Monthly Archives: June 2014

CROSS ROADS by Wm. Paul Young (FaithWorks, 2012)

As they walked Tony asked, ‘Jack, is this place, this in-between place that I know somehow is me… Was I brought here to be confronted with what I have done wrong?‘ . . .   ‘No, my dear boy, quite the reverse,’ Jack assured. ‘The in-between and the life-after is centered and built upon everything you got right, not what you got wrong. And it’s not that what you got wrong is inconsequential or just disappears; much of it is all around you as you can see, but the focus is on the rebuilding, not on the tearing down. . . . Yes, the old must be torn down for the new to be raised; to have a resurrection you must have a crucifixion, but God wastes nothing, not even the wrong we have imagined into existence. . .  ‘Well,’ responded Tony, ‘I like the building part. It’s the tearing-down part that I’m not a big fan of.'”

Cross Roads had me the minute I started. The crazy thing is, the diabolical main character reminds me of a few too many people I know. Yikes! The classic narcissist. Paul Young takes us into the sinister thinking of a man who has built a formidable empire formed out of his internal anger and angst at life. He has become his own idol. With storytelling skill, the plot is unraveled and we are taken into a strange, mystifying place where the main character’s life takes an unusual twist and turn. The book has the flavor of the allegory, what is–is not exactly what is, you know what I mean? It is a facsimile of the real, sort-of. That is part of the mystique that entertains in this book. We want our man, Anthony Spencer, to figure it out, what he needs to do. We want him to recognize how he has sabotaged his own life and some others who were the recipients of his sour and manipulative behavior–the casualties of a selfish person. We fall in love with Maggie, who becomes rather ensconced with Tony in an unexpected way.

In this unpredictable story, we are favored to meet the holy trio, Jesus, Spirit, and Father, but we don’t recognize them at first. They have a part to play in the freeing of Tony from his self-made prison, a prison he formed to protect himself from hurt.  It’s quite an adventure. I appreciate the way Paul Young delivers an important message as he spins an interesting tale replete with captivating supernatural weirdness. He’s good at showing the bigger spiritual picture and exposing truth that long has been buried. If you want to read a book that entertains while exposing the truth of the human heart, Cross Roads is a good pick.

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Thoughts at a Monastery

2013-07-10 14.52.52

I am sitting under a huge tree. It looks like a black walnut. A couple of miniature undeveloped nutlets hit my arms as the wind blew them out of the tree. Other nutlets are littering the ground like little quarter-inch green tear-drops. Stones form a circle around the tree trunk made of smooth flat gray stones in a flat layer.

I am sitting on a stone bench. My legs swing loosely because my feet are unable to touch the ground. The wind is blowing the Japanese maples’ leaves. It is very park-like here. The rain from a week ago refreshened the leaves on all the plants. They look vibrant, brightly colorful. I picked up a green hulled nutlet to smell it. It smells like black walnuts. I should know! I have spent many an hour picking black walnuts to sell for spending money, especially right before Christmas.

A woman came by and picked up some green nuts and swirled them in her hand. She mouthed to me “What are they?” I replied, “Black walnuts.” She held up her hand to stop me from saying more. Then I asked her, “Are you on a silent retreat?” She nodded, yes. What a lovely smile she has. I see the cat from a few weeks ago. She is coming over to me. I speak to her and she meows back. She rubs and arches her back against my pant’s leg.

A red spider mite is running around in frenzied circles on a table top. It is the size of a pin-head. I love listening to the rustle of the wind in the trees. A dove is cooing, I can see it. A sprinkler is spraying, the water is splashing the ground. A motor is in the near distance, and the more I concentrate, I can hear vehicle noise from the highway, quite a distance from here. There is a “caw” of a crow, and an owl hooting several times like in a long paragraph of on-going sound. Other sounds stir and resound in the silence. One sound is missing, I hear no human voices.

I have meandered around the buildings and have entered the small cinder block chapel, the one with only six seats. I am thinking back over several conversations of the past week, praying for loved ones, and pondering truth. My daughter says “You’ve changed so much. I don’t know what you believe anymore.” The topic was the gift of speaking in tongues, is it biblical for today? She is right. I have changed. Although I hold most of the same beliefs and doctrines from a protestant viewpoint and biblical interpretation of scripture. In many ways I have not changed. I believe one must practice truth as it is taught in the Bible, and not add on to its truth.

There is difference though. I have changed in that I don’t believe God operates in only one way. He is not limited to our way of thinking. I have learned that there are some parts of Christianity that need more emphasizing. The Christian walk is a disciplined walk of spiritual disciplines, but energized by God’s power and His grace which comes out of His Divine Love and utterance. If we learn to follow His lead, we are certain to seek the right things. The trick is, we must learn to wait and we must not get ahead of God. Also, we must make ourselves available to him.