"Power...................."

About one in the afternoon yesterday, rather than drive to the church gym, I opted to walk a half mile or so down our road to the back entrance of the park, take that trail through the wooded area, past the fenced-in section where people turn their dogs loose, cross the bridge over the creek and, instead of the soccer field orbits, turn south another half mile or so to the clubhouse before simply reversing the whole route. It was cool out, a nice breeze blowing, and a hoody seemed a good idea. My cell phone went inside that front pouch and all was nice until the sun began to convince me of a need to remove the hoody. It took me about three hours to discover that somewhere in the journey the cell phone had evidently taken a tumble and further investigation would reveal that someone else was using it. Insurance will replace it; but, at the moment, it almost feels like a part of “me” is missing..…. Tomorrow morning we return to the Youth Detention Center and my thoughts are yet on Gollum, that pitiful worm of a former existence whose soul, in Lord of the Rings, had long left sanity behind, his entire being held in bondage to what he now labelled “precious”. While such image speaks to me of humanity at large, all of us as we pursue our own reasoning without help from His tug on the anchor-line, I ponder if, as well, it doesn’t also apply to Christianity as sit has evolved down through the centuries. History doesn’t reveal to me this “conquering force” as sung and preached to me in Pentecost the last four decades, this great “Ship of Zion”, in so much as an ecclesiastical institution, being steered more by men than by the Holy Ghost; and, although there can be no doubt that, within the mess, resurrection is still alive, the divine umbilical cord feeding, leading, ensuring the seed possibility to give birth, nonetheless much of the body, itself, doesn’t seem to be aware of the missing, vital piece of its identity……