Lamar Howell's Weblog

I can retire in five months
A scary thought I ought not think
But I even dream about it.
What kind of flare or fanfare –
should I dare do something outlandish?
Some offhand humor or dance routine
might doom or diminish my chance
for another career if news got out
that I’d slid down an aircraft emergency shute
with two fresh whipcream-topped frappacinos,
or used the PA system to cuss out my boss
then sweetly tell my comrades “My bad,”
that I had turned from teacher to preacher.
I could use scores of plays on words
To conceal they way I’d call them nerds
or worse, morons or automatons.
Then I would be the renegade tetragrammaton in the movie Equilibrium 
who finally admitted he had emotions
and cried when he heard Beethoven.
Then, on my way to prison I’d laugh at them slovenly plodding
to their intellectual destruction
Nodding as they sign papers they never read and commit mass-logicide,
all the while turning aside to fake a smile,
pouring caffeine down into that machine they traded in their heart for,
telling themselves ‘it’s all for the money’
and ‘it’s a deal ’cause if I die here I won’t feel it.’
Is that the job I’m leaving,
Or my twisted way of perceiving it?
I don’t know, that’s why I writing this.

THE DESTINY OF AMERICA

1

When scribes of some new century lift up the fateful quill

To record in novel tongues of what good fortune, or grave ill

defined our nation’s tenure as the leader of the world

Of the accolades that followed, or the curses that were hurled

and the meaning of the silence when that final flag unfurled

2

They’ll tell of those who longed to call her cherished borders home

Like ancient generations venerated Greece or Rome.

Or will they sigh of how it rotted like a decadent empire?

Or perchance, the noble nation—in one final blaze of fire,

chose instead to be a martyr among nations, then expire

3

They’ll speak of how two destinies ran strong and parallel

within the country’s psyche, and how both should bode them well

The first great vein was love for God, the other love for gold

like two rivers: one pragmatic, one prophetic—which  foretold

the conflicts in our culture as our narratives unfold

4

They may write of three small clippers, and the isle of Salvador

Sing the praises of Columbus, or his legacy abhor

Will they see the island natives’ thirst for blood at Navidad,

or call the Spaniards murderers in the name of some new god

and the gold prospector mixed with priest as normal, or as odd?

5

They’ll concede the Mayflower Puritans were those who chose to act

with government subordinate to God in said compact.

Or will they vilify the Puritans as too puritanical,

then call the Holy statutes they obeyed tryannical

and citizens who tried to hold to those ideals fanatical?

6

Accounts of English settlements that bore the monarch’s name

such as Jamestown, where the gentry soiled their tender hands in shame

How their charter to make money from the New World was embraced

yet the part to bring the gospel to the savages erased

and belief in national destiny laughed at and effaced

7

They will honor Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening,

Allude to Wesley’s hymn O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing

And write of how George Whitefield brought the gospel to the slave.

Or they’ll mock the great revival as sensational and fake

and its  role in revolution simply censure and berate

8

They will pen the great rebellion from the British motherland

As King George damning those Yankees as a renegade young band,

Or they will see the first Americans as patriots and strong

And their independence ire countering despotism’s wrong –

their triumphs and their sacrifices codified in song

9

Will they read the Negro spirituals in the style of Amazing Grace

As the triumph of the spirit of a noble battered race?

Recount the trial of Phyllis Wheatley poems to statesmen of her day

And tell how politicians doubted her to Massachusett’s shame,

Or will they use the cause of slavery to justify or blame?

10

The scholars of the future may regard our Civil War

As a rip within the fabric of the glory that we wore.

Or they’ll paint the American psyche with a dark-pigmented stain

And call the act of state secession pure commercial gain,

Or conclude that thus enslaving our own brothers was insane

11

They’ll pen volumes of the global wars our men were called to fight

Admit that freedom was worth defending, and America did it right

Or they’ll call us ‘ugly Americans’ though all we ever asked

was land enough to bury those who died there in the task

to stop the spread of tyranny and its evil face unmask.

12

They may view this current century as a time of great excess

and it’s people spoiled by government and enslaved by selfishness

Or they will they see the American character that rose from New York dust

And carved on granite mountainsides In Christ Alone We Trust!

and that patriots saved the republic by great sacrifice and guts

13

Each nation has its destiny but some more nobly called

This was our mandate, this our place in time and history’s halls

This was our charge, our sacred duty within two vast and distant shores

We judge ourselves, but our descendants judge us even more

as either those who fought and won, or as those who dropped the torch

14

We solemnly swear and vow by our love for this the United States

That our conscience has been laid bare here, our soul scored and displayed

That we will give our heart, our breath, bone marrow, and our lives

To guard our sacred values so our freedoms can survive,

And leave the scorn or the eulogy for posterity to decide

Epilogue

When the tides of history ebb and flow then sweep the sands away

There remains the fateful hourglass to measure out the day,

to capture in its curv-ed glass some justice roguish grains,

then weigh them in the balance and toss them out again

Onto a stretch of some forgotten beach and countless sands.

After God made the world, supplied it, got it to spinning at the right speed at just the right distance from the sun, he initiated the population, told them all about himself, enjoyed their company. You know the rest.

They rebelled because of great and justifiable complications, the chief one being pure reckless daring and teenage hormonal bravado. So he had to put some distance between them like any parent would do to an out-of-control child: pad their walls, put on some loud music to drown them out, and generally rock and ignore them till their energy had run out.

After a few generations of wildlife on a pristine planet, the natives pretended God was gone and their children even forgot there was  a God.

So God had a plan: he decided to come down and visit every single  person to show them he was real. He did so at every child’s birth, again when the children reached puberty, on their wedding day, and at other important events, like the moments just before they died. He wanted to be there to hold them in that final passage.

At first, he appeared in a body like the one he had given to the people, so as not to scare them. He introduced himself as God, made gifts appear, warts disappear and other things God-like. But after a few rounds of this, the people started thinking of him as a freak – you know, that old bearded man who never dies. What’s up with him? Didn’t our grandfathers tell us about him? So, they told him not to come interrupt their lives, that he was weirding them out.

Well, God had a second idea: He would come to the people as a spirit with a form, a kind of floating cloud-like humanoid with a voice and a unique translucence. This worked. The people accepted him at first and then they explained him to their children.

“Johnny, this is God the Creator. He loves us and we need to love him and listen to what he says”

At first, he was welcomed, but as time went on his appearing became ordinary and his presence turned rather unimposing. The new people explained him to their children in a matter-of-fact way, like he had always been there, and as far as they knew, he had. Generations went by, with God still hanging around, and humans became more inquisitive about the workings of nature, the origin of thunder, the properties of light, the composition of dirt, etc. These men of learning and their pupils eventually explained everything and kept studying what they did not understand. They began to study the phenomenon of God. They finally figured him out.

Here was their theory: Everyone on earth carries a certain chemically-produced aura about them, and it is mostly invisible. This genetic quality is passed down generationally. But because of the emphasis people put on certain events and passages of life, that aura gets stronger at times and creates an energy field that is visible. People project into that energy field their highest hopes and dreams, their supreme joys and ultimate expressions of destiny, and subconsciously, their ancestral belief systems.  So God became known as an energy field, something like the aurora borealis or a rainbow, and after a while he became such a part of the scenery that he was held in no higher esteem than mist, fog, or even air.

That’s how God failed his GRE.

CHURCHILL DOWNS DERBY
We have a great track for the race today, and a strong field of competitors..

AND . . . THEY’RE OFF!!

We All Fall Down and Promise Keeper vying for an early lead on the inside, on the outside beside them is Anointing Junkie

Name It Claim is right up there, and Elijah List has some speed on the inside

Fifth place is Every Wind of Doctrine, just ahead of The Prayer of Jabez

Left Behind Series runs along in 7th, Word of Faith and Fasting TV hugging the rails.

Personal Intercessor and Purpose-Driven Life lagging behind on the outside

Forerunner in 11^th

They move into the far turn and

Personal Intercessor is launching from the inside

Dance In The River is firing too

Farther back down on the rail is Laughing Revival

At the back of the pack now beginning to move up is Contemplation Techniques

Seeker Sensitive is also there toward the back

Far behind them all are Sound Doctrine along with Promise Keeper

It’s a tightly packed bunch as they move into the far turn.

It’s still the filly We All Fall Down in front

but on the outside Left Behind Series.

He is the longshot here, jockey Jerry Jenkins asking him for a little bit more.

Every Wind of Doctrine is now 5^th, The Prayer of Jabez 4^th, Word of Faith Coming up on the outside

Dance In the River threads himself through horses

Laughing Revival is beginning to come alive now, he is 7^th on the outside

It’s We All Fall Down and  Name It Claim It

as the field turns for home

At the top of the stretch it’s  We All Fall Down in the lead

Word of Faith is bolting for the lead.

Down toward the inside, coming on through

That is . . . Sound Doctrine!

Has come on to take the lead as they come down to the finish in a spectacular upset

Sound Doctrine has won the 2010 Church Downs Derby!

An impossible event here

And a three-way photo finish for Word of Faith, We All Fall Down, and Name It Claim it. Laughing Revival took fifth.

Sound Doctrine’s jockey has done it again.

God, I’m not sick-enough of being mediocre

Mildly tired of eating like an ogre

Wee-bit weary of being green and uncouth

Nailing up -isms and warm half-truths

Getting nauseated by drinking swamp water

Berating myself for not thinking what I ought’a.

Lately Lord,

Prayer has been like holding my breath

underwater then I’m gasping,

coming up grateful for nothingness.

It’s the yellow light at an intersection

A pause for light-speed inner reflection

Or a slam on the brakes, then a hesitation.

It’s the rich smell of tobacco drying in a barn

But once smoked, I choke for trying forewarned.

Prayer is coffee beans fresh from the ground

But then comes the roasting and that grinding sound!

It’s the soap bubbles blown with childish glee

Which burst –  pptt!  atmospherically.

One day, though, I’ll hold my breath more,

set up a tent under a semiphore

drink Kopi Luwak coffee and laugh at what’s in it

Then blow soap bubbles a mile a minute.

Give up?

Shrek no!

Amen.

This message is being exhaled and

transmitted on every frequency known,

in low gutteral sighs and high undulating mega-hurts Continue Reading »

Friends

I earnestly invite you go to to my facebook and look at the event “Neither Buy Nor Sell on the Anniversary of Roe v Wade.”  I could do a whole treatise on abortion – actually I have. It is on here “There Will Be Blood.”

Justice, justice, you shall pursue! was the mandate to the judges of Israel (Deuteronomy 16:20).

In America now, it is all about the economy. Not about protecting the unborn, prayer in schools, the sanctity of marriage, right and wrong. Everything is eclipsed by money matters. So, in order to get the attention of Americans, particularly policymakers and the media, we must make abortion about the economy.

Wisdom cries out in the streets. It doesn’t whine in the pews like we’ve heard for 30 years.  If we love God, justice, and the weak and helpless enough, we will make our voice heard in the marketplace, or die there as the martyrs of old did, Continue Reading »

I remember once, as an adult, taking him out into the country to buy a special knife for peeling strips of wood from white oak saplings. I wanted my dad to teach me how to weave wooden baskets, like he used to do when I was a kid. But my dad was too feeble and his fingers were no longer nimble. “I just can’t do it anymore, son.” I know it hurt him to have to apologize and disappoint me. The irony of that is in this next story.

I was at a men’s conference once and we all stood in a circle. The leader said everyone had to say something positive that they got from their dad’s influence. As testimonies made their way around the circle, I had to leave the room. I didn’t have anything to say that I got from my dad, anything beneficial. About a month later, I was doing something with woodworking, and the Holy Spirit said to me, “You got your love for wood from your dad.” I had never put that together, but God did, because only God could think of something I got from my dad.

Why am I telling you this? Because it is healing me. I suddenly realize that in that desperate moment when my dad tried to teach me to make wooden baskets, he imparted to me a love for wood. It was imparted in weakness, feebleness. It was given to me apologetically, through resignation and a father’s shame. But, it was imparted nonetheless. Just like Jesus, when he imparted forgiveness, belonging, and grace from the Father. He did so from the cross, in weakness and in public shame, and perhaps with a strange tinge of resignation — “It is finished”. And that, my friend, is the impartation that matters most.

Whether we  deny it or affirm it, America is under God’s jurisdiction. We are his property, so to speak.  This argument can be strongly supported by three indisputable facts.

The Legal Authority

King James I commissioned the Virginia Charter in 1607. It stated that the second purpose of the Virginia Colonies (all property in the New World England was laying claim to) was to bring the message of Christ to the natives of the land. (www.lonang.com/exlibris/organic/1606-fcv.htm). This document and mission constituted the legal claim that America was established as a nation under God’s authority.

The Civil Authority

The second reason America is subject to God is because of the actions of the colonists who drew up the Mayflower Compact, which is unquestionably accepted by historians as this nation’s first governmental document. The Mayflower Compact basically says that the colonizing of the Virginia colony (America) was to give fame to God and advance Christianity, and that the new government was created to serve those purposes as well as to insure a civil society. The people, acting in concert with solemn purpose, had the civil authority to establish a contract with God for the new nation, and that is precisely what they did.

The Spiritual Authority

The third reason America belongs to God is because of what transpired on the coast of Virginia on April 29, 1607. Robert Hunt, chaplain of  the Jamestown settlers, planted a cross in the sand at Cape Henry beach. In so doing, he signaled that the church was using her spiritual authority to dedicate the new land to God. (Guide to Military Institutions. Craig, Dan. Mechanicsburg, PA Stackpole Books, p.248, 1977)  http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/the-reverent-robert-hunt-the-first-chaplain-at-jamestown.htm). The colonists essentially gave God the spiritual authority to do as he pleased with the new nation.

In conclusion, God has a legal, civil, and spiritual claim to America. He did not take that authority by power alone, or by innate right. It was given to him deliberately, definitively, and irrevocably by the people.

There is a spiritual principle at work here. Anything that is dedicated to God must be given completely for God’s purposes. The reason this message is so urgent to us now is because of the unattractive alternative: if something is dedicated and misused, then it must be destroyed.

This, my friend, is why God has blessed America for over four centuries. Dare we fail him now?

Consider the following official attitude of the United States toward our perennial friend Israel:

ABC News’ Karen Travers and Simon McGregor-Wood report:

Vice President Joe Biden issued a strongly worded statement tonight [March 9, 2010] condemning Israel’s plan to build 1,600 new settlement homes in the disputed area of east Jerusalem just as efforts got underway to kickstart Middle East peace talks. Continue Reading »