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When I was ten years old, I lived across the street from Marky Messner, who became my daily playmate once our parents deemed us mature enough to leave the front porch to pursue neighborhood adventures. One hot July evening, Marky asked me if I wanted to go out and hunt for night crawlers–big, fat worms we could use for our hooks when we went fishing at the local reservoir. He explained that since we’d had a real soaking of rain earlier in the day, that the wigglers would be anxious to get out of their flooded apartments in the earth and escape into the night air, where we would grab ’em, stick ’em in an old mason jar, to later turn ’em into fish food. He told me to bring along a flashlight and a shovel, and so that night we scurried down my back yard towards a nearby vacant lot.
It was really dark. There was no moon, and street lights were at least two decades in the future in the mind of some city planner. As we were walking through the vacant lot, looking for good clumps of earth to locate our wiggly friends, Marky told me to be careful because there were possums in the field and I might need to chase them away. This startled me a little bit. I didn’t know much about possums, but I had an inclination that I would find them unfavorable. We walked a few more feet and Marky stopped again and told me that Mrs. Satterfield’s dog sometimes came out to bother him when he was looking for worms–and if the dog came near us I should hit him with my shovel.
You can see, this was digressing by the moment. I had signed on to hunt for worms and now had the added chores of chasing possums and possibly killing a neighborhood dog. Even though I was just a young boy, I realized there was something wrong here, so I dropped my shovel and my flashlight and ran home, spooked. This incident changed my relationship with Marky. We didn’t see each other much after that. You see, Marky thought I was a sniveling, little yellow-bellied coward–and I was pretty sure Marky was nuts.
This is the same way I feel about what’s going on in our society today with the conservatives and liberals. I don’t want to fight with either side.
A conservative will come along and tell me that he thinks President Obama was inexperienced when elected and failed to deliver the promise of all the hopes and dreams of his campaign. You see, I don’t have any problem with that. I don’t even know if Barack Obama would object to that observation. It’s just like that night with Marky. If we had actually gone out and hunted for worms and gotten worms, it would have been okay. But a conservative can’t just leave it there. He has to add that the reason Barack Obama is so bad is that he’s a socialist and doesn’t have a birth certificate. At this point, the conservative will pause to check my reaction. You see, in my opinion, we just started chasing possums. In other words, they’re not really there, but we’re already making plans on what to do if they bother us. Not satisfied that the President’s character has been sufficiently derailed, the conservative will conclude with: “After all, Obama is a Muslim terrorist.” To me we just started killing neighborhood dogs.
The same thing is true with my liberal friends. Some Republican candidate starts speaking out against contraception and interfering in a woman’s right to make choices concerning the birth of her children. It’s easy to agree that this is interfering, fussy and unnecessary. I would even be willing to tell the Pope that in this matter he needs to loosen up his Basilica a bit. But the liberal can’t stop there. No … he or she must point out that this Republican is also against abortion, which they insist is the same thing as contraception. You see, I get a little lost here. Doesn’t a woman use contraception so she DOESN’T have to abort? That would not make them the same–it nearly creates an opposite. You see, I get the feeling I’m with Marky again, chasing possums. And then to cap it off, I heard some liberal pundits criticize the same candidate because he came out against pornography. Are we really going to defend pornography as if it is similar to abortion and therefore parallels contraception? Isn’t pornography the exact enemy of women’s rights? Because the nature of that medium is the exploitation of the female of the species and the taking away of dignity? You get my drift? We’re killing dogs, here.
We have a lot of worms in our society. There’s nothing wrong with shining the light on them, exposing them and removing them from the earth. But when you’re on a worm hunt, I don’t think you have to chase possums. And my God, please–let’s avoid killing Mrs. Satterfield’s dog.
I could never be a conservative or a liberal, because they both continue to insist on destroying the character of their opponent, when all you have to do is point out the worms.
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Below is the first chapter of Jonathan Richard Cring’s stunning novel entitled Preparing a Place for Myself—the story of a journey after death. It is a delicious blend of theology and science fiction that will inspire and entertain. I thought you might enjoy reading it. After you do, if you would like to read the book in its entirety, please click on the link below and go to our tour store. The book is being offered at the special price of $4.99 plus $3.99 shipping–a total of $8.98. Enjoy.
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Sitting One
I died today.
I didn’t expect it to happen. Then again, I did—well, not really.
No, I certainly didn’t expect it.
I’ve had moments of clarity in my life. Amazingly enough, many of them were in the midst of a dream. For a brief second I would know the meaning of life or the missing treatment to cure cancer. And then as quickly as it popped into my mind it was gone. I really don’t recollect dying. Just this unbelievable sense of clear headedness—like walking into a room newly painted and knowing by the odor and brightness that the color on the wall is so splattering new that you should be careful not to touch it for fear of smearing the design. The greatest revelation of all?
Twenty-five miles in the sky time ceases to exist.
The planet Pluto takes two hundred and forty-eight years to circle the sun. It doesn’t give a damn.
The day of my death was the day I became free of the only burden I really ever had. TIME.
Useless.
Time is fussy. Time is worry.
Time is fear. Time is the culprit causing human-types to recoil from pending generosity.
There just was never enough time.
Time would not allow it. Remember—“if time permits …”
Why if time permits? Why not if I permit? Why not if I dream? Why not if I want? Why does time get to dictate to me my passage?
It was time that robbed me of my soulful nature. It was time that convinced me that my selfishness was needed.
I didn’t die. The clock in me died, leaving spirit to tick on.
So why don’t we see the farce of time? Why do we allow ourselves to fall under the power of the cruel despot? Yes, time is a relentless master—very little wage for much demand.
I died today.
Actually … a piece of time named after me was cast away.
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