"Non-fiction............................"

Beth and I watched a Disney production yesterday, something called “Into the Woods” and more of a musical than anything else. McKenna had already seen it in the theater, loved it, and asked if we would buy the DVD for her. As it unfolded there before us in our living room, the plot quickly revealed itself to be at least four or five fairytales woven together into one story. No animation. Johnny Depp played the Big Bad Wolf and is killed within about a twenty minute segment. My oldest daughter and friends were quite disappointed with the whole thing, but this old man was rather amused with the lyrics and the genius of whoever thought to so combine Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack in the Bean Stalk. Amused, that is, until what should have been the end, everybody living happily ever after, was drawn out another thirty minutes, the situation reversed and all the characters blaming each other for the fact that life was still life and no fairytale. Yet so it is with humanity, even “in” Christ. I posted a quote on Facebook yesterday stating how “Genius and talent develop in quiet places; but character develops out in the full current of life”. Forty-three years within Pentecost has taught me that, while being “born-again” connected me internally with Deity in another dimension, any and all aspects of what that change in my existence brings to me depend on how often I “return to the well” as well as how much I “make myself a vessel permitting overflow”. In Bible class last night, our teacher pointed us to D-Day, America’s present moral state, and the pastor’s Sunday morning sermon “Making room for the Holy Spirit”. My immediate question was as to whether this nation’s condition was created by a pagan society or a Church that has failed to reach it with the reality of Christ “in” me. Have we been so busy “making war” that we have lost His heart, His vision, and His compassion in this? Do we gain any ground “swinging the sword” out of our own passion, or would we accomplish more by putting it back into His hands and walking by the inner tug on our anchor-line? Is it more about “my way or the highway”, or His way and His voice leading me in the next step? This isn’t Mother Goose. This is the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, our Father, Trinity within…….