"Schematics............................."

The picture I’ve attempted to share here was discovered by me some years ago in a small antique shop in Lexington. The fellow who framed it for me with plexiglass did so in such a way as to prevent me now from any manner of retrieving it (other than a hammer) and that accounts for the camera’s flash obliterating “The River of Failure”. Whoever sketched this together didn’t miss much in his representation of such theology as I stepped into nearly four decades ago upon “praying through” at about two o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, March of ’72. In the bottom left corner is a sign reading “The Road from Earth to Heaven” with an archway directly before it inviting “Whosoever Will”. To the right is a series of portals labeled with excuses like “wait”, “not tonight”, and “I am good enough”, all leading to “The Pit”. Just above that is “Salvation Station” with two steps, “faith” and “repentance” leading one up to “The Way of the Cross”. From there it’s like a trip through Disneyland, chutes and roller-coaster drops, numerous ways for one to “backslide” or even end up in that stream mentioned above. Along the way it’s possible to “take the easy way out”, stop for a “social glass” of whatever along with a “friendly card game”, and a place for those to gather who “know it all”. Most people look at it and laugh, seeing no more than old-time holiness with its list of legalities and dismissing everything else. Thirty-nine years down the road, I find it an amazing piece of artwork, so much of its theme certainly at least worthy of discussion, a lot of truth contained within its content……