Faith on the Fringe - A Wilderness of Words

  I am fat. I’ve been fat since I was born. I used to joke around, saying, “I just never lost my baby fat,” and laugh about it. But it was never a joke. My obesity crushed my self-confidence, cost me friendships, and kept me from doing things that I would’ve loved doing.  I have a thing going for me; I don’t quit.  During my childhood and teen years, I dieted - a lot. I walked a lot also. The dieting worked, but only short term. I fell off the wagon repeatedly but never gave up. Even though it was hard to keep trying, believing that I would fail again, I still never lost complete hope. That brings me to you, here and now. I am 46 years old, and obesity is a more dire and consequential thing than it has ever been. My blood pressure sky rockets, and my hips, knees, and back ache.  I don't want to be in pain, and I certainly don't want to die, not without doing the things that I love.  I have a new goal: to bring you along for my next attempt. This time, it’s ride ...

  I gazed at my reflection in the mirror and saw a bulging muffin-top belly. I had spent the entire summer hiking and eating healthily, yet it still stubbornly persisted. Our most recent hike through the Allegan State Game Area spanned a challenging 14 miles, and it left my son Gabe and me feeling confident that we were ready to take on the moderately difficult Pictured Rocks section of the NCNST. We rose before sunrise and broke camp in the pitch-dark morning of the Upper Peninsula. The Alger County Transit shuttle was waiting for us in Munising. It took us to the beginning of the trail at the east end. The driver kindly went a little further to drop us off at Sable Falls. Starting toward the falls, we had a pep in our steps and a song in our hearts. The foliage was wet with morning dew but we welcomed the feeling, we were in the wilderness and it would be amazing.  Upon arriving at the visitors center we were already wiping the sweat from our brows, the sun had risen and was...

Burning pain pierced my shoulder and neck. I fought and pried but couldn’t contend with the iron grip. The darkness of the forest engulfed my senses, trapping me like prey in a hunter's snare.   In a dreamless nightmare encircled with fear, I lay cold and alone. Finally, the abyss of darkness began to fragment as bright sunlight roused me from the forced slumber.  Warmth , I immediately thought but exhaled a frosty breath. I surveyed my faint surroundings and examined myself as much as possible. Dried blood matted my hair and kept my right eye from opening. My clothes had been removed but by some miracle this boma shelter I was in prevented me from becoming completely hypothermic.    Small vines were laced intricately around my wrists and ankles, holding me captive. I tugged with cold, stiff hands against them but they would not yield. Praying for strength I jerked the hardened cords once more when I heard…something. Suddenly, there was movement in the shadows behind...

  Wet snow splattered against my warm skin as I pressed on down the trail. I squinted my eyes against the ensuing storm, it felt good. My forward march was painstaking and my dampening clothes were not a good thing in such frigid temperatures. “I should take a break,” I mumbled aloud. I pulled out my thermos to take a swig but it turned up empty and that’s when I smelled it, the sour stink of a rotten corpse. I scanned the ground ahead of me for tracks but found none. I thought twice about entering the scrub bushes that skirted the deeper forest but soon resigned my hesitation and dove in, disappearing into the growth. I covered my mouth and pursed my lips, trying hard, as I saw the decaying body, to hold down my lunch. She was so young, robbed of her life and dignity. Her dress was torn and bloodied. A stuffed bear hung from a crook in a small nearby tree - a boy’s toy. I remembered the files. The trends over the last two years were that of missing persons but the majority were ch...

  In our Lord’s house are many mansions as the Bible declares. Those many mansions sit on streets and avenues and spawn neighborhoods. Those in turn become sprawling suburbs and, among other magnificent constructs, the city of God is created.   We rode among those divine neighborhoods one day. My wife and I peddled our bikes down cobblestone streets. Let it be said here that there is no marriage in Heaven, except the marriage of the Lamb and His bride - the church. She was my earthly wife but even though no legal covenant existed between us, a spiritual love and knowing existed as much there as it does on Earth . Our road skirted one of Heaven’s walls and passed through many communities, we wanted to enjoy as much as we could of God’s beautiful creation.   The architecture was historic, with many red brick buildings two or three stories tall. The sky was a sea of blue and the weather was just right. As we rounded a gentle curve we heard a serene melody just ahead. My wife...

 The walls are grandiose to say the least. They’re massive like the bible says and full of color and life but I didn’t look to find their tops and I didn’t measure their thickness or note much at all of their spectacular architecture. They were, much like everything else in Heaven, so intricate that I could have spent a millennium on detailing every inch of them and exposing just how impossible it is that they could exist but I didn’t. They were just there, and within them was an entire world of more impossible curiosities.  At this moment in my eternity I had lived within those walls, forever was inside them because God is inside them. His holy courts exist there, my family and friends are there. The great heavenly universities are there and the very beginnings of worlds and universes emanate from the core of this place and still, there is more.  It was always, on Earth, within my nature to explore the forest and trails to see what may lay around the next bend or over th...

In a place apart, a beautiful array of sunshine hidden in the dark, Seeking a place to expose the light, casting shadows, causing a fright.   Condemned by God, welcomed by men, creating a family to be together again, It wants to be the head, not the tail, it seeks to sit at the head of the table.   Riches and fame, fake promises make lame, Sin now abounds, out of Hell come the hounds.   Sorry, we are and forgiveness is far but now made near through His all-encompassing ear, Through Christ we have life, He was man’s great sacrifice, In Him, we will win against the lies the enemy does spin - transgender, transhuman, trans theft.   Time for man to sit on the throne again for he is the heir, he must pull out the chair, From the snake who set the snare, Who we let sit at the head, among the living arose the dead. So, death we will defeat, make sin stumble to its knees.   Stand to your feet oh child, oh woman, oh man. Take your sword, take the word, Swing away, don’t ...