… I got up, ate breakfast with Angi, watched her take the kids on to school, sat down in front of the television and turned it on.

I didn’t usually do that, because I was still working as the Web Content Manager for the site of the Abilene Reporter-News though we had moved to Little Rock just three months before, and I had worked until about 1:30 a.m. putting the news from that day’s edition on the site from my home office.

I turned the TV on just in time to see Katie Couric get an odd look on her face and say something to the effect that there was a report of a jetliner crashing into a building in New York. Within a few seconds, there was a camera shot of smoke pouring from the side of one of the World Trade Center building.

After shaking the sleepy, shocked stupor from my head, I went to my computer and started setting up a special news page that would refresh every few minutes with the latest information, and started typing it in and uploading it as quickly as I heard it from the television in the other room.

It was behind me, and turned so that I couldn’t see it. So I was spared seeing much of what America saw happening live.

After a while, I went back to the living room and plugged in a six-hour videotape to record the disaster.

I still haven’t been able to watch it.

September 11, 2001 has left an indelible scar on everyone in the civilized world who has heard or seen what happened and is old enough to understand.

For those who lost dear ones that day, or have lost loved ones in the conflicts since then, the scar is much deeper.

The date 9-11 has become an emergency call to all of us to wake up to the danger of listening and unquestioningly obeying men who claim to speak for God, but speak words of hatred and urge actions of destruction.

The site of the WTC stands as an empty symbol of something which should be there, but is no more; an anti-landmark in tribute to the futility of prejudice against other faiths – or lack of faiths – and to the outpouring of common love and courage in the aftermath that speaks well of the human heart which remains unmoved by such prejudice.

A crater in Pennsylvania gives testimony to the power of ordinary people who would not surrender to evil, even at peril to their own lives.

And a rebuilt, identical section of obliterated Pentagon silently declares that life must go on and threats must be countered and freedom to choose wisely must always be defended.

Six years ago today, by late afternoon, I finished posting the horrific news and – emotionally spent; physically exhausted – let the next shift take over.

My day closed with a hastily-assembled prayer meeting with my church family.

We prayed for the victims. We prayed for the missing. We prayed for their families. We prayed for the rescuers. We prayed for the nation.

And in one particularly difficult and memorable prayer, we prayed for our enemies.

Then I went home, put my kids to bed and finally wept the tears I had no time for that day.

Paul:
I’m in chains, bound to You, Lord
with a ‘son’ who slaves for me
I return him to his master
Set him free
Set him free.

Break me now, break me always
when my heart’s too hard to see
that I’m the point of grace
Set me free
Set me free.

Onesimus:
I ran away from a brother
who has always enslaved me
now my ‘father’ sends me to him
Set me free
Set me free.

Break me now, break me always
when my heart’s too hard to see
that I’m the point of grace
Lord, set me free
Set me free.

Philemon:
I once owned this useless one
who now bows and offers me
a plea from my dear brother
to set him free
Set him free.

Break me now, break me always
when my heart’s too hard to see
that I’m the point of grace
Lord, set me free
Set me free.

Christians:
Enslaved to laws that showed us sin
and how our lives should be
we forged yet more such fetters
Not of Thee
Not of Thee.

Break me now, break me always
when my heart’s too hard to see
that I’m the point of grace
Lord, set me free
Set me free.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” – Galatians 5:1

Break us now, break us always
when our hearts won’t let us see
that we’re the point of grace
Lord, set us free
Set us free.

I used to blog about the spiritual side of this aging television classic; how themes of sacrifice and resurrection and redemption were common to it.

And I would be remiss in my duties as a closet fan if I didn’t point you to what might be one of the best episodes of the classic television series that you’ve probably never seen:

World Enough and Time

You probably haven’t seen it because it is only a week old.

My guess is that some of the acting will impress you; the production values with floor you; and the script may very well leave you shattered.

Grab a warp-speed Internet connection and hold on to your white-with-black-pleather Burke chair.

As Scotty says, “It gets bumpy from here.”

P.S., 9/15 – The old link has been updated to an operational one.

George Orwell’s despairing, dystopic classic makes one thing clear:

People will come to believe what you tell them if you pound it into their eyes and ears, day after day; threaten it into their hearts moment by moment. No matter how absurd your message is on its face; no matter how unproven or unprovable. Eventually, you will wear down their resistance to self-evident truth and they will come to believe it.

Whether it’s “Big Brother loves you” or “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” or “”We can’t win against terrorism unless we stay the course in Iraq” or “God detests instrumental music in worship.”

Just keep beating the drum, and people will believe. Just keep scaring them within an inch of death, and people will believe.

And you will be vindicated by all, because of course, the people are never wrong.

Then you and your Party can party like it’s 1984.

But, in the end, how does the staying power of such slogans stack up against the enduring grace of the Story?

How many of our hours are devoured by our own temporal desires at the expense of the eternal concerns of God?

How much time do we spend trying to save the lost as opposed to trying to condemn the saved?

How frequently do we turn the gospel into bad news by our bad behavior before a witnessing world?

Sorry. Just squandered a couple of hours watching The Simpsons Movie with my 14-year-old son while his mom and 11-year-old sister were watching Bratz.

Oh, the things we do for our children.

I agree with Homer in the opening moments of the film: “I think all you people are stupid for paying to see something in a movie that you could watch free on TV.”

I don’t watch The Simpsons on TV. Yup, that’s right. Never have. Not once.

But you can’t escape the promos for it if you watch the NFL on Fox, so I have a basic idea what I’m not missing.

So. Two hours of my life that I’ll never get back. And it only felt like four.

Spoiler alert: Homer escapes being lynched.

Hope I didn’t ruin the movie for you.

I haven’t blogged much recently because I’ve been out of state to take the family to see my mom, now 82. We didn’t get to last year. She’s gained two great-grandchildren in the meantime. Both of my sisters are grandma’s now. My older sister has two grandchildren, and another on the way. My younger sister has one, and her second daughter just got married, so there will probably be more.

I told my son that if he wanted to get married and have kids, that’d be great – but he needed to realize that they’ll be in diapers at the same time I am.

Spoiler alert: The bomb meant to destroy Springfield is lowered into the dome surrounding it on a rope that Homer climbs down in a pathetic attempt to save the town that hates him and tried to lynch him. He deserved it.

So I haven’t had much opportunity to blog this last week, or to keep up with my blog addiction. (Mom only has dial-up. I think I know what methadone therapy must be like now.)

But I had some time to think about some things I’d like to blog about while riding between Little Rock and Bloomington, IN and back. After I can find a way to erase The Simpsons Movie from my consciousness, I’ll try to post some.

Find your own rope. Tie a knot in the end. And hang in there.

As President Schwarzeneggar would say, “I’ll be back.”

I probably will not be able to post very much in the way of new thoughts here for the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday, I was selected to serve on a jury for a case which began today and which is docketed to last (at least) two weeks.

After these 8-hour days of listening to testimony, I will be dashing home to have a quick meal with my family before going to the office and squeezing 8 hours of work into (hopefully) no more than 3 or at worst 4 hours.

Tomorrow will be especially challenging, since new periodical postal rates have gone into effect and I can’t train someone else in the office to correctly fill out the forms for mailing the periodical that I mail each week, because I’m not sure how to do it myself.

So I beg your ongoing prayers for me as I juggle what is essentially two jobs for a while, and also for Angi as she deals with the diagnosis and treatment of some hopefully minor health concerns.

UPDATE at 9:28am Wednesday, July 18: The case was settled late last night and my fellow jurors and I were excused this morning. Thanks for your prayers on this matter, and please continue on behalf of Angi.

… make it this one:

My Friend Lost A Son.

Brian Mashburn is going into my list of must-read blogs.

You know those commercials where there are guys walking harmlessly in and out and among slow-motion automobiles while collisions and accidents are taking place all around them?

One of these days, the Allstate Insurance guy is going to back into the Mercedes-Benz guy while they are filming commercial spots at speeds approaching that of light itself, and the resulting impact will vaporize both of them.

My blogging buddy David U. has been encouraging me for months, if not years now, to write a book.

Sorry, David. This ain’t it.

But it is a work that’s designed to help you, your small group, and/or your church to study a really, really good book titled Pilgrim Heart by Darryl Tippens.

You can find it at http://www.bible.acu.edu/leafwood/pg.asp?ID=93, or by going to the Leafwood Publishers site and searching for “group guide.” It’s beautifully produced, and still priced to keep you out of the poorhouse.

And it really is a three-in-one book: a 17-week / one-quarter-year study written by Angi and me (okay, mostly by Angi), a weekend retreat study created by minister Tom Robinson and member Julie Short of Manhattan Church of Christ NY, and a 40-day congregational study by minister Steve Martin of the Tri-Valley Church of Christ in Livermore, CA.

So you could conceivably share it with your small group over a church-study quarter, and they would become enthusiastic enough to share it with their elders and church leaders over a weekend, and they in turn would share it with your church in a 40-day study, all from the same book.

All right, I’m dreaming. Yet I still think any size group (or person!) could benefit from the study of the communal spiritual disciplines that Darryl describes, over any period of time, with or without this Group Guide.

Maybe better with than without.

Angi and Darryl go way back to OCU days together. She has written several books before – textbooks in her specialty field of communication, organizational culture and conflict management – so her expertise shines in this study guide; mine is but an editing glimmer here and there. Certainly the creators of the weekend retreat and 40-day study deserve cover credit far more than I do.

So I guess I need to earn that grace gifted to me on this first publishing effort, and write something more worthy of it. I owe it to them.

And, of course, to David.

I’m not a Greek-speaker.
I don’t speak Greek.
Might make me weaker
as a seeker
But it helps to keep me meek.