the perfect storm and the perfect sermon

the last twelve hours have been extraordinarily eventful. last night several raging thunderstorms came through the north texas area, the roughest of which hit my little neighborhood at about 3 am. that evening i had heard a lot of bother about tornadoes touching down nearby blah blah, tornado watch from 3-7 am blah blah. i'm invincible, i can sleep through anything.

i can sleep through anything unless it's 500 mile an hour winds trying to shatter my windows! i awoke to what sounded like the gates of hell opening. realizing in an instant that the walls of my home were probably constructed of cheap plywood from the '4o's, and my windows are in no way double paned, maybe 1/4 paned or 1/3 paned, i flew out of my bed and into the bathroom expecting the roof to come off above my bed at any moment. you are supposed to go into the bathroom or something in a tornado, right?

so there i was, lightning detonating all around me like mortars, the power was out and i was in my boxers. great. my home is about to be catastrophically destroyed and i'm in my boxers. when the relief workers from louisianna come to pick up the shattered splinters of wood that at one point formed my house i'll be wandering around in my boxers. then they'll give me a crummy blanket and i'll look even more pathetic on the 5 o'clock news.

all this flashed through my mind in about three seconds, between my bed and the bathroom.

after gaining composure and courageously reentering my room, expecting at any moment for a car tire to hurtle through my window, i located a pair of pants and t-shirt. better safe than sorry. then i realized my roommate joe was probably still on his way back from houston and caught in the middle of the apocalypse! actually he made it in about 10 minutes before the raging maelstrom descended on carroll park.

in the end we were fine, the house was fine, there was no tornado, and i felt like a pansy. at least the storm knocked out all the power in a three mile radius so class was cancelled until ten.

but it's not over. i'll keep this last part brief. i apologize before hand if this next section is less than constructive criticism but i can't help it.

i went to chapel today like a good seminary boy. our speaker for the morning was the pastor of the local "baptist temple" located about three blocks from my house. my reasons for not visiting it despite its proximity are that it is named a baptist "temple," it has a red light up cross out front, and a sign that says "we love our pastor and our king james bible." call me shallow.

i'll give it to the guy, he is passionate and on a fundamental level i really agree with his message. we are in a pivotal point in christian history and specifically christian history in america, and areas of life if not life itself will be sacrificed if we truly live our faith and proclaim the gospel. now personally, in preparing this message i would have left out the explicit 4 minute address from the movie patton! you know the one. i recommend you listen to it again and contemplate performing it at a seminary, and not just any seminary but southwestern, the bastion of southern baptist conservativism. yikes. i cringed and later laughed...a lot. the climax of this four minute rendition followed the reference to germans as "krauts" (i have several german friends who were each present in chapel.) it was most certainly the graphic description of putting your hand in what was your best friend's face, now a lump of goo. and we can't leave out the part about cutting down your opponent's belly and greasing your tank tracks with his guts which is very relevant to the type of warfare we wage spiritually.

this coloful illustration and many many more were employed to explain that as christians we are called to give ourselves in many ways for the cause of christ. i would love to share everything, but i'm afraid it would be less out of good natured humor and more out of my own false sense of pride. so, i'll leave it at that and say that despite its inappropriateness he made a point and i was entertained, though i think paige patterson our president was less than entertained.