Lamar Howell's Weblog

Americans must get back to carrying out the 2nd part of the original Virginia charter: evangelization of the heathen. We are destined to take the gospel to the world, starting here. When public proclamation of the Truth becomes illegal in the US, we must not back down. Sadly, so few Christians publicly declare the gospel while they can.

One principle we should be very uncomfortable with is this: either we scatter throughout our nation and the world with the gospel, or we will be scattered as refugees. Either way, we will be sent out into the world. What will you choose?

This is your invitation

into my house in the hill

I’ve a wide entryway

“OPEN”

reads my welcome mat,

it says that I need to be known

I live in my cozy hole in the ground

with windows, and a door that’s round

like a hobbit’s door

Inside there’s bread

and Earl Grey tea

And a table on a dirt floor

It’s just you and me

in sacrosanct underground communion

Learning secrets by disclosure

Unveiling

Finding friendship by exposure

to another, other ways to see life

Listening, stopping, pouring, watching

Breaking bread now and again

Nodding our heads and saying “hmm”

Trimming wicks in oil lamps

Warming up the damp

of the hobbit-hole

Opening the round door again

To let more light from the full moon in

It’s my door, round and wide

To let you – Oh yes –

and your baggage inside.

America asked for change. That change was undefined. We are getting change and we hope it will be for the better. What the President and Congress are doing – extending federal power over many aspects of our lives – doesn’t disturb me as much as the sentiment I feel all around me: People seem to be welcoming the power of the state to solve their problems. We seem to have a strange vengeful taste for economic fairness.

Equality is a value that is held dearly by Americans. It seems to have trumped freedom itself. If we choose equality over liberty, we may all be equal – except of course for those who mandate our equality – but I am sure it will be a miserable equality.

My hope is that such a state of oppression will ignite a cry for a return to  values of honoring the family, virtuous moral choices,  and true spirituality.

Friday the doctor will biopsy the man’s liver

by running a line down a vein in his neck

To check for fat, pressure, and damage

Like the Borg on Star Trek.

Last year the doctor checked his heart

by running a tube up an artery in his thigh

To check for plaque or rhythm

He got a comforting word from Lamentations:

“You have pierced my thigh with your arrows.”

(Sounds like a syringe and needle)

He needs a scripture for the liver thing

Like, “God delivers” maybe.

How they will take the pressure – in pounds or kilos

Since when do livers give off pressure?

Next year, they want to check his brain

By running a tube through a capillary in his backside

Is  there a scripture for that?

If there is no pressure there, they will pump some in

Then check for signs and synapses

In ten years, the tubes will be wireless.

THE VAULT

I saw Big Brother’s secret guarded vault

Where all things sacred to our hearts are kept

We gave them up by logic or default

By silence, or by dreaming as we slept.1

He locked them there on grounds it kept us “free

from tyranny’s religious rule,” he said.

He did it to fulfill the Court’s decree,2

but never told us where the hallways led.

He started with the Bible’s Holy truth:

He called it dangerous, then placed it there –

in case it might contaminate our youth

with Psalms of praise or maybe the Lord’s prayer.

Then like an Executioner he stood

with Ten Commandments on the chopping block.

We couldn’t see the irony for the hood-

that iron can break so easily through rock.3

We sewed his hood with threads of our own flag.

The rest we used to make our Warden’s cloak.4

Now we salute him oft’ and proudly brag

about the Guard who wields the lawful stroke.5

Then down the darkened hollow wells he tossed

our manuscripts of great antiquity.

The records of our heritage now lost-

Our sacred truths, and moral history.6

He ignored how generations measure time7

by the stroke of Jewish blood across a board,8

and denies that history’s concluding sign

Is drawn not with a pen but with a sword.9

Then from his jangling keys our Guardian State

Removed two bands of covenanted gold10

And made a mockery of man and mate

By locking matrimony in the hold.11

Still feigning love for earth and living things

while making bloody graves of mothers’ wombs,12

he takes our sacrifices – sighs – then slings

life’s sanctity down deep forgotten rooms.13

Our forebears all lie quiet in the grave

as we fulfill their unimaginable fears14

by sacrificing all they died to save,

yet stand with fatted fingers in our ears.15

Let God my helper be, with all the saints

To prove those pillars false, those doors a lie,16

and honor Him whose justice never faints

I pledge my life, if pledging it means die!17

 epilogue:

Our conquerers, when sifting the remains

of this grave palace, on its broken shelves 18

Will find the faded cloak, the hood, the chains . . .19

And a plaque that reads They did this to themselves.

1 apathy

2 Supreme Court decisions

3 Iron is authoritarianism, rock is God’s law

4 we sacrifice freedom for security

5 state becomes all-powerful and we devote ourselves to it

6 denigration of great leaders and moral literature

7 BC/AD Before Christ, Anno Domini (in the year of our Lord)

8 Crucifixion of Christ

9 Denial of Judgment of God

10 State subordinates institution of marriage

11 State degrades institution of marriage

12 State sponsorship of abortion

13 State sanctioning of abortion

14 Loss of the sacred trust of our freedom

15 Our denial of any responsibility

16 Protect freedom, uphold God-given rights

17 Martyrdom

18 Palace is the United States; broken shelves means our failure to know and preserve our history

19 Faded cloak and hood – the flag; the chains –  unjust laws

In Alexander Dumas’ book The Count of Monte Cristo someone said that King Louis XVI’s followers had commmitment, dedication, and enthusiasm, but that those qualities were not enough. Napoleon’s followers had those qualities and one more: fanaticism. And that is why they would triumph.

Fanaticism implies a willingness to die for one’s ideals. That is something Christians in America do not have. It is indeed something radical Muslims have, and it will take only one act of terror to strike fear into ordinary American citizens, and the threat of further terror to galvanize America into a police state.

American Christians have no antidote for this because they see Christianity as a cozy sub-culture rather than an over-arching worldview which will shape the values of our future as a nation. We have chosen co-existence with other religions rather than obedience to evangelize their adherents, so we have lost the war already. It is only a matter of time before the prevailing sentiment will be “tolerate all, offend none,” a view which will be promoted, and eventually enforced, by shadowy government watchmen.

Economics and politics will not be the final determiner in this nation’s future. Any nation’s future is shaped by either religious or anti-religious ideology. In a time of crisis, ideology based on one’s deepest beliefs about morality will always triumph over consumerism and hedonism, even political expediency.  That is why Islam will have the effect of paralyzing Americans with fear. Islam as a religion may not prevail numerically, but it will be the wrench that will bring freedom’s machinery to a screeching, sudden, and permanent halt.

We could change all this if we would take it seriously. I pray that we will.

Postscript:

Last year I had a closed vision while attending a church service. I saw a great eagle flying with resolute purpose and pride across the Atlantic toward Great Britain. Instantly a huge lion stood up in England and let out a terrifying and long roar toward the eagle. The eagle stopped in mid-air, turned back toward the US mainland, and with alarm and a fearful eye flew rapidly back to the east coast. As it moved over the mainland to the center of the nation, arrows flew up toward the eagle from every state in continental United States. The eagle lifted its wings and flew up to a high mountain out of sight, hidden from the inhabitants. I somehow knew the eagle would be hidden for a long indeterminate period of time.

LITTLE SHEPARD BOY

Do you fear what I fear?

Said the little lamb to the Shepard boy

Listen to what I say

Stay out of those bars, Shepard boy

Listen to what I say

Don’t you hit on mean, redneck guys

Those with tattoos and a scruffy beard

Those with tattoos, and a scruffy beard

Said the little lamb to the Shepard boy

Do you see what I see?

Being hailed thoughout the Congress halls

Do you see what I see?

A law, a law, codifying sin

And creating a new protected class

And creating a new protected class

Note: I feel sorry for Matthew Shepard, who needed a father and not sex. Too bad that Congress in their misplaced compassion exploit his death in order to promote a dangerous hate-crimes bill. I wish our society would go after the real problems, lack of fathering,   instead of insuring people in their bondage and insulating them from any true freedom.