”

The next day, I received a check in the mail from a supporter that made me whoop right there in the kitchen. Later that afternoon, a friend I had not heard from for 4 ½ years called out of the blue to tell me that he was “back on board” and ready to assist the ministry again. The evidence of this arrived six days later, satisfying the people at the phone company, the electric company, and half the people at the mortgage joint.

God rescued me, once again, via the Body of Christ.

This cycle will repeat itself for the eon, I suppose. I would like to foresee a time when I’m comfortable, when I’m “rolling in it,” delivered from the stresses of financial free-fall and recovery. But somehow I think that God will continue to stun me with timely miracles, and provide givers—givers including myself—with even more opportunities for greater blessing. Perhaps; perhaps not. In any case, I’m still on my knees at the altar of the sink, praying for miracles. God? He’s rubbing His hands together and smiling, scanning Earth for the helpless among humanity.

© 2006 by Martin Zender