The Random Thinker

One of the most quoted movie lines EVER comes from a movie from 1948, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Here is a webpage that tracks the quote throughout the history of film and into the present age. If you recognize the quote, go watch some of the film clips. They are GREAT!

I think I first heard this one in the listed episode of the Monkees. (PS – Be careful on this page . . . There might be some rough content)

http://www.darryl.com/badges/allindex.shtml

Last night in midweek Bible study, we looked at the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke. I have always said it SHOULD be named the parable of the Forgiving Father, but after looking at that story hundreds of times, something new and cool jumped out at me last night. Now, you can call me thick headed if you want, but check this out:

When the father killed the fatted calf and threw a party because his son had returned, and the brother came in all jealous and would not attend the party, it hit me . . . the party was not another chance for the little brother to party: It was because of the JOY of the FATHER!! The party was for HIM!! And, who wouldn’t feel that way if a son had come back from “as if being dead” ?????

Think about it!!!

Radar O’Reilly . . . He was a true hero of the Korean War. He kept the 4077 in supplies, ice cream, steak, and anything else they wanted or needed within reason . . . How?? He was the company clerk, and he had connections.

Well, I have connections. I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but every day I get the in-roads on the hottest stock tips, the best in Canadian pharamcuticals, and other things I won’t even mention here. Need a brand new Rolex??? I am your man . . . And I will gladly help you get the same information. My source?? I really cannot divulge that information. I mean, after all, the fact that I ALONE am connected to this stuff makes my value go up a little, right??

I really shouldn’t tell you . . .

Okay, you have stared long enough. I will tell you, but you have to promise to keep this a secret. My sources come to me magically, unsoliticited, to my E-MAIL address. Can you believe my good fortune?? I get the BEST OF THE BEST every day (a WHOLE bunch of it) and I didn’t even ask for it. WOW!!! Call ME lucky!!

(Yeah, I have heard of that thing called a spam filter, but there is a problem . . . When I turn mine on, I miss everything from anyone with a bellsouth.net address . . . When I missed some stuff and got in trouble for it, I turned it off.)

In the mean time, If you DO need a hot stock tip, a Rolex, or a re-fi that will cost you NEXT TO NOTHING, just give ole Radar a call . . .

No matter who you are, no matter how you live, no matter what the circumstance of your life might be, you will face heartache. That is one of the certain facts of life. How will you face it?? What will you do when disappointment and just plain hurt shoot your heart into the net like a hockey puck that is on fire?

You have two choices . . . You can face these circumstances WITH or WITHOUT God. You can try to move on your own power, within your own plan, and see what happens. Or you can trust in the Lord with all your heart. The choice really is up to you.

Now, I will warn you, trust can be tough . . . But He will never let you down!!!

Life in the fast lane: Yesterday afternoon, I made a mad dash to Fort Dorchester High School. Our WF Lady Knights beat the #1 team in our bracket to advance in the lower state playoffs. We hit the ball . . . They did not. Softball can be a simple game, and if you do not hit the ball (and if you take your opponent forgranted) you can easily lose. We drove back in that awesome thunderstorm that covered half of South Carolina last night. WOW, what a light show!! Hard trip, but well worth it.

Do our actions have consequences?? You know what I will answer to that. The Virginia Tech tragedy is a grim reminder, and there are so many what-ifs about the perpetrator. One that I think we need to address is WHAT IF HIS PEERS, in middle school and high school as well as college, had reached out to him??? Tough one to answer . . . Now we see a wave of “copy-cat threats.” Might those have been if the media had not pumped the manifesto?? We will never know.

We are having what I like to call “alarm woes” at the church right now. In three days, our alarm has alerted 3 false fire alarms. Fludds is coming out to resolve it today, but WOW . . . Those fire department guys are really starting to get mad. I finally had to head up there last night, even though there were 15 people up there trying to get it right. I was not a happy camper. On the way, I got in touch with the Fludds person on call, and he assured me he handled the situation and I needed to go home. It did not take much encouragement to get me to turn the car around. And I am really getting tired of calls from our alarm monitoring service.

There is a bright side . . . At least, this time, it was 10 pm when I was headed up there as opposed to the midnight run the previous night.

Good question . . . I had a killer blog on Monday about something I read on Foxnews about marriage that made me MAD. (I cannot remember what it was now, but the blog was awesome). Just before I finished it, I got an infamous MicroSoft blue screen, telling me something very bad happened in memory and I needed to contact my system administrator.

Since I AM my system administrator, and I laugh in the face of danger, I turned it off and turned it back on. This time a message I definitely recognized . . . Boot failure on fixed disk. In English, my hard drive would not boot the computer. I rebooted, and the same thing. The same thing. The same thing.

I turned it off for five minutes, whined about it a little, and turned it back on. IT BOOTED! I ran a chkdsk and scanned for viruses. All clean. That is generally your hard drive’s way of telling you he or she is about to depart for HD heaven. So, I started reading about hard drive cloning.

On Tuesday, I bought a new hard drive and devices to help me connect these notebook hard drives to a computer. We were going in to the forbidden area of cloning. At first, to test our madness, I cloned a piece of paper. But, alas, it was some of my tax stuff, so really nothing I wanted a clone of. Then I tried to clone a sheep . . .The British did it, and I figure if they can do it I can. But I had a hard time finding a sheep in Florence, so I had to settle for a dust bunny.

When I was confident, and ready to play Bill Gates (cuz I would never play God), I hooked up both drives on my desktop and started the free utility PC Magazine told me to use. It worked awesomely with only one glitch: Because it was the “FREE” version, it was slower than molasses. I could swear I hear Carly Simon singing Anticipation as I watched THAT ketchup bottle.

The madness took over four hours yesterday. By the time it was finished, I was in launch sequence to finish my day and get to the WF ballpark by 5. Of course, when I got there, I found out the website was wrong and the double header was going to start at 5:30. When all that was over, we cut down the outfield signs, stored them for another year, and I went to Maple Park to watch Drew finish his game.

All said and done, we got home around 10pm and I still hadn’t eaten supper. I had a small supper, in bed by 11:30, asleep by 11:40, and answering the phone at midnight because the fire alarm was going off at the church (Young Hall). But that episode needs a blog of its own.

I was back home by 12:25, and did not get back to sleep until sometime after 1:30. SO, I am writing right now on about 5 hours sleep. That could be dangerous.

And by the way: DO NOT put any Belgian chocolates near my notebook. If you ask Keith Pettigrew, he will tell you that Belgian chocolate is like “catnip for clones.” I don’t need my notebook biting anyone.

God really blessed us today. The privilege of baptizing 10 people today is something a lot of pastors would give their left arm for . . . I cannot remember the exact percentage, but there is a frightening percentage of Southern Baptist churches that baptize ZERO each year. This is our third baptism of the church year, and I have no idea how many we have baptized, but what a great day it was!!

And now, our responsibility continues. As a church family, and as friends, we now are reminded of the increased responsibility we have for these. To set the right examples. To bring them along in the right way. We celebrate days like this, but the truth is, we have reason to celebrate every day. Think about it. . .

Tagline from one of my favorite tv shows and movies, the X files. I am watching some of the movie this morning. It is interesting to see the parallels between the plot of the X files and life itself.

The Truth is out there, but it is not obvious … This old world makes truth relative to who you are and what you are. I have watched this Don Imus thing unfold, and have grown quite tired of it. What he said was wrong and offensive, and there is no question of that. But if truth is truth, NO ONE should say things like that in a public or private venue. No rappers, no comedians, no radio hosts, no politicians, no pimps, NOBODY. Don Imus just happens to be the wrong color and of the wrong occupation. I agree that he shouldn’t have said it, BUT WHY NOT GO AFTER EVERYONE ELSE who makes the same level of racial slur?

The Don Imus case makes it clear that in THIS world, truth is relative . . . There is a double-standard, and it is racially defined. God says TRUTH IS TRUTH. God’s truths are absolute, and I know He would say NO ONE should say things like that, no matter what their occupation or race might be.

The Truth really is out there, and one day every knee will bow to Him and every tongue confess that He is Lord.