Between the Living and The Dead – Closing Thoughts – Something has Changed

Greetings Dear Reader,

I do not engage in prognostication over prophecy or end times.  I find it is a waste of time and causes too much division.  As I was talking with the friend that sparked this discussion we did, however, agree that something has changed. 

We do not know when the Father will choose to make things right.  We do not know and I do not want to know.  I do feel that something has changed.  There is a different feeling in the world.  I realize that sounds a little too cryptic and mystic but I have been trying all week to find a better way to say it. 

There is a shift from unbelief to mocking those who do believe.  The increase in intolerance of those who follow Christ is noticeable.  People who know me opening mock what I believe without consideration of how it impacts me.  It would be seen, however, as a great crime were I to mock anyone else’s faith.

The open flight from the church troubles me too.  I do not think that the church is faultless in this. In fact, I know we bear much of the fault.  It still troubles me.  Whether I like it or not the church has a mission and it needs all the help it can get.

I hope I am never arrogant enough to think that I have alone in my faith.  That would be a prideful lie.  The friend who germinated this conversation is a hiker.  She is concerned about the path ahead.  I support her in her concern.  She is a fellow traveler whose company I treasure and share all too seldom.

In the journey back to the Father we are both determined to be through hikers.  Even when faith is more questions than answers we both keep walking.  Sometimes I crawl and sometimes I need to be carried.  I help carry others when necessary. 

As I make the turn toward Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week I feel like Bilbo about to enter Mirkwood.  I see the darkness and feel the change in the air.  I know the only way out is through.  I know that the only way through is to stay on the path even when it is narrow and overshadowed.  I hope you stay with me Dear Reader.  I need the company.

Keep On Walking – The Imperials

Are you weary in well-doing, walking on the road to New Jerusalem?

Are you hoping and a-praying, looking any minute for the Lord to come?

And do you see a lot of pleasant-looking places where you might lay down to take a rest?

And if you do, take a look at all the faces there, the sadness will tell you that it's best

To keep on walkin', you don't know how far you've come.

Keep on walkin' for all you know it may be done.

And the Father might be standing up right now to give the call and end it all,

So, keep on walkin'

Now if you need a feelin' to keep you on the road you started travelin' on,

You're gonna have some trouble learning that it's faith that keeps you movin' on.

And in the Lord you start your walk from sitting, but sometimes you have to take a step

And standin's not another word for quitting, it's jut takin' a tighter hold of His hand.

So keep on walkin', you don't know how far you've come.

Keep on walkin' for all you know it may be done.

And the Father might be standing up right now to give the call and end it all,

So, keep on walkin'.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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Between the Living and The Dead – The Death of Death

Greetings Dear Reader,

In the book Chronicles of Thanatos the Reaper I give Death a persona.  We know that death rules our ecology.  Death will end.  I do not engage in speculation as to when but the time will come when death is over.

The Father has promised a new world that is filled with good.  The entire process of the world is to get us back to good.  I cannot accomplish this but I can participate in the process.  I can do what is right by loving the Father and loving my fellow travelers.

Death is not just that end of life we all encounter.  We must also die to follow Christ.  We must die to our greed and selfishness.  We must die to our insensitivity and anger.  We must die to the things this dead world wants us to embrace and live for the things that matter eternally.

We must take up death and carry it with us in this form.  We must take up our cross and follow Christ.  When you saw a man carrying a cross you saw a dead man.  Since we are already marked for death we may as well be marked in the right way and in good company.  We may as well carry our cross as asked.

The act of following with the cross is what we see as our part in Holy Week.  It costs us something to do this.  We lose things we think we want.  We also gain things we do not yet understand.  We get to turn death into a fighting chance to live.  Death will end but what we do when we die to self never will. 

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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Between the Living and The Dead – The Living Walking Dead

Greetings Dear Reader,

My friend who influenced this piece of writing and I both enjoy The Walking Dead television show.  Then again the writing is quite good.  Oh and the zombies are pretty awesome too. 

I have friends who believe there will actually be a zombie apocalypse some day.  I do not think that it will

come to that.  I do think that one of the undercurrents of the TV show is something that we miss entirely in reality.  Whatever causes the dead to reanimate is already in everyone.   Any death results in reanimation not just a bite from one already infected.

We are already infected with death.  We are condemned by our sin.  We are already the walking dead but do not see the dire nature of it.  Because the nature of our death does not reveal itself in the harsh and brutal way it does in comics and on the screen we do not see how virulent and hazardous it is.

We live in a death based ecology.  Things die to produce life.  From birth we march toward the grave.  All life must be tended or it dies.  Even in this shrouded existence life fights to emerge.  It wants to find a way.  Life will out even if it causes destruction to do so.  It cannot win on its own but it keeps pushing, piercing, and producing. 

It is in Christ that we find the answer.  We turn toward Holy Week with death shrouding us all and demanding its due.  We all have a date with Death.  He will call for us when he is ready.  The body will die but we can still live.  We can live in Christ.  This will not solve all our problems or cure our ills.  It will give us the chance we desire to go on.  It will keep death from a final win.

The problem is that it requires faith and that too is dying in our midst.  So many are setting faith aside and pursuing life in other ways.  I value all life.  We have adopted a culture where the value of life is based on what we want not life for its own sake. 

If I choose to follow Christ, and I do, he insists that I do so in faith.  He demands that I show others how to have life.  He compels me to help him turn death into the fighting chance to live.  Death looms heavy in the air but spring is coming in both reality and metaphor.    

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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Between the Living and The Dead – Opening Thoughts

Greetings Dear Reader,

Many years ago and by many I mean decades I was homeless for a short time.  During that time I lived in my car until it was stolen while I was working a day pay job to get off the streets.  The car was not much but in it were books that were precious to me, my first Bible, and my clothes. 

One of the books I lost was a book titled Please Pardon My Poetry by Jack Hyles.   Whilst I did not agree with most of his Theology I did admire his passion for the souls of others.  It was his banner.  In that book was a poem about Moses and Aaron standing between the living and the dead.

I bought my copy of the book in 1976; two years after I decide to follow Christ.  This past October, as I was settling in the solitude of this place I cannot call home I did a search for the book wanting to find a copy.  I did find it online and ordered a used copy for less than five dollars. 

I forgot about it until it arrived.  Then I tore it open longing to read that poem again.  I flipped to the table of contents and then to the poem.  Only after reading through a couple did I flip back to the front to recall others titles I had enjoyed.  I went too far and landed on the fly leaf. 

I am convinced that God has a very mischievous sense of humor.  There in the corner of the fly page in my 1976 writing was my name and date.  A book I bought in 1976 and lost in 1983 had made its way back to me in 2015.  It reminds me daily of my place between the living and the dead.  It reminds me of my place by the door.   It reminds me what I am supposed to be doing.

As I turn my heart and mind toward Holy Week I am thinking of the ONE who stands between the living and the dead.  The bulk of Holy Week is about death.  So on death will dwell for a few days.  I am not going to be morose but Death is there to keep us honest.  We must, therefore, be honest with death.

I have a reason for what I do.  I will take a short detour through the shadow of the valley of death so that when we get to life it will be all the brighter.  We are not strangers here.  Please walk with me Dear Reader.  I need the company.  Feel free to comment on the scenery.

I Stand by the Door - An Apologia for my Life - Samuel Moore Shoemaker

I stand by the door.

I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out.

The door is the most important door in the world -

It is the door through which men walk when they find God.

There is no use my going way inside and staying there,

When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,

Crave to know where the door is.

And all that so many ever find

Is only the wall where the door ought to be.

They creep along the wall like blind men,

With outstretched, groping hands,

Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,

Yet they never find it.

So I stand by the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world

Is for men to find that door - the door to God.

The most important thing that any man can do

Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands

And put it on the latch - the latch that only clicks

And opens to the man's own touch.

Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die

On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter.

Die for want of what is within their grasp.

They live on the other side of it - live because they have not found it.

Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,

And open it, and walk in, and find Him.

So I stand by the door.

Go in great saints; go all the way in -

Go way down into the cavernous cellars,

And way up into the spacious attics.

It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.

Go into the deepest of hidden casements,

Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.

Some must inhabit those inner rooms

And know the depths and heights of God,

And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.

Sometimes I take a deeper look in.

Sometimes venture in a little farther,

But my place seems closer to the opening.

So I stand by the door.

There is another reason why I stand there.

Some people get part way in and become afraid

Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them;

For God is so very great and asks all of us.

And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia

And want to get out. 'Let me out!' they cry.

And the people way inside only terrify them more.

Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled.

For the old life, they have seen too much:

One taste of God and nothing but God will do any more.

Somebody must be watching for the frightened

Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,

To tell them how much better it is inside.

The people too far in do not see how near these are

To leaving - preoccupied with the wonder of it all.

Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door

But would like to run away. So for them too,

I stand by the door.

I admire the people who go way in.

But I wish they would not forget how it was

Before they got in. Then they would be able to help

The people who have not yet even found the door.

Or the people who want to run away again from God.

You can go in too deeply and stay in too long

And forget the people outside the door.

As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,

Near enough to God to hear Him and know He is there,

But not so far from men as not to hear them,

And remember they are there too.

Where? Outside the door -

Thousands of them. Millions of them.

But - more important for me -

One of them, two of them, ten of them.

Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.

So I shall stand by the door and wait

For those who seek it.

'I had rather be a door-keeper

So I stand by the door.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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