ANCIENT SPACE TRAVEL

I forgot to tell you yesterday about the conversation I had with a 22 year-old young man as I was driving to Fairfax, Virginia. I am still in Fairfax, by the way, but will be pulling out for Pennsylvania in my trusty Mountaineer later this afternoon. It has been a wonderful, rewarding visit.

This young man I’d never spoken to or heard from emailed me last week, wanting to speak with me about a particular trial he was undergoing. There were personal issues between him and his girlfriend, with spiritual undertones. I called him on the way to Fairfax. I can’t and won’t disclose details, but will say that simply talking to this young man brought home a new aspect of God’s use of me.  

God carefully planned and (it seemed to me) cruelly executed my trials of the past five months. But God is only loving. His love, I knew, came full of reason, yet I was unable to look that reason in the face due to the pain of the trial. But now, from a better height above the flood, I can see and feel inner changes. I’ve a deeper grasp now of human nature and particular brands of suffering that can only help me help others in similar, or near straits. I have always been empathetic, but never quite able to stress the third syllable: empathetic. Now I can. This change reaches my bedrock and ripples surface waters. Some listeners are hearing it in my audio show, they tell me. I know I’m still gallivanting, vocally, but there’s some added bass—metaphorically speaking—to the broadcasts. I do feel something is different.  

                                                                        *  *  *

Doug and Maggie.

Imagine being asked if you like bacon and eggs. So that was breakfast yesterday, the standard, glorious American fare of champions. I even celebrated the new day by drinking Doug’s caffeinated coffee, again, which was so strong it ate through the bottom of the mug. I quit coffee last year and stayed quit, making the occasional high-octane offering that much more exciting and f-f-f-f-fun.

Doug drove us to his work. I would like to tell you I know exactly what the physicist Douglas Witherspoon does in this building, but I do not. No clue, friends. Though he explained it to me thoroughly, I know nothing about anything, except that everything boggled my poor mind.  All I know is that, Doug and his co-workers are going to a lot of trouble for something stupendous. It has to do with plasma, and with some very powerful plasma jets moving at ridiculously high speeds to do extremely naughty things with the plasma—things that are so goddamn dangerous they cause the workers who made it all happen take refuge in a steel hut with zero windows that may or may not protect them should some sort of calamity occur such as—oh, I don’t know—a large explosion.

Whatever Doug is holding here, is magnificent and just a little naughty.

Doug knows exactly what this thing does.

Here are lots of wires.

There will be a pop quiz.

                                                             *  *  *

Someday, we, the members of the body of Christ, will fly. We will fly off to heaven, through the atmosphere, the stratosphere, the ionosphere, the craposphere, and the Western Hemisphere. In the meantime, we have ancient space travel devices to marvel at (they will be ancient from our future, celestial perspective)—and marvel at them, I did.

Doug took me to the Air & Space Museum Annex, which is an adjunct to the main museum downtown (D.C.), located next to Dulles International Airport. I’ve visited the main museum a half dozen times, but have never been here. As soon as I walked into the gigantic place, flight massaged my soul. The place smelled and looked and tasted like fast flight into air and space: my future.  

Stand next to the space shuttle Discovery, and stare. Be in awe of it. Wish that at least one part of it could talk. Stand beneath it, look up, and fellowship with the thousands of mute heat shields. Try to imagine what the underbelly of this vehicle underwent while the rest of us slept or did inane things. Imagine the re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, glowing red, these very tiles protecting the pilots and crew from fiery death. Be happy for the retirement of this workhorse; it rests now. This is its retirement home, at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, next to Dulles International Airport. But the glory—my God, the glory. And the suffering. And the patience. And the Discovery.

This was the first shuttle to fly after the Challenger disaster. The Challenger disaster, in 1986, buried me in mourning. The bravery of the astronauts, the hopefuls on the ground looking up, the twin contrails of exploding SRB’s, the crew cabin plummeting, intact, miles and miles into a concrete wall of ocean; it stayed with me for weeks. Part of me still hasn’t shaken it.

Back into space. September 29, 1988

I was sitting in my car on my lunch break (postal service) in Willard, Ohio, on September 29, 1988, listening to the launch of the first shuttle mission (the “Return to Flight”) since Challenger. This was the first shuttle flight with an escape plan. The nation and world momentarily stopped breathing as the main rockets ignited. Up went our hopes and dreams—into the blue, Florida sky. I will never forget the announcer at the cape saying, “Now, at 10 miles per second.” I wept for the power and majesty. It was Discovery. I did not realize, until yesterday, standing next to the silent soldier, that this was the one that had made me cry. 25 years later, I am paying it homage.

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is nuts. In 1990 the military retired it in a blaze of glory as it set the transcontinental speed record from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. (last stop, Smithsonian museum), with an elapsed time of 64 minutes. Say what? I dare anyone to eat peanuts and pretzels on that flight, or page through a People magazine. The SR-71 averaged 2,144 miles per hour, glowing red at Mach 3+. Jesus. I remembered hearing the news story. Apparently, it was all true. Here’s the beast that set the record.

*  *  * 

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. We told the Japanese we were going to do it. All they had to do was surrender. No one likes atomic bombs, including myself. But we did tell them. I suppose they could not imagine it. They just couldn’t find it in themselves to surrender. Human pride will kill you—on both sides. We shortened the war and saved thousands upon thousands of lives when Paul Tibbets opened the bomb bay. The price was great. The men in the plane pulled a lever and got away hard. I don’t know if they ever saw photographs. I say they refused look. I contend that, for the rest of their lives, the men could never, ever, look at the photographs.

The bomb bay.

Doug’s youngest daughter Catherine is smart, funny, beautiful, and spins a mean rifle for a color guard group at her school. Here she is with a practice rifle. 

It didn’t go off, thankfully, and no one was killed. Sunny skies and warm temperatures (is it really December?) facilitated this demonstration in front of a pine tree.

Stand around in a kitchen long enough while supper cooks, and things are bound to happen. Laura returned for supper, and the four of us (Laura, Maggie, Doug and me), launched into a Scripturefest. (Well, it was mostly me.) Laura asked great questions and is inherently distrustful (what I meant to say is, “she can’t stand”) organized religion. This set me off in bursts of hearty concurrence, and I think there was much shrapnel of blessing which shall reverberate throughout the universe in the years and eons to come.

© 2012 by Martin Zender

OFF TO FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA

I headed off in the Mountaineer at 7:30 yesterday morning, saying good-bye to Clyde and Clyde Lynn in the driveway. I am going to miss those guys, and everyone at the Pilkington’s. True, I am only leaving for a couple days, but this place and the people inhabiting it have become near and dear to me. This would be my first foray into the wilds since arriving here nearly two months ago. True, I drive into Johnstown every other day, but Johnstown doesn’t really qualify as “the wilds,” that is, unless you count the Dollar General store near the Pasquerilla Fountain. I’d be launching toward Fairfax, Virginia, and the home of Doug Witherspoon.

It rained nearly the whole way, which I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I liked it. It always feels good to be headed off on an adventure of the evangelistic variety, no matter what the weather. Inclement weather only adds to the Pauline nature of the excursion. It’s not exactly a day and a night in a swamp, but I do what I can.

Doug wanted me to come down for several reasons. First, there is no ecclesia here in the near vicinity with which he can fellowship, and he loves to study and talk about God. Second, he wanted me to meet his wife and two daughters and perhaps share some grace with them about the apostle of grace.

I had not been to a Bob Evans restaurant in months. Everybody knows that I’m a “down on the farm” kind of guy, so Bob Evans is one of my favorite places to eat. (You folks out west don’t have them—sorry about that. I guess it’s a good thing you don’t realize just what kind of bacon you’re missing, so I will not tell you how delicious it is.) I couldn’t resist, then, when a Bob Evans restaurant presented itself en route, somewhere in Maryland. This particular store was a combination Bob Evans Restaurant/Disco, so here I am at a table, as seen through the LSD lens of my little Samsung camera.

I got here a little past noon. Doug is a great guy. I’d never met him, but he has helped me publish the good news for a couple years now. I’m telling you, Doug could hardly wait to start in on the Word. He hung up my coat and then—bang—we were in the living room going over a list of questions he’d jotted down on his ever-present yellow notepad.

Doug is a physicist with an inquiring mind (sorry for the redundancy). He applies his same practical sense and desperate wanting-to-know disposition to the Scriptures as he does to science. Scripture and true science, we know, go together like bacon and LSD; at least, I hope you would know this.

People like Doug think so deeply and thoroughly that their questions invariably touch gray areas in the teaching lying ever in the periphery, but rarely addressed. While we were talking, Doug had me scratching furiously onto my now ever-present yellow notepad, giving me great ideas for future articles and talks. Listen to some of the questions, answers, and more questions we dug into:

1) Are there names in the Book of Life? When does Job resurrect to life? How about Adam? Abraham? None of these men were Israelites. Isn’t the former resurrection only for Israelites? Where is the Paradise Jesus mentioned to the thief on the cross? Is it on the millennial earth, or the New Earth?

2)  The title “Christ” occurs in 1 Corinthians 15:22 and 23, but in verse 28, Christ becomes “the Son.” Will we always be in the body of Christ, or does the appellation “Christ” disappear, for us and Him, when He is no longer anointed for the task completed here at the end of 1 Corinthians 15?

3) The universe is big. Jesus Christ is not omni-present, and therefore cannot be everywhere. Does He not delegate authority during the Millennium? Does He not delegate it to the twelve, who act in His name? That made me think: Do not the members of His body act in the same capacity among the celestials? Are not our words, His? Are we not Christs? In a figurative sense, then, when the beings of the upper realms address us, are they not, by extension, addressing Him?

4) This made me think, Will King David outrank the twelve in Jerusalem during the Millennium? Since God promised David the throne, will he rule perfectly in Christ’s stead in accord with the Melchizedek priesthood, allowing Jesus Christ to be physically elsewhere? Could the rule be so perfectly in accord with Christ that the statement could be made of David, as a figure of association: “Christ rules in Jerusalem”?

6) Can Satan affect our thoughts directly, or can he only crash circumstances, which in turn affect our thoughts? In other words, does God protect us from satanic incursions directly into our brains?

5) What exactly will we be doing among the celestials? Will we be emissaries there, much as the 144,000 are emissaries in Israel? The 12,000 from every tribe carry kingdom edicts abroad during the Millennium. Might not we do the same among the heavenly host?

6) What time, exactly, is dinner, Doug? I smell something delicious in the kitchen. Is that, possibly, the slow-cook chicken you mentioned earlier? Is that what the crock pot is all about? Shouldn’t we be getting the rice on the stove? Opening a bottle of wine, perhaps?

Doug’s oldest daughter, Laura, stopped over for dinner. She is a graduate student at George Mason University, and perfectly charming. It would be just us three for dinner, as Doug’s wife Maggie had taken the train—some kind of train—to Philadelphia on business for the day, and his younger daughter, Catherine, was away until ten at a school function.

I shall procure photos of Maggie and Catherine tomorrow. There is also a rumor that I shall be visiting Doug’s work, and also the Air & Space museum annex, which I am told contains the Enola Gay (the plane that unleashed atomic hell upon Hiroshima), and the space shuttle Discovery, which has been into the celestial realm about thirty times more than I have.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, from which fares forth the seed-plot of a one-world government, which government may or may not contain a Dollar General near the Pasquerilla Fountain in Johnstown.  

© 2012 by Martin Zender

“COMPANY’S HERE!”

One of the best things about living here at the Pilkington home is all the company we get. People literally show up with lists of Scriptural questions, and most of the time they get answers and a good meal to boot. Other people just want to hang out, but we feed them anyway.

A few days ago, Win Allabough of Linden, PA came into town with his wife Diane for a little bit of everything. A little bit of everything is what they got.

(Click to enlarge photos.)

Win is one of the stars of a film we made recently, which we hope to release this Saturday. He plays the psychoanalyst of a man (me) who is crazy enough to believe everything God's Word says about him.  

The next afternoon, Stephen Hill drove in from DuBois, PA. Steve is the author of “Making the Most of the Bible,” published by Bible Student’s Press. Steven has two really smart and fun kids, Arianna and Jake. 

Two nights ago, a man named Bill Morgart came over for a visit, and he, Clyde, Clyde Lynn, Nathan, Aaron Locker and myself, enjoyed a two-hour Bible study at the giant dining room table that could have sat King Arthur and his knights. (If only the table had been round.) I forgot to take a photo of the actual Bible study (I'll do it next time), but here is a photo of Bill. (He may be calling his wife to tell her he's just been appointed to the order of the Knights of the Square Table):

Going back in time, Thanksgiving was lots of fun. The weather was great: sunny, with temps in the low 70's.  Aaron Locker’s brother-in law, Ozzie (a Turkey native; how appropriate for Thanksgiving), and I, played a game where we threw a Nerf-type football at each other as hard as we could (that is, until our arms practically broke), at a distance of only ten feet. The first one to make five catches (without breaking a finger or thumb) won. Here are some photos of the epic competition. (I also competed with Aaron but, regrettably, all photos except the winning catch (see below) were confiscated by the Windber police.

Ozzie loads.

Ozzie fires.

Zender fires.

A great spectator sport.

Zender makes winning catch against Aaron Locker.
(Football is actually moving at 800 miles per hour.)

 Here is a group photo from Thanksgiving:

(Again, all photos can be enlarged by clicking.)

The weather was so great on Monday afternoon, December 4, that we all had a picnic lunch on the driveway with, you guessed it, more visitors. This picnic was facilitated by the fact that the freezer blew its fuse over the weekend (we just discovered it Monday morning), and much meat was in danger of spoiling. Averse to the thought of spoiling meat, and being voracious carnivores, we had us a good old-fashioned Pennsylvania meatfest. Here is a ground-level shot of the meatfest:

Here is an aerial view:

We decided to go to the park later. The boys in the back seat are getting a little raucous:

Zender, Nathan Pilkington, Jason Pilkington, Clyde Lynn Pilkington
(In the back seat, Jason's son Percival.)

"Dad, are we there yet??"

Fun on the swings with Clyde and Martin.

Clyde Lynn photographed me on Tuesday doing my Internet show:

We have hired a really nice girl to start cataloging thousands upon thousands of books for the online bookstore. These books have been waiting a long time to be catalogued, because we keep picking up thousands of free books from libraries in Pennsylvania, namely the Altoona library, and, more recently, the library at Tyrone. (You have not lived until you have driven to the Tyrone library in a Ryder truck with Clyde Pilkington. I wish I’d taken photos of that adventure; next time, I will.) Anyway, here is Heather. She is sitting at my desk in this photo, but will soon have her own little office next to Nathan’s shipping department:

Heather commandeering my desk.
(Clyde's desk directly behind; Clyde Lynn's office in back room.)

Someday soon, I will give you a video tour of our work area. I promise.

Ozzie and his wife Becka (Aaron Locker’s sister) visited last night, with their son Aydin:

Jason and Nathan had a good time, too.

Aaron loves his nephew.

Clyde Lynn and I rounded out last evening with night shots of 410 Bedford Street. This is where we all work. (I live in the house to the right, at 412; sorry, no Christmas lights, and no photo for now.)

Tomorrow (Friday) I drive to Fairfax, Virginia, for fellowship with a long-time supporter, Doug Witherspoon. He has invited me to fellowship with his family, and to share the great truths of God. I have never met him, but am looking forward to spending three days with Doug and his family. I will report from there this weekend, complete with photos. Can't wait!

Until then, grace and peace.

Martin

© 2012 by Martin Zender