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29 June 2010

foundations


“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.  Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  The rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell – and great was its fall.”

            When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
                                                Matthew 7:24-29

I love this little passage.  It’s so convicting in its simplicity.  In it, Jesus talks about two different men:  the one who has heard His Word and built his house upon a firm foundation of stone, and the other who hears but foolishly builds his house in a place of temporal, sandy convenience.  When storms come and winds buffet, as Jesus assures us they will, the man whose house is built on stone survives because his foundation is firm.  It isn’t because he’s a good man or because he’s been smart of has done a bunch of super nice things, but it’s because of the foundation on his house.  The guy who built his house on the sandy place doesn’t fare so well.  The wind is able to rip his place right out of its sandy moorings.  His foundation doesn’t do such a great job of holding things in place.

I’ve been foolish lately.  Maybe I haven’t been looking like the world so much, but I haven’t been looking much like Jesus ether.  I’ve been looking like the gaggle of lukewarm Christians who surround me, and it makes me sad and apathetic because Jesus didn’t save me to be lukewarm and apathetic, going with the flow and pandering to the “good enough for me” mentality of an academic world.  But today I’m reminded of the foundation that was built for me when God plucked me up out of a life of sound and fury.  He began this walk for me and built this foundation so that I wouldn’t have to live like this.  I’m reminded today that even though I feel like parts of the building in which I’m living have slipped away from their fastness, the foundation that I started out with remains firm underneath me.  Maybe I’ve let the insides of the house get a little messy, but that’s nothing a good, diligent, washing with the Word can’t fix, right?

There are many houses all around me, with many different foundations, and I find that I’m so tired of trying to look into their windows in order to determine for myself what their condition is, to know if they’ll be a good or a bad house to play with.  From now on, I think I’ll just get back to basics – God, me, and my own foundation on His Word.  The rest, discernment and wisdom, and the grace and mercy that He’s given me as His child, will flow naturally out of that.

It doesn’t have to be this way any more.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, not idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God.  Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

                                    1 Corinthians 6:9-11

16 May 2010

Nab'hia - Part 5: My Mother's Keeper







Read Part 1 here Part 2 herePart 3 here, and Part 4 here.


I was shocked.  It was the first time Nab’hia had ever questioned anything I said about my mother.  It was the first time I’d ever been put on the stand by her.  I gazed back at her, and as I watched her in the firelight, that quiet, unsettling change of appearance that sometimes occurred to her seemed to take place.  Her features became more pointed, her eyes more yellow.  And then she smiled at me around the stalk in her mouth, and for a moment, all of her teeth were gone, and all I could see was the open mouth of death.
            “It’s time Karine.”
            “No,” I said.
            “It’s time for you to keep your promise.  I’ll be needing your daughter now.”
            “She’s not here, you can’t have her.”
            “I’ll keep coming back Karine.”  Her voice was barely a hiss now.  “I’ll keep coming back until you’re weaker and weaker, and then, one day, you won’t be able to stop yourself giving her to me.”
            “Never,” I said.
            She smiled again, and this time, her mouth was huge and filled with decay.  “Then I will take what I need from you today.”
            I barely heard the scream start from my lips.  It was dark and wild, and if I had been able to hear it from the outside, it would have made me feel like the jungle was bearing down on me out of the mountains, coming for me, hot and moist, looking to take another piece of my heart that I would never get back.
            Nab’hia left me by the fireside in a daze, without even speaking to any of the other women, with out addressing my mother at all, and as she stood up and passed in front of me, in between me and the fire, my hollow eyes gazed over the hot flames and met my mother’s eyes for just a moment.  And then it dawned on me.  Whatever Nab’hia had done, she had done in secret.  The others were oblivious.  None of them had heard my cries, not even my mother.  But somehow my mother knew that something had happened.  And when our eyes met, I saw the terror on my mother’s face and saw her touch her breast, just above her heart.
            And I knew the truth.  Nab’hia was done with my mother.  She would never come to see my mother again.  She had her piece of my mother’s heart, and now she had what my mother, too, had promised to Nab’hia long ago.  She had finally taken my mother’s daughter.

To Be Continued...

14 May 2010

Nab'hia - Part 4: Time to Pay the Piper

Read Part 1 herePart 2 here, and Part 3 here.

There were a group of us that night, and by the time Nab’hia came to the center of our yard, we were already all gathered around the small fire in between the animals’ lean-to and the house.  I was pensive, seated a little away from the others, and this is where Nab’hia came to me and settled herself down on a flat stone next to the fire.  In its flickering glow, she looked like a dark, dangerous snake warming herself on that rock, her yellow eyes dining lazily on the flames.
            “So, Karine,” she said to me, “how does your mother treat you?”
            I was puzzled.  Usually, the ritual would go thusly:  Nab’hia would approach my mother first and ask her how we all did, or what we had all been doing.  And then my mother would offer some vague and completely unsatisfying platitude about the absolute mediocrity of our existence.  And then, when this part of the ritual was finished, Nab’hia would turn to me and ask me how my mother treated me, and I would tell some tale about how she had broken an egg I had brought in from the hen house, or that she had turned out my pail of water before it was dirty and I had been forced to go all the way back to the stream for another.  And then Nab’hia would smile her little smile and she would slap my mother, or scratch her cheek with her claws, or pinch the muscle in her upper arm between her strong fingers.  And she would always hiss this cryptic reminder to my mother not to take what didn’t belong to her.  And my mother would whimper, and I would feel sick.  But I was powerless to stop it.  I was powerless to stop myself from giving Nab’hia what she wanted. 
            Except when it came to my daughter.  Nab’hia had my heart.  I didn’t know where she kept it, if it was in a glass jar somewhere or buried in the ground, but she had it.  And she could keep it.  I would not give her my daughter.  There was nothing she could do to me that would ever make me give her up.
            So now I sought to play my part in the ritual with Nab’hia even though the rules seemed to have changed without my knowledge.  There she sat on that stone next to me, separating me out from the other women.  Her slanting yellow eyes gazed intently at me over her high cheek bones, and she chewed on some piece of nearly dead vegetation.  At first I had thought it was a stalk of long grass, but now it looked more like what the Americans called a cat-tail, but I wouldn’t have even known what that was then.  I watched her jaws work on it and tried to figure out what it was that she wanted to hear from me.
            “My mother went into the village last week,” I said to her warily, “and found my father drunk.  While she was there, she got drunk herself and I saw her dancing in the street with some of the boys that I grew up with.  She was letting them touch her while they were dancing with her.”  It was funny, but I was running out of things to tattle on my mother to Nab’hia about.  This one was even almost a lie – I had seen my mother dancing in the street with some people, but I hadn’t known who they were, and I hadn’t known if she was drunk, and I certainly hadn’t seen them touching her.
            Nab’hia chucked smoothly deep in her throat, and her jaws continued to work on the plant stem she held between her long, brown fingers.  “Now what’s so bad about that, Karine?  Why shouldn’t your mother have a little fun?”
            I was shocked.  It was the first time Nab’hia had ever questioned anything I said about my mother.  It was the first time I’d ever been put on the stand by her.  I gazed back at her, and as I watched her in the firelight, that quiet, unsettling change of appearance that sometimes occurred to her seemed to take place.  Her features became more pointed, her eyes more yellow.  And then she smiled at me around the stalk in her mouth, and for a moment, all of her teeth were gone, and all I could see was the open mouth of death.

To be continued in Part 5: My Mother's Keeper (posted 16 May)

12 May 2010

Nab'hia - Part 3: How Beautiful are the Feet













Read Part 1 here and Part 2: Secrets and Silence, here.

After that, Nab’hia began to come back to our house regularly again.  How strange her presence was!  It was as if some shift in her cosmic force amongst us had taken place.  She visited with my mother still, but now I could sense her watching me, and I felt as if she were only biding her time.  And every time those yellow eyes would turn my way, that scar on my chest would burn.  It had never hurt before.  Even when I had watched Nab’hia’s hand go right into my chest it hadn’t hurt.  But something was different now, and more and more I felt this dull, pulling ache under that scar where I knew a piece of my heart should be.  To make matters worse, I knew that Nab’hia wanted to see Gécy.  She asked about my daughter every time she visited, which was a lot.  But by some strange turn of chance, Gécy never happened to be at home when Nab’hia came. 
            The new thing in our village was this missionary school, and some Christians from the United States had come and opened it up.  It really wasn’t much, just a couple of palm branch thatched huts at the bottom of the mountain, but the children couldn’t seem to get enough of it.  Some of the older or more devout Vodouissants in the mountains refused to let their children attend and chose instead to keep them at home, helping around the house.  I had never been particularly devout, and did not even serve any gods in our house.  The school was less a symbol of religion to me, and more a symbol of freedom.  I thought that perhaps if Gécy should become educated, she could break free of the life of poverty that had always served as the background to our family portrait.  And it seemed like the more time Gécy spent there, the more time she wanted to spend there.  Apparently the missionaries were kind to her.  They spoke to her in our own language, and seemed to know it well.  They did not patronize her, but taught her difficult lessons like those that little girls in the United States learned, and she even learned to speak English with the missionary’s children.  When school was out, there was often some sort of children’s group in the evening, and on the weekends, Gécy went to Sunday school and to church in the village.  I did not go, but she seemed to enjoy these things, and they took her out of the stench of poverty that permeated our little house and farm yard, so I let her go. 
            Sometimes the missionary’s wife would come to visit me and mother and she would bring us things from America that I had never seen before.  She was a smiling woman with a round, pink face and a laughing voice, and when she would come walking up the mountain road, to see her coming was like the opposite of everything that seeing Nab’hia was.  She didn’t come often, but when she did, she always had a big wicker market basket covered in red gingham, and I always knew that underneath it were exotic treasures that I couldn’t even guess at.  One time she came and brought us shampoo in a bottle.  It made foamy lather like a cushion and smelled like summer berries.  She laughed and laughed as I put it on my hands and used cold water from the wash pail to make a lather.  The hard, grey tallow soap that we made for ourselves never made such a pure white foam like that, and I had never imagined that something that could get you clean would ever smell so good.  Another time she brought us a box of little chocolate cookies with white cream in the middle.  She said they were called Oreos.  When I asked her why, she just laughed and said she didn’t know.  When she visited, mother and I never argued.  It was almost as if we were friends.  And when the time came for her to leave, it was always a sad time.  The moment she was out our door, we longed to see her again.  Her visits never lasted long enough.
            This night, when Nab’hia visited, I wished Gécy was with that missionary’s wife.  I wished that she was as far away from my house as I could wish her.  I felt like Nab’hia had finally come to make good on her promise.  She had not yet seen Gécy, but somehow I knew that tonight was the night she would insist upon it, and old Norberte’s just didn’t seem far enough away to keep my girl safe.  I remembered how Nab’hia’s quick hand had latched onto my mother’s shoulder that one time.  Almost as if one moment it was in one place and the next it were in another – she didn’t even have to move it between the two.  I thought, if she really wanted to take Gécy, it would be quick like that and I wouldn’t even know it.  I would do whatever I could to keep my daughter from her.

To be continued in Part 4:  Time to Pay the Piper (coming 14 May)

10 May 2010

my hypocrisy

I am a hypocrite.


I have been among you all this year, sinning as one who does not know the Lord.

I have been angry, and I have been unrepentant in it.

I have been unforgiving, and have not asked for the grace to forgive.

I have kept secrets and refused to trust, and have lived as one enslaved and in bondage to fear and darkness.

There has been no discipleship for me, nothing in me that would seek counsel as I have sat in my pit and watched its dark, moist walls close in upon me.

How many times do we find ourselves in a place of desperation, deep in a pit of despair, and as we seek a way out of the depths, we look at the dank walls which enclose us.  We examine the walls for handholds and footholds, seeking a place where we can grab hold and begin to climb out.  Sometimes we can begin to hoist ourselves up, but our climb only lasts until we realise that the walls are far too slippery and steep and that our strength is far too feeble to accomplish the deed.  And so we sink back down to the bottom of our pit.  Down into the puddles and the dampness and the cloying, rotten, chill and hopelessness of that which we’re trying to escape.  And as we get more and more desperate, we begin to forget that we cannot climb out, and we scrutinize the walls more closely.  And where there are no handholds, we try to make our own, sometimes clawing at the walls, breaking fingernails and bloodying fingertips, tearing sobs from our throats at the hopelessness or our own situation.  Ever scrutinizing the walls, ever dwelling on the floor of the pit into which we have sunk.

And we forget that we do not find the way out of the pit by looking at the walls, but by looking up into the light.  Sometimes it’s only when I take my own eyes off of the walls of my pit and the stinking floor on which I’ve been living and look up at the opening, the true way out, that I realise my Lord has been reaching His hand down for me the whole time, offering me a way out which would have cost me so much less pain and heartache.

So now I have taken His hand and am finding my way back out into the light.  But in that, there are consequences that I must deal with, for I have been wrong in this place where I’ve been dwelling.  I have been wrong and I have wronged others.  Perhaps that’s what this is all about – learning how to deal with failure.

Or maybe, more to the point, learning how to fail without being a failure.

Now at the same time, I must be honest.  There are those among my peers – those whom I care for deeply – whom I must call to task.  And I do it because I care for you.  I do it because I want to grow in Christ and have been hindered during this time because of things you have done.  I do it because I want you to be able to grow in Christ and to know that the things that you do and say – by virtue of freedom and liberty – have a greater range of effect than ever you may know.  I have searched myself in this matter and want you to know that I have not been without fault – perhaps you may never realise the depth of my sorrow over the sin that I have dwelt in in my own silence.  It has not been forbearance that I have practiced.  It has been the worst type of hypocrisy.

So now I will just say that you cause me to stumble.  You are free to do things that I am not free to do.  You are free to go to places that I cannot go.  Every time you go there and leave me behind, try though I might, pray for the grace to forebear though I do, I stumble.  I want to go with you, but I cannot.  You see, God has delivered me from the very things that you do.  To me they are a doorway to a Hell that I do not ever want to live in again.  One that I do not even want to peek into.

I do not judge you for what you do – I cannot be the one to do this.  I have fallen before, even since I have been a believer.  But I cannot approve of the things that you do, and I cannot go to the places you go.  When you do them, and when you go there, you look no different from the world.  I know.  I have both been in the world and of the world.

I beg of you, as ministry-minded Christians, to think very carefully of what you are doing.  I know that you are free in Christ to do what you do.  But I beg of you, I plead with you not to cause me to stumble.  You know who I am.  But how many more of me might there be on this campus who are afraid to tell you that you are causing them to stumble?  Afraid even as I have been afraid to tell you all year.

I love you all so dearly.  So dearly that it nearly breaks my heart to write this and feel that you may not like to hear it from me, that it may even anger you or cause hurt feelings.  But I cannot keep from writing it.  Please, please help me not to stumble any more.  Please don’t leave me behind any longer.

For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died.  And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.  Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble...  All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.  All things are lawful, but not all things edify.  Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor.
                        (1 Corinthians 8:11-13, 10:23)

Nab'hia - Part 2: Secrets and Silence












Read Part 1: Thief of My Heart, here.


Nab'hia's presence had been strange.  We had seen her regularly for years.  She would come to see my mother all the time.  She would sit with her in the morning when my mother rocked on the porch.  Or while my mother tended the chickens and the goats in the barnyard I would hear the two of them talking softly and intently.  It was funny, because Nab’hia spent so much time around my mother, and they should have seemed like good friends, but I always knew that they weren’t.  Sometimes, just as my mother was leaving for the village, Nab’hia would show up on the road, arriving from where ever it was she came, and take my mother’s arm, offering to walk with her.  I knew that my mother never wanted Nab’hia there, though she never said so.  When my mother would return, she would look years older, and her skin would take on a greyish tint.  I would offer to help her sometimes, or ask her what was wrong, and she would always yell at me for asking.  Sometimes she would even hit me.  Usually Nab’hia would come ‘round the next day and ask me how my mother was treating me.  It was funny how she would know to ask, because I would be so angry with my mother, especially if she had hit me, and I would always tell Nab’hia. 
            Then Nab’hia would find my mother and secrete her away.  I would see them at the edge of the forest, their black bodies blending into the shadows of the tree trunks, or sometimes Nab’hia would take her into the lean-to shed where we kept our goats and pig.  And then she would make my mother scream.  My mother’s screams were like the dark and wild screams that came from the jungle in the nights when the air was so hot and heavy that you would think it was a living presence marching right down out of the mountains, looking for you, coming to strangle you.  I never knew what Nab’hia did to her or what she said to make my mother scream like that, but there was some small, smug part of me that remembered the feel of the bones in the back of my mother’s hand as they connected with my soft cheek and smiled inwardly.  The more Nab’hia came and made my mother scream like that, the more my mother hit me.  And the more my mother hit me, the more I longed to tattle on her to Nab’hia.  It was like a game to me, and I was a small, selfish child with a darkened heart.
            But after that day when Nab’hia took that piece of my heart out of my chest, we didn’t see her for years.  Sometimes I’d catch my mother standing on the edge of our little porch, staring down the mountain road, a wary look in her eye, and I knew that she was wondering where Nab’hia was.
            My mother and I never got along, and Nab’hia’s absence didn’t change that.  Perhaps it was the presence of Josue, and perhaps the presence of my Gécy after him, but once Nab’hia left, my mother stopped hitting me.  I still longed for someone to tattle to about her, though, when she made me angry, and my foolish, darkened heart did not grow any wiser.  It was as if that piece of it that Nab’hia had taken out was a piece of my humanity, my compassion.  But then, if it was, it was really a piece that I had never had, because I had never cared much for anyone the way that I cared for myself.
            But when Gécy turned twelve, Nab’hia started to turn up at our home again.  I was coming into the yard with an apron full of eggs, when there she was, moseying up the mountain road, as if the last time she had done so were yesterday.  She had let herself into our home without asking and sat down at our table.  Gécy was in the village, at the missionary school there, but Nab’hia seemed to know all about that.  “You watch out for those people, Karine,” she said to me in her soft, hissing voice.  “They fill your head with lies.”  She had asked my mother how we all got on, and my mother told her that we did fairly, and so she turned to me with her cunning yellow eyes and asked me how my mother was treating me.  She had stopped hitting me, I told Nab’hia, but she still called me names.  Quick as a snake, Nab’hia whipped her arm out and caught my mother’s shoulder blade between her fingers.  “Now why do you do that?” Nab’hia asked my mother, who whimpered like a child under her grasp.  “Why do you name something that does not belong to you any longer?  You should know better.”  And as quickly as she had taken my mother up, Nab’hia’s hand was back on her lap.  It was almost as if the incident had never happened.  It had been disquieting, to say the least.  There was always a small, selfish part of me that enjoyed getting under my mother’s skin, that enjoyed having something to pin on her.  But I did not like to see her small and shaking and cowering in her chair.  I did not like to see Nab’hia looking at me with that smug expression, as though she and I shared some secret that my mother could not be part of.  


Continued in Part 3: How Beautiful are the Feet (posted 12 May)

08 May 2010

Nab'hia - Part 1: Thief of My Heart













Here's a little story I've started to write.  The idea came from a nightmare I had about a soul-sucking demon who wanted to take my daughter (of course, I have no living children, but our subconscious minds, in dreams, cannot know this), and I would not let it.  Give it a read and see what you think.  There is more written, and I'll continue to post it in parts.

Now here was Nab’hia, back in our home again.  I had heard my mother’s cries when Nab’hia had come to talk with her in the secret, purple shadows of the dusk, and now I feared that she was here to talk with me.  I feared that she would separate me from the other women as she had done to my mother in the past, and lure me out into the yard, and that somehow, on the cusp of our little farmyard between where my papa's land married itself to the jungle, she would show me what it was that made my mother cry so.
            If only, I thought, If only I could convince Nab’hia that it were my mother she wanted to see, perhaps then she would not be here to see me after all.  
            Nab’hia played at being our friend, but there was something in her deeply exotic face that just wasn’t right.  Somehow, when her smooth dark features and pronounced bone structure came into just the right lighting, it was as though I could see something about her that gave me a chill, even in the humid tropical air.  When she looked at me now from under her heavily lidded eyes, I could feel that dread chill growing in my bones.  She mingled with the other women who were at my mother’s hut, moving about them as though she were one of them, but she was not.  They were all uneasy around her, and my mother’s high-pitched, nervous laugh spoke to me the volumes that her words would not.  Nab’hia was not welcome at our fire, and yet we could not make her go.  I never understood until today why we could not make her go.
            I had seen her coming.  The sun was setting in a blaze down the mountain, its rays shooting like fire through the leaves of the calabash trees, and I had seen her walking up the dirt road toward our home.  For a moment she had looked like she was ascending to us out of a pit of flames, and I couldn’t shake that image from my mind.  Her exotic bone structure had become pointed, her chin and nose like hooks, and her yellow eyes had seemed to glow from under their heavy lids.  Before she could reach our yard, I had invented an errand to send Gécy on.  We needed some cow’s milk, I told her, and she would need to run down to old Norberte’s down the mountain trail.  It was foolish, even Gécy was old enough to know that a luxury like cow’s milk was not something that we should need so desperately that she should have to go running down the mountain at dusk for it.  But she was a good girl, and she took my tin pail and set off begrudgingly down the trail.  If it was too dark when she got there, I told her, she should stay the night with Norberte and Pedro.  Gécy looked at me as though I were a crazy person, because we both knew that it would be too dark when she got there.  But she humored her idiot mother and set off on my fool’s errand. 
            I couldn’t risk her coming back early while Nab’hia was still at our house.  I couldn’t forget the promise I had made to Nab’hia years ago and the strange ritual I had watched her perform on me in the dark.  Couldn’t forget how she had reached into my chest and taken out a piece of my heart – that it hadn’t even hurt as I had watched her do it, her hand bloody with the small, thick piece of muscle tissue that she had held between her fingers.  I remembered the way the warm blood had felt on my own dark skin, and how I had never felt my heartbeat so acutely before.  I have never felt it beat so since either.  But more than that, I couldn’t forget the promise that I had made her, the exchange she had let me make as a part of that ritual.  I would have my man.  I would have my Josue.  But in exchange, she would get my daughter.  I had laughed inside at the time, so young and naïve.  I did not have a daughter, I did not have any children, nor did I plan to.  I would not be like my own mother, saddled down in one place, waiting for a man to return from the village when he was done with his drinking and his whoring.  I would have my Josue and he would have me.  There would be no daughter.
            But Nab’hia had been right.  Josue had been mine, and though he had put off marriage, to my chagrin, there was a daughter.  There was Gécy.  And no sooner was she born than Josue was gone.  At first I had hated Gécy.  I had blamed her for Josue’s faithlessness.  For the first two years of her life I blamed her.  But then, one day as I dressed, I noticed a small scar on my chest.  It was the scar where Nab’hia’s hand had entered between my ribs and touched my beating heart.  As if remembering a dream, I remembered the promise that I had made to her, and I remembered that she was supposed to return and claim my Gécy.

Continued in Part 2: Secrets and Silence (posted 10 May)

01 May 2010

more than ok



When I’m up with the sunrise,
I want more than just the blue skies...
When I’m lit with the sunshine,
I want more than just a good time
I want more than just ok, more than just ok.
(Switchfoot.  “More than Fine”, The Beautiful Letdown. Colombia Records, 2003.)

I have never made it a secret that one of my favorite things about being a student is writing papers.  I like to write long papers and short papers.  I like to write research papers and introspective papers.  I like to write book reports and book reviews.  I just like to write papers.

Or at least I always thought I did.

This semester, I had a huge problem, though.  Well, let me skip back a little, ‘cause I guess it started a little before this semester.  About four months ago I started to have my first bout with writer’s block.  I’d never experienced it before, and I don’t think I even knew what to call it at first.  So I called it lots of different names.  Like “procrastination.”  Or “laziness.”  And how about “just-not-good-enough-ness.”  That last one was one of my personal favorites, and when I’d catch myself lying awake late at night into the wee hours (which I did a lot) it was often the choice name I would give to my new little pet.

It started out with a big end-of-semester paper that I needed to write for last semester’s archaeology class.  I had a lovely bout of pancreatitis in the middle of the semester that pushed that paper back, and had gotten an extension for it so that I could turn it in when the Spring semester began.  I had great ideas for it, and if you’d asked me what it was about, I could have told you to a “T.”  I did my research and was genuinely interested in the research I did.  But every time I sat down to write, I’d just stare at my blank Word document...  sometimes for so long that I don’t even want to recount it here.  I did finish that paper, and it was amazingly mediocre.  Yay.  How I managed to wrangle an ‘A’ out of it, I’ll never know.  Because I know the work I did on it, and I know the work I’m capable of, and it was just... mediocre.

So now for this semester’s piece de la resistance.  I carried that one around for so long it became like this annoying little monkey on my back.  I even started to think of giving it a name.  The monkey, that is – not the paper.  It was insane.  INSANE I tell you!  I don’t know what my damage was; maybe I was still raging from the insecurity of the previous piece of artwork that I’d turned in, but I just could not put together one coherent sentence for this paper.  And it was such an awesome topic – such an awesome theory.

See, I had this theory...  This paper was on David’s use of fortress imagery in his Psalms, particularly in how he ascribed the image of the fortress to God in his Psalms.  He uses several different Hebrew words for fortress, but only two to refer to God as the fortress.  I know, I know... all the seminarians automatically think that “migdol” is the word that David uses to refer to God as the fortress, but it isn’t.  David never calls God that.  A migdol is always a military-type fortress, something built with human hands, and only in one Psalm does David draw a vague parallel between God and a migdol, but he never calls God “my migdol.”  The words David uses to draw a picture of God as his fortress have more of a connection to sheltering in the wilderness – to cliff tops that are too high to reach, or underbrush that’s too thick to penetrate, or caves that are too dark to see into.  They’re the types of places that small, vulnerable animals might seek shelter from predators.  They can have military connotations, too, but in a broader sense, they often find their root meanings in these more natural contexts.  So I saw that David found God’s protection and provision for him not in the things that he could build with his own hands, or in those that he could have commanded to have built during his time in empire, but rather that he identified God as his fortress in the uncertain, fearful time that he’d spent fleeing from Saul in the wilderness.

I had planned to capitalise on the good deal of commentary I’d found that bore these points up, as well as some theologising (oh, dear, another one I’ve made up that Word says isn’t a word!) and philosophising that I’d looked into on fortifications during the time of the Davidic and the Solomonic Empires.  Then of course, my grand scheme was to work in how David’s philosophic view of God inevitably influenced the way in which he began to build fortifications throughout his empire, and how we can see that played out through archaeological evidences today.

It was going to be a very whaxegesic, big-halo-academic paper.  You know, the kind that dreams are made of, not like the mediocre pieces of pudge I’d been cranking out lately, the ones that were really just me kind of stringing together other people’s quotations and informational tidbits and stretching them into a patchwork quilt that was essentially twenty pages of uselessness.

But once again, I did my research, sat down to write my paper, opened up my Word document, and that blank white page just sat there, taunting me and jeering at me.  It was humiliating.  I’ve never had the privilege of feeling impotent before, but O baby, I had it then.

So I went into exile for a while.  I exiled myself.  I exiled my friends.  I punished them because I couldn’t write.  I punished my other homework because I couldn’t write.  I punished God.  I put Him in His little tent, and set the presence of God outside of my camp.  It is one of the most mournful and truly sad things a Christian can do during her own time of despair and confusion, is it not?  And all of this I did during the Easter season – a time when I should be rejoicing in my rebirth and my union with Christ and His glorious Body, the Church.

So then I did the only thing a child of God can do at a time like that.  I stopped reading more commentaries about the passages on which I was trying to write that blasted paper, and I started reading the passages themselves.  What did they say?

1 I love You, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress
            and my deliverer,
   My God, my rock in whom I take refuge;
   My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
   And I am saved from my enemies.

It is so easy to view David from the perspective of 1 Kings 2:7.  His great son is on the throne, ready to rule, his empire has been established, the plans for the Temple are laid, his battles have been fought and won, he’s been forgiven, and now he’s ready to rest with his fathers and go home to be with God.  David’s fortress is secure.

But David did not always know this.  There was this time, this small, dirty, low, Psalm 18 time, when David was dodging around in the underbrush, hiding in whatever cave he could find shelter, crying out to God.  He did not always know.  He knew he was anointed, he knew God had made him a promise, and don’t we, too?  But aren’t there times when, despite that promise, despite knowing from where-ever God has rescued us, we look at whatever God is asking us to do now and we think, “Oh, God, I can’t.  It’s just too hard.  I just don’t see how it will work.  How can You ask this of me?”  Did David ask these questions, too?  I don’t know, because Scripture doesn’t say, but David sure is a pretty human guy.  He stumbled like the rest of us.  I’ll bet there were nights when he was cold in the wilderness, sleeping on a bed of rocks with nary a Temple in sight when he cried bitter tears and asked God what the heck He was doing.  But David was obedient.  He was always obedient. 

When he blew it with Uriah and Bathsheba, he was obedient – and that was monumental.  He didn’t lock himself inside his dorm room for a month reciting woe as me’s and staring at a blank Word document, pondering exactly what word order he was going to use in order to make Psalm 51 most emotionally effective.  He was obedient.  It was his heart condition.  He didn’t know what would come of it, all he knew was that God was good, and that the right thing for him to do was to repent and to return, and that whatever God chose to do with him after that... well, it would be okay.  No, he knew it would be more than that.  It would be more than just okay, it would be perfect.

So I put away my stupid research, and my stupid theologimificationising (ooooooo... Word likes that word even less than the last one...) and decided to just write my paper about what I knew.  I decided to stop trying to make it fit into some big-halo-academic model and write it about what God was teaching me about how He had defended His people in the Old Testament.  Because, really, that’s what that paper was supposed to be about in the first place – Old Testament warfare and the ultimate Warrior in it.  And that paper ended up being better than I’d ever thought it could be, even though it was a little late getting in.

Was it great?  I don’t know.  Was it up to the calibre of my undergrad work?  Maybe not quite – I did some really good stuff then, and I think I’m working back up to that level, but I don’t think I’ve quite found how to get back there yet.  But you know what, it was a work of obedience, a work of trust, and a work of God’s will and growth in my life.

And that’s more than just ok.

25 April 2010

fear & trembling










            10Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.  11For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.  12Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”  13Has Christ been divided?  Paul was not crucified for you, was he?  Or were you baptised in the name of Paul?”  (1 Cor 1:11-13 NASB)

This is a very heady and academic place in which I now live.  It is no small thing, the amount of knowledge which daily pounds by me on the pavement as I trot along to my classes or jaunt off to Chapel.  I am afforded with the chance to study under some of the greatest theological minds of my time, to interact with them on a daily basis.  Why, just the other day, I shared a little laugh with D.A. Carson.  At least, I think he was laughing with me...

But here’s this thing I pick up on all the time:  people here get so attached to a particular doctrine, to a particular man’s teachings, or to a particular denominational understanding of Scripture and the workings of election and salvation that they seem to lose sight of what really happened as Christ was slaughtered on the Cross to atone for what we did.

Last week I was sitting in my Systematic Theology class, and we were hearing a lecture on gradation in degree of election through Supralapsarianism to Arminianism.  The professor basically laid out a buffet of the four major different doctrinal differences outlining how God would/could have or could not have elected people in order that He would have either been the One who allowed sin to come into the world or to have kind of been more hands off about it and that it would have been more of a thing that men chose to do because God only elected a general “type” or subset of people to be saved rather than specific people.  Whew!  Are you gettin’ all of that?!  Okay, if you aren’t, it’s totally okay.  Trust me, spell check isn’t getting it either, ‘cause my little green “grammar police” lines are off the charts angry about that sentence.  I mean, the lecture was a lot more in depth and probably easier to follow.  I’m probably being intentionally vague because I just get so irritated with all of this whaxegesic mumbo-jumbo.  I mean, I know there’s a place for it, and really, it’s why were here...  at seminary...  where people come to learn about these different historical treatises and what they’ve meant to the Church and to doctrine.

But after this little sub-lecture, a young man raises his hand and asks – and he’s very earnest – how he can use this to witness to people.  He asks, if the Supralapsarian view is true, and God has predestined and pre-elected only a certain few, how can he truly witness to someone on the street and tell them that Jesus died for their sins when maybe Jesus didn’t die for their sins, maybe they aren’t one of the elect.  He asks isn’t it better to follow maybe more of an Amyraldian or an Arminian point of view, because then he can tell people that Jesus really did die for their sins, but then what if those points of view aren’t really true, and the Infralapsarianism or the Supralapsarian point of view is right, then isn’t he doing the lost an injustice – why even try to save them at all?

So by now, I’m just busting at the seams to say something, because this guy doesn’t need a deeper explanation of the theological treatise.  He’s probably had too much already.  And maybe I should have just kept my big yap shut, but I couldn’t help it.  So I said, in front of the whole class, that I tended to lean more toward the first two camps (those that favor election and predestination), but because I’m finite and cannot possibly grasp God’s eternal perspective of whom He has and hasn’t chosen to be a part of His Kingdom, I must treat everyone I meet as though they may at some time become my brother or sister in Christ.  Even if they are not a member of the elect, I do not and cannot know this, and it is not my responsibility to try and discern it – God’s will for me is to evangelise, to share His love for them and His will that all should come to know Him and that none should perish.

So after the sound of crickets briefly filled the room, the professor once again launched into another theological explanation of the four doctrinal points of view on election, at which, this poor soul looked even more confused than he had before.  I am now more resolved than ever to just keep my mouth shut in this class and get through it.  I say again, that I know these factual tidbits are important, but can’t we help our young men and women out – the future leaders and teachers of our flock – by helping them to understand how this will relate to their ministry today? 

Why does more knowledge just seem to confuse and harden so many of the young men and women that I see around here?  How sad that makes me.  How sad for them and how sad for Christ’s bride, the Church.  Why can’t we seem to find a place where we can learn and worship and lead others to Truth without mucking up their new faith by scaring them with our own theological insecurities?

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.  For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by people around campus, that there are quarrels among you.  Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying,  “I’m an Arminian,”  and “I’m a Calvinist,” and “I’m a Charismatic,” and “I’m a Calviminian,” and, “I don’t even need the epistles or the Old Testament, because I just follow the Gospel of love that Christ preached.”  Has Christ been divided?  Calvin was not crucified for you, was he?  Or were you baptised in the name of Arminius?
12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling...  (Phil 2:12 – NASB)

So do it.  Go and work out your own salvation.  Figure out what it means to you.  Struggle with it.  Wrestle with God.  But don’t you dare make those lost ones whom God has called you to evangelise bear the burden of what you don’t understand.  Don’t you dare ask them to help you figure it out.  Don’t you dare cause them to stumble.  You work out your own salvation.

24 April 2010

bottled water






I know it's a little weird to put up two posts in one day - trust me, it's weird for me, too!  But I figured that since these quizzes were written a little while ago and all I had to do was a little modifying, it wasn't like I was actually WRITING them, and I'm also planning on doing another serious post tomorrow, so I figured I'd get you all sugared up today before I hit you with some hard truth tomorrow.  Enjoy!


Okay, let me be honest with you.  The Gummy Bear quiz?  Child’s play.  It was done on a lark as sort of a second thought.  This Bottled Water Quiz is really soooo much more well written – I really took my time with it, thought things out.  You know how many total users it’s had?  Thirty-one.  Yup, that’s right – three (3) – one (1).  And most of those people only took it because I forced them to.  Just goes to show you how much the high school girls taking facebook quizzes appreciate true quality.

But I like it, and it makes me giggle a little when I read it.  So here it is for you.

#1 – Which comes closest to what you had for lunch today?
1.  Skittles and Combos.  (+3 points:  Vitamin)
2.  Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame-seed bun.  (+2 points:  Purified)
3.  Rare rack of lamb with mint sauce and braised endive.  (+5 points:  Mediterranean Carbonated)
4.  Dried beef and hard-tack.  (+1 point:  Distilled)
5.  Whatever was in the refrigerator that didn't have mould on it.  Well, maybe it had a little mould on it, but isn't that how they make cheese?  If vegetables have mould on them, can they be considered cheese?  (-2 points:  Toilet)
6.  Casaba melon wrapped in prosciutto.  (+4 points:  Artesian)
7.  That piece of meat I dropped on the floor.  I cleaned it off again before I ate it.  Really. God made dirt and dirt don't hurt.  (+0 points:  Hose)
#2 – Last time you checked your belly-button for lint?
1.  If it's large and hairy enough for me to see it hanging out there, I pick it out.  (+2 points:  Vitamin)
2.  I have never in my life thought about those kinds of things until just now.  Does anybody really?  Is this a joke?  (+1 points:  Purified)
3.  I can't be bothered with such things: I have people who do it for me. (+4 points:  Mediterranean Carbonated)
4.  There is not such a thing?  Is there? Now I'm a little paranoid.  Darn you, facebook quiz!  I thought my bellybutton was ok!  Isn't it? (+1 point:  Distilled)
5.  I am the lint in my belly-button. (+1 points:  Toilet)
6.  Every day when I take my shower.  Sometimes, if I work out and take a couple of showers, twice a day. (+3 points:  Artesian)
7.  When it starts to smell. (+0 points:  Hose)
#3 – Why are you taking this quiz?
1.  Because it's just plain FUN!  WOOO HOOO!  (+4 points:  Vitamin)
2.  Because I'm avoiding doing something academic that I know I should be doing right now.  (+8 points:  Mediterranean Carbonated – but only because I wanted to be undisputedly Mediterranean Carbonated, because it’s my favorite)
3.  Because it reminds me of something I saw on Oprah.  No, it reminds me of something I saw on the View.  Because if that vampire in Twilight were going to bite me, I know that taking a quiz like this on facebook would increase the odds of his doing so.  (+3 points:  Purified)
4.  Because I'm bored. (+1 point:  Distilled)
5.  I take as many quizzes as I can to find out more about the hidden person yearning to break free inside of me that neither I nor anyone else knows about yet, and then I post their results on my wall so that both I and everybody else will finally know who I really am.  REALLY. (+1 point – but  only because I feel sorry for you:  Toilet)
6.  Because the person who created it is forcing me to.  If I don't take it now, she will keep hounding me and hounding me.  I won't get any homework done.  All my text messages will be from her.  Vermin! (+6 points:  Artesian)
7.  Because I need to clean the (toilet/bathroom/kitchen sink/trash bin - you know what it is you should be cleaning right now) and this quiz is helping me avoid the reality of that nastiness for one more brief shining moment. (+1 point:  Hose)
#4 – You probably wear more than one kind of shoe from day-to-day.  Or maybe you don't. Whether you do or you don't, what kind of shoes do you wear the most - or which of the following most closely describes the type of shoes you WOULD wear if you could?
1.  Party shoes! Something I can really GROOVE in, baby!  Jump back and watch me move! OUCH!  Can't touch this!  (+7 points:  Vitamin)
2.  Whatever's on sale at Wal-Mart.  (+4 points:  Purified)
3.  I don't mess around with my shoes. They have to be real leather, and real brand name.  I never buy them at an outlet mall - everyone knows those shoes have something wrong with them.  And "Payless" is a 4-letter word, even if it has more than four letters in it.  Don’t let the number of letters fool you.  It’s nasty.  (+7 points:  Mediterranean Carbonated)
4.  I got them at a fire sale.  (+3 points:  Distilled)
5.  Okay, don't tell anybody, but I really like the smell of feet.  I really like the smell of my own feet. I know it's kind of nasty, but sometimes I like to let my feet get really hot and sweaty and then I like to smell them. So... yeah, ones that smell like feet.  Yeah...  (-1 point – I’m sorry, I have to take one point away for shenanigans like those:  Toilet)
6.  Running shoes.  Or tennis shoes.  Or walking shoes.  Or cleats.  What's that?  Just one?  Okay.  Running shoes.  Or tennis shoes.  Or... »  (+6 points:  Artesian)
7.  This pair of Doctor Martens that I've had for about ten years now.  I don't care if the sole of the left one is cracked in half and the laces don't match, and maybe they smell a little mouldy, but they feel goooooood. You can't take that away, man.  And if you try, I’ll just keep hiding them in different places around the house till you stop looking.  (+2 points for effort:  Hose)
#5 – Quick, don't think, just pick one:
1.  Jelly Bean  (+4 points:  Vitamin)
2.  Toast  (+3 points:  Purified)
3.  Guava nectar  (+5 points:  Mediterranean Carbonated)
4.  Burn (+1 point:  Distilled)
5.  Burp  (+1 point:  Toilet)
6.  Pomegranate  (+4 points:  Artesian)
7.  Cow tongue  (+1 point:  Hose)
#6 – You're driving through town and there's a homeless man on the corner with a sign that says, "My children are hungry, will work for money". What do you do?
1.  I have an apple, half a bag of chips, and a bag of McDonald's that I just picked up not 5 minutes ago in the seat next to me.  I roll down the window just enough to fit the bags through and give him all of it.  (+6 points:  Vitamin)
2.  Ok, you, there's a fine line between morality, stupid facebook quizzes, and meddling. I don't know what you're up to here, but I'm only taking this quiz as a time filler - what's with the deep and meaningful questions? (+3 points:  Purified)
3.  My gardener needs help.  If this guy doesn't smell like booze and his eyes aren't glassy, I have him fill out an application and submit his resume and tell him I'll have my people get back with his people sometime next week.  (+5 points:  Mediterranean Carbonated)
4.  blankedy blank blank....  And those aren't euphemisms for swear words, I'm just not sure how to answer this.  What's a homeless man got to do with bottled water?  (+3 points:  Distilled)
5.  Hey, I would work for money. Does your gardener really need help?  I could get you my resume by five!  (+3 points:  Toilet)
6.  I make sure my doors are locked, turn up my stereo a little louder, and avoid eye contact. If I don't see him, he must not be there, right?  RIGHT?  (-2 points:  Artesian Spring)
7.  My town doesn't have any homeless people in it.  Ummm...  My town hardly has a town in it - unless you count the tractor dealership on the corner.  (+1 point:  Hose)
#7 – A tomato is:
1.  A fruit, or did you only get through, like, second-grade science?  (+2 points:  Vitamin)
2.  A vegetable, what's wrong with you, fruit-head, are you, like, in kindergarten?  (+2 points:  Purified)
3.  Best stewed in a fine white wine and served with fresh herbs over spelt pasta.  (+5 points:  Mediterranean Carbonated)
4.  Something you dry and then grind up into a powder in case you can't get one again for a long, long time.  (+3 points:  Distilled)
5.  Something that causes SEVERE digestive problems.  Ouch.  Icky.  Look out below.  (+1 point – WAY TMI!:  Toilet)
6.  I saw the ones in your garden, and mine were better. I had more, and I don't care what anybody says, yours had WORMS!  (+2 points:  Artesian)
7.  Best used as a missile after it's rotten, smelly, and more than a little mouldy. Ever been hit with one of those babies?  You'll never mess with ME again!  (+3 points:  Hose)


You are Naturally Carbonated Mediterranean Spring Water.
Va-va-voom!  Don't mess with you! While most people don't have the cash-ola to buy you or the refined taste to REALLY appreciate you, everyone knows who's the best of the best, and it's you, baby.  Most of the time those po-dunk, purified-water-drinking-pansies just walk right on by you, but it's not because they don't like you, or even because they can't afford you (let's be realistic, if they truly knew how good you were, they'd be willing to shell out a few extra dollars!).  It's because they just don't understand you. In fact, some of them are just plain afraid of you.  I mean, really, those people drinking Aquafina?  It's a Pepsi product, people. Who knows where that water comes from (cf: reclaimed sewer-water). To them, carbonation belongs in liquid that could dissolve the shine off a penny.  Nope, you're beyond them. Just keep on believing...  (34 – 39 points)
You are Pure Artesian Spring Water.
Artesian...  What does it mean?  Does anyone really know?  Most people don't, but you do. It means you, baby!  You're pricey and glitzy, and just about as fancy as something that's non-sparkling can be.  Does that mean that you're a pretender to the Naturally Carbonated Spring Water throne?  Hey, no one ever said that out loud!  You are, of course, more popular than that carbonated junk.  People GET you.  I mean, what's up with that “naturally” carbonated water, anyway?  Is that for real?  Or is it just distilled water with bottled CO2 added?  Yeah, we can all take a guess at the truth...  Say what they may, you know you're the real thing!  You are fresh and velvety. There are less expensive brands of spring water out there, but everyone knows that they're really just pretenders to YOUR throne. Sometimes people walk longingly by you on their way to buy Ice Mountain, but everyone knows it's you they really want.  You're like the Gucci bag of bottled water...  If there even is such a thing...  So...  WHATEVER, "Naturally" Carbonated Spring Water!  You tell me when you have yourself figured out...  or...  whatever...  (19 – 23 points)
You are Vitamin Water.
Wheeeeee-Haaaaaaaah!  Water was never fun before you came along!  Shoot, FUN was never fun before you came along!  Some people say you're kind of watered-down tasting, but...  DUH!  You're WATER!  What do they expect!  I mean, as far as water goes, you're like a rocket.  Well, like a rocket of, um, water.  Or something like that.  Your subtle hints of juiciness are refreshing and satisfying, and the fact that you come in fun colors is like the added bonus of the century.  After you came along, those other more generic brands of water started to try and imitate you but their colors were either too bright or too unnatural (I mean, who ever heard of bright blue water - yuck!).  And that plain old clear water that's flavored?  It's just plain CREEEEPY!  What's up with that?  If you're going to be a flavor, you may as well go all the way, right?  Well you, my friend, you go all the way. You are not afraid to break new ground, try new things.  If water could climb Mount Everest, you would do it.  And if you're not the athletic type, you'd be the water to win the Nobel Peace Prize.  Because everybody knows what kind of water YOU are. You are excitement in a bottle...  BAM!  (24 – 30 points)
You are Purified Water.
Ok, so you're not the most exciting thing out there on the shelf.  Mmmmm...  maybe your packaging isn't the most flashy thing on the bottled-water buffet, either.  Aaaaand...  you might taste a little weird sometimes, too.  Those rumors that you're reclaimed sewer-water?  Are they true?  Hey, everybody has skeletons in their closet, right?  We don't need to talk about that here.  At least you're doing your duty for the environment.  Recycling is recycling. I mean, when people are eating off of plates that are made from post-consumer recycled paper, who really knows what that means?  Where did that paper come from?  No one ever goes around casting aspersions at the recycled paper plate's character!  One thing that's for sure, though, recycled tap water or whatever you are, you are hands down the most popular bottled water out there.  Why? Because you're safe.  Who needs exciting.  Who needs flavor.  Who needs stupid bubbles in their water - I mean what's up with that anyway?  Everybody knows bubbles are for soda, right?  You have been septimally filtered (I mean, if you were - not to say you are, but if you WERE - sewer-water, how could any poop be left in you after seven different filterings?  Right?  RIGHT?). You have been through the process of reverse osmosis (so what if those Naturally Carbonated Spring Water-drinking academic snobs say that's an oxymoron - nobody really knows what the word "oxymoron" means anyway - I mean, you don't, and that's all that really matters...  REALLY...).  And you've been boiled at a temperature that's comparable to the surface-heat of Mount Vesuvius' open caldera. But - and perhaps - most importantly, you really FEEL clean. Feel the clean.  Be the clean.  No one needs to know where you REALLY came from...  It’s all just poop under the bridge.  (16 – 18 points)
You are Distilled Water.
You are utilitarian, useful, helpful.  Let's put it this way, if there's a situation in which the National Guard might be called, people are going to be shoving each other into the end-caps down the bottled water aisle to get at you, my friend.  And not only that, but you are multi-purpose, as well.  Maybe people only drink you as a last resort, but everyone who's anyone knows that if they really want to care for their tropical fish like good tropical fish carers-forers (is that even a word? spell check doesn't seem to think so...) they should use you.  I mean, really, have you ever tried to bathe your gourami in Perrier? And what kind of fool goes out and buys 50 gallons worth of Fiji to start up a new salt-water tank (I mean, couldn't you buy your 16-year-old a new car for that kind of cash)? So while you might not be tasty - ok, let's just admit it, you're really kind of gross (nothing personal, just pointing out facts...) - you sure are useful! Sooooo... You just keep on truckin', trigger!  (10 – 14 points)
You are Hose Water.
All right, here's the skinny on you: Some people think you're just gross; others think you're the best thing since sliced bread.  So which is it?  Well really, if it's a hot day and you're a long hose and you've been laying out in the sun (especially near an ant hill and the ants have been climbing up inside of you and laying their eggs inside of you and eating dead bug carcasses inside of you and peeing inside of you), you really are a little gross.  Flipside? Let the water run for a while, rinse you out, get those ants, their eggs, and their excrement out, make sure the water's cold, and you just might be the most refreshing thing a person's ever had.  If the well's deep enough, and the aquifer doesn't have disgusting minerals in it (and if animals haven't been peeing on the mouth of the hose while no one's been around), hose water is fabulous.  If you're a country kid who's grown up with it and you're willing to put your blinders on and pretend like no animal anywhere ever in the history of hosedom could ever have peed on the hose ever (ever ever), hose water is great.  Sooooo...  You take your pick.  Are you?  Or aren't you? It's all about you.  But then again, this quiz doesn't really mean anything anyway, so it really isn't about anything.  Shoot. For a second there it all seemed like it made so much sense, didn't it...  (6 – 9 points)
You are Toilet Water.
Oooooooo...  Ouch.  Toilet water.  How did we get here?  Think about it.  Don't want to think about it?  Maybe it's time to start.  For one thing, we're talking about drinking water.  What're people doing drinking out of the toilet?  I mean, really.  One of the optional answers for this quiz was "distilled water" which is - let's face it - desperation water.  So if distilled water is desperation water, and you're toilet water, what does that mean for you?  Well, there's good news and there's bad news.  Bad news first, let’s get it over with. It means you're toilet water.  TOILET WATER, MAN!!  Is there any good news after that?  The good news?  I guess if there were good news, it would be that this quiz is meaningless.  It has nothing to do with anything. The fact that you are toilet water could mean that you are an Irish Springer Spaniel wearing pink booties to the Festivas Ball in the middle of June at midnight.  Somewhere around here there must be a quiz that will tell you who you REALLY are...  and I’ll bet it’s got a photo of the Twilight vampire somewhere in it...  (2 – 5 points)