The Popular Kids

      When I was in 7th and 8th grade I noticed that during free time some of the students would hang around the teacher's desk just to visit. But when I tried to do that, the teacher asked what I wanted and sent me back to my desk. Visiting with the teacher was for the popular kids. And try as I might, when I think about being with Jesus in heaven, I picture myself waving to Him as he walks by with the people He would rather spend time with--the important ones, the popular ones. I know that is unfair to the Savior who chose me, died for me, and lives inside me, but I just can't imagine us having a one on one conversation. 

     Food is my love language, I love feeding people. And when they eat my food, whether they know it or not, I feel like they are accepting my love. Rev. 3:20 appeared as my verse of the day recently. It says, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." This is often used as a salvation invitation, but the context is God's message to the church in Laodicea and is a call to repentance. The preceding verse is, "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent." In the Bible, and in life, eating together is usually a sign of fellowship. Jesus requires our repentance because he desires our fellowship.     

     But what I hunger for is to take Rev. 3:20 literally. I am all about having people come in and eat. When I am in heaven, I want Jesus to come to my house and eat with me. I have no idea what ingredients will be available, but I am sure I will still love to cook and while we are eating, we could have that impossible to imagine one on one conversation. I asked the Lord if He would do that for me and He whispered into my mind, I died for you. Of course I will eat with you. So even though I still picture Jesus walking through heaven surrounded by the popular kids, I know that at least one time, the Teacher will be knocking at my door. But He won't need to, the door will be open.

 

The Unjust Towing Company

     I have not had time for creative writing the last few weeks, I have been busy cranky writing. I am cranking out complaint letters in the spirit of the persistent widow in the Parable of the Unjust Judge. The friend we have been keeping in a running car, and sometimes a functioning house, for many years has been getting bills from a towing business for a car she no longer owns. Since I am sure they would prefer to remain unnamed, I will call the business EVERGREEN STATE TOWING of Spokane, Washington. Our commitment to keep Diane in a running car has morphed from repairing the old wrecks she could afford to providing newer, less wrecked wrecks we could afford, thanks to our thoughtful, thrifty auto mechanic (soon to be aircraft mechanic) son. We also provide recycling, which is very important to her, by selling her old cars when they require more fixing than fuel, to people even more desperate than Diane. Unfortunately, what we meant to be a blessing has boomeranged on her in a big way. EVERGREEN STATE TOWING (Spokane,WA) is billing her for towing and storage on a vehicle we sold on her behalf in October 2019. Diane is a very hesitant person and I am a very assertive writer, so I took on the project of Daviding her Goliath.

     My first letter to EVERGREEN STATE TOWING included a copy of the receipt, the buyer's name, and an explanation that in the state of Montana all that is required of an auto seller is to provide a signed, notarized title and remove the license plates. We eagerly removed them, since the buyer turned out to be a former friend of our son who had "bought" a car from us on payments (son's idea, not ours) and skipped the payments part. Since we were asking $300 for Diane's Mazda and he handed us the cash almost before getting out of his girlfriend's car, we agreed to sell it to him. It was a junker, he was a junkie, he deserved it. Our son managed to get the Mazda started for him and none of us would have lost sleep if the engine blew up a week later. We did not think about him not getting a new title. Or that the car would last long enough to need a new title. Or that he probably had lots of spare, stolen license plates on hand and would not need to apply for a title. But instead of his engine, our minds were blown when we found out the Mazda managed to make its way to Spokane, Washington. Unfortunately, we found that out because Andy did not transfer the title, so Diane was still listed as the owner of record. EVERGREEN STATE TOWING honed in on her like a hound on a scent, undeterred by annoyances like facts.

    I assumed that my strongly worded letter showing Diane had not owned the Mazda for more than two years, would cause EVERGREEN to hound Andy for the money. He would have been easy to find, being both on Facebook and on probation. Andy finding the funds would have been the hard part. But in Washington, which EVERGREEN STATE TOWING and a ridiculous amount of regulations call home, has a 10 day notification rule. Washington titles come with a tear-away portion and the seller is required to notify the state within 10 days of the sale or be held liable for the vehicle's future expenses. Trying to convince EVERGREED that this does not apply to auto sales in Montana has involved cranking out letters to the following:

     Montana DMV--whose unhelpful response was to hire a lawyer

     Montana Attorney General's office--crickets

     WA bureau of licensing for towing companies--claimed no jurisdiction, hire a lawyer

     Consumer Protection--referred to WA Attorney General's office for informal arbitration

     WA Better Business Bureau--our best bet, is mediating our complaint process

 

    Despite this, EVERGREED sent Diane a second bill explaining that if the amount received when they auctioned the vehicle mid-February did not exceed their $312 towing and $54 per day storage fees, she would be responsible to pay the deficiency. Even with Covid inflated demand for used vehicles, a car that sold for $300 two years ago is unlikely to cover $2000 storage. So I sent them a second letter and played my two hold cards, emails to Montana Gov. Gianforte and Sen. Steve Daines. Gianforte's constituent office called Diane the next day, unfortunately, she missed the call--not unusual for her. My second letter to EVERGREED included a quote from the Montana Department of Justice "You do not need to notify the County Treasurer's motor vehicle office that you sold the vehicle." I am sure billing  owners of record and/or sending them to collections is a longstanding and lucrative business practice for them, not to mention the great fraud potential. All scammers would need to do is bill people whose names were with VIN numbers from unlicensed out-of-state, or even out of country, vehicles--no tow truck required. I am hoping that if EVERGREEN STATE TOWING will not respond to the quality of my logic, perhaps, like the unjust judge, they will react to the quantity of my complaints, do the right thing in spite of themselves, and just be just.

American Idol

     The title is not a reference to the TV show, I have never watched it. I am referring to some version of the Keto/Atkins/Lo-carb diet making the rounds of the "rounded" in our church. Many of my 60ish peer group now look like their high school yearbook picture--from the neck down. The main evangelist of the movement is a well respected Bible study teacher who admits openly that she has always been obsessed with her weight. I struggle with vanity and I will admit that here to my four followers, and to a few friends with the same problem, but I would never share it openly on Facebook unless it was a sin I was overcoming. When I found myself in a group she was trying to lure to the "lite" side, I told her that after struggling with anorexia for 20 years, it was dangerous for me to do something artificial with my eating. Mine was not about body image or losing weight, that was a side benefit. It was, as most addictions are, about escaping through something else when life feels out of control. Obsessing about weight and diet, unless for specific health conditions, is just another American idol.    

    There is actually a term for addiction to healthy eating and exercise. It is called orthorexia. Those suffering from it have a hard time finding doctors to diagnose, much less treat it, because they are doing all the things doctors recommend. But addiction, even to health, is unhealthy. My husband's recent heart incident inspired him to start exercising and eating healthy. And, because it would not be right for me to tell him to limit sugar, salt and fat with my mouth was full of their crumbs, I have lost some weight too. I like that my clothes fit better, but it would not be worth it if the cost was forgoing all the food I love. And somehow, just as gluttony is a pardonable sin in Christian circles, so is its opposite, obsession with what not to eat. This is not a church destroying problem, it is just another distraction from spiritual matters to physical. And the last thing the church needs is another American Idol.           

   

   

Imagine That

     Not every city would book a fireworks show at a library, but Kalispell's has been popping nonstop for months. The director resigned in July, and the interim director resigned in December, both citing difficulties with the library board. One audacious member wanted to see the non-public areas of the library. That may not seem like an unreasonable request, but a friend who retired from there a couple years ago, said one of those rooms houses a huge backlog of books waiting to be shelved. Part of the reason for the huge backlog was an abundance of staff meetings and an hour per week of mandatory mental health maintenance. You could paint a picture, go for a walk, etc. but, even if the stacks of shelfless books were a danger to their physical and/or mental health, they were not allowed to do the job they were getting paid for. 

    Fifteen years ago our library got a new director, let's call her (insert progressive here). Why not? President Biden has promised his next supreme court pick will be (insert Black female here). The majority of Flathead County is conservative, many of the library staff were Christians, the library was a place to borrow books and other media. We were so unenlightened. 

    One of the first things Insert Progressive did was to change the name. Progressives re-invent themselves, churches rebrand themselves. No more dull denominations, we now have catchy concepts like Hope, Adventure, Canvas. If one of our local churches renames itself Pie, I might join. So Flathead County Library, at a cost of tens of thousands of county dollars, became Imagine If. I had to trade in my library card, getting one was one of my first orders of business when we moved to Kalispell and a rite of passage for my children. My new Imagine IF card:  No judgments. No funny looks. No questions asked--sounded like a customer loyalty card for an "adult" store. I buried it in my wallet and, except for rare occasions, stopped going to the library. 

    Employees who worked there for decades were suddenly unqualified for their jobs. Fortunately, the new director knew people who were, but it didn't matter much because materials were now checked out via self serve kiosks. There were more parties and craft times. Preschool story hour included a book with same sex parents. Staff had to state their preferred pronoun. The public computers were moved upstairs so children would not accidentally scorch their eyeballs if they saw the screen. Some of the unenlightened quit. But the most recent brouhaha was over a couple of sexually explicit books for teens that parents around the country are trying to have removed. When some of the library board members decided to support decency over the director, she resigned. The enlightened quitting--Imagine that.

    The progressives among us are screaming censorship. All libraries practice censorship, the only question is which things they censor. The new board-approved director, though experienced, does not have a Master's Degree in Library Science and people without Master's degrees are frequently normal. So, even though Kalispell has unaffordable housing and most of the potential candidates from a nationwide search withdrew their names, the state Librarian is threatening to withhold funds and "Shhh!" the library board until their ears bleed. The Flathead County Library may wind up supporting the values of the people who support it. Imagine That!

Christianese Unease

    Christianity has its own jargon--propitiation, atonement, witnessing, etc. There is nothing wrong with the words except that they are not understandable to people who did not cut their teeth on a Bible. It does little good to witness to a non-Christian using words that are only understandable to a Christian. After decades of studying the Bible, I am fluent in Christianese, but what I overheard in the grocery store last week made me uneasy. Creeped me out actually. A married couple and another man who were obviously Christians and obviously well acquainted were speaking, but they were not conversing. They were quoting scripture and Christian sayings to each other without any normal conversation in between. Even though the verse responses did not really fit with each other, they seemed satisfied with the con-verse-ation. It was like overhearing a discussion in a foreign language I understood, then finding out it was a bomb threat.

     The encounter made me think about God though. I thanked Him fervently, soberly and persistently--that I do not belong to their church.

That Answers That

     I have wondered from the beginning why the CDC was making no attempt to control Covid spread and overcrowded hospitals by treatment instead of isolation and vaccination. I thought they were afraid to endorse anything Trump said, even retroactively, or they were just plain stupid. Turns out they were sly. Even though I have never done this, I am posting this very informative editorial letter here. Since I am not computer savvy enough to link the whole article, I have copied it. I do not have his permission, but I figure if he was willing to publish it for 36,000 subscribers, he probably would not mind my four followers reading it too. 

 

Therapeutics    by Gary Goers    Letter to Editor Daily InterLake 1/20/22

The gold standard of care for viral infections is early treatment. From the start of the Covid pandemic, there were none. Patients were sent home and told to come back if their condition deteriorated.

There were early reports of promising therapeutics. Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are known to be very effective in the first several days of infection. Further studies showed Ivermectin to be very effective in all stages of the infection. Multiple studies have shown that Vitamin D blood levels above 50mg/ml (along with Vit. K2, zinc, and magnesium) would reduce hospitalizations by approximately 80%. All of these protocols are cheap and safe.

Anthony Fauci along with NIH Director Francis Collins attacked these treatments with a vengeance, even going so far as having any mention of them censored and doctors threatened if they dared to prescribe them.

Why was the public not informed about these therapeutics? Why the push to vaccinate the least vulnerable age group — kids? The answer is: money and liability.

Once a vaccine is added to the childhood schedule, the vaccine maker is shielded from liability for injuries. The current Covid “vaccines” are under emergency use authorization. Under EAU, the vaccine maker is shielded from liability. To get EAU they must meet four criteria: there has to be an emergency; vaccines must be 30% to 50% effective; benefits must outweigh risks: and there can be no adequate, approved, and available alternative treatments. This last requirement was the most threatening to the rabid push to vaccinate everyone. Billions of dollars would be at risk if the therapeutics were recognized. Greed and corruption seem to be the logical culprits.

— Gary Goers, Kalispell

[Editor’s note: The FDA’s explanation of emergency use authorization for vaccines can be found online at www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines]

    Now I know. That answers that.

     

 

Passing the Baton

    When my oldest child was close to graduating from high school, I panicked that time was running out to pass on the baton of faith. Then I realized that not only was she not in position to grab the baton, but we were not even running on the same track. There was nothing wrong with my desire, Christian parents are commanded to share their faith with their children. But there was also nothing wrong with my children not being ready to receive it at the same time they got their diplomas, because the Holy Spirit is the one who solidifies their faith into something that will carry them to their finish line. Which is a good thing because my brother and I are among many first generation, or skipped generation, Christians. There was no family member to hand the baton of faith to us. But the Holy Spirit is really good at it, because I came to faith in Christ without previous knowledge of the baton, or even the race. I was raised in a church where we tried to climb toward heaven on a fragile ladder of our own good deeds. 

     The Bible shows the line of faith through Israel, but it is not an unbroken line, especially in the time of the Judges and Kings, and some outsiders were chosen, not only to be in the race, but in the lineage of the Savior. My husband picked right up spiritually where his parents handed off, but that seems to be the exception in families, not the rule.

    Now that my children are grown and two of them are parents, it is their job to teach their children about God. As grandparents we have wonderful opportunities to share Jesus with our grandgirls, but we might not be around to see that baton picked up, and that is okay. The Holy Spirit will not leave the earth when we do, and He is the One who holds out God's gift of faith until we recognize it as the only prize worth having, even when we are running on the wrong track.