Watch For Falling Rocks

Duck!

I saw a fireball once.

In 1992, I was at my home in Wheat Ridge, Colorado when I looked out the front windows toward the northwest around sunset in the evening. Almost immediately, I saw a streak of fire hurtling down so fast there was no time to react. It was much faster than anything I had ever seen before. It was the speed of a shooting star, which I've seen often enough, but much longer. It looked like it was between me and the mountains and that it could just as easily have hit the earth as burned up.

In a few seconds I realized that what I had seen was a meteor. The fireball's trail dissipated very quickly, so that when I went outside, I couldn't see any discernible trail. I almost wondered if I actually had imagined it. Yet, a day or so later, I saw reports in the local news that other people had seen it in the skies over Boulder, the same location I had seen it. Sadly, the only visual record is locked in my memory.

Yet, it's not without impact on me and surely on others who have such memories. Not unlike a satellite or meteor dropping through the sky, scientists and warriors have designed MIRVs, nuclear warheads, to drop through the sky and, instead of winking out of existence like my meteor, exploding over it's target with the estimated force of thousands to millions of tons of explosives. Seeing something akin to my fireball may be the last thing someone would see before witnessing the end of their own life and that of thousands or millions of others. It is a horrifying thought for any human being, one that this child of the cold war who had studied the logistics and effects of a nuclear war has thought about time and again. The abject horror of the thought does not grow easier with time, either.

Such destruction would not have to be caused by man, however. Victims of the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor blast and witnesses of the 1908 Tunguska blast know that such power does not solely rest with human beings. The blast of a rock, or in a worst case scenario, metal asteroid slamming first into the atmosphere and then into the crust of the earth is likely to have caused planet-wide destruction on more than one occasion, something humans cannot claim, yet, and hopefully never will.

Apocalypse Pow

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If you believe the Bible  as I do, a meteor or comet apocalypse is not only likely to happen at some point in humanity's future, it's actually prophesied. Right smack in the middle of Revelation, John the Beloved's prophetic letter to seven churches and the last book in the Bible, John writes of angels blowing trumpets, releasing events on an unbelieving generation of humans to call them to repentance and relationship with God. The third of seven trumpet blasts releases a celestial event.

Then the third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from the sky, burning like a torch. It fell on one-third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star was Bitterness [in Greek, literally "wormwood."] It made one-third of the water bitter, and many people died from drinking the bitter water. Rev 8:10-11 NLT

It's a roughly 1,920 year-old book, and a lot of the imagery can be taken symbolically, as Matthew Henry's Commentary does, or at least in the spirit that a person from our time might use to describe the events and technology of people from the year 3814 AD. And yet, meteors are still referred to as falling stars. Meteors or comets weren't unknown to stargazers of John's time. Yet anyone of his time would be puzzled to see the effects of radiological contamination. John does us a bit of a favor by not speculating on what he saw, and instead simply stating what he saw in his vision and leaving it at that.

Assuming John was being literal at this point, what could the source be? A failed nuclear-powered satellite? Radioactive cesium? Nuclear fallout? There are many possibilities, and not all of them fall under radiological causes. Nonetheless, radiation would be a prime suspect for wormwood's bitterness. And a third of the earth's freshwater going undrinkable would cause massive casualties in any generation, but especially from here on as the world's freshwater sources are largely already claimed for use.

Incidentally, chapter 8 is a pretty rough chapter for the people of earth. A firestorm of hail and fire mixed with blood, (possibly nuclear war), sets a third of the earth's trees on fire and destroys the green grass. That doesn't just mean no more lawn mowing or golf games. Grass is what much of the earth's livestock live on. That food chain would likely begin to fail. Further complicating that is the fourth trumpet that reduces all light reaching the earth by a third. That is Sagan's nuclear winter, folks, and food production would grind to a halt in less than a year. Considering how we eat fresh food much more than stored or canned food, this does not bode well for survivors of wormwood and the other events.

If you'd like to know more, let me know personally. I'd be glad to give you my take, but really, God will do the speaking Himself when the time comes. I hope that I and those I love are not there to witness the results. Regardless, if we are, I know that through the pain, we will push through as long as we can to give those who need God's love and grace all that we can. That's what His kids do.

Falling Like Lightning

Instead of an apocalypse, my memory of the fireball actually brings something else entirely to my mind. Preserved through 2 millenia are these words, "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning!" It was Jesus' exclamation in response to His disciples as they told about their experiences once they had returned from their mission to go and tell people the news about God's kingdom. Jesus was telling them of the impact their mission had in the spiritual realm.

Just as that meteor streaked across the northwestern sky and caught all sorts of bystanders' attention that day over 20 years ago, so too can the disciples of God's kingdom have the impact today of dethroning the prince of the power of the air by speaking and acting in line with in Holy Spirit.

Just Fair Justice in Fairness

What's the difference between "Fair" and "Just?" Fairness not as in beauty, "Who's the fairest of them all?" Fairness as in equitable. Justice not as in the judge, but what he is trusted by the people to make day after day.

Fairness implies that it must be agreeable to the judgment of all involved. Justice seems to appeal to an objective judgment by a higher authority. "Justice was done," is a phrase usually given by those who comment on a justice system rendering it's judgment to the guilty party as an agreeable conclusion, usually meaning that there's consensus of fairness. Oi vey.

Fair can be used in a court setting. "He must be given a fair trial." But a fair trial doesn't seem to include the tried in terms of his opinion of it, does it? It seems to imply a fair chance to plead his case for innocence of the crime at hand. Yet justice only enters the courtroom when the jury renders it's verdict, and even then it's not guaranteed.

So fair depends on everyone with a stake in the matter. Just only depends on one judgment, none but God Himself, ultimately.

"Life isn't fair." We all learn that one early enough. The world won't care if how things shake out doesn't meet with your approval. If it did, no one would be happy for long. Life is not just, either. If it was, millions of people killed by a dictator would want their lives back. So what point is there to this?

Simply: Working for justice is noble. Working for fairness is for lawyers. One is worth your time, the other thinks their time is worth your money. Working for justice is attainable sometimes. Working for fairness will never be attainable everytime simply because no one is ever truly satisfied.

Take Me Home

I've been reminded so often lately of my ultimate destination. Home, as in the title of this, my personal blog, is what folks know as heaven. It comes up when I look at Facebook a lot. I see my friends and how they cope with their losses, a child here, a mother or grandmother there. It never seems to go away. It's a just a breath away in my mind. Ironically, for everyone, it is just a breath or two away. There are no guarantees that your next breath won't be your last. Instead of a sense of dread or fear, I now find myself filled with a sense of hope. Isn't that a weird turn? Instead of writing about the Road, I'm writing about Home. And yet, that's the aim of my journey. It's what keeps me motivated.

I've been a subtle fan of Phil Collins since his creative cover of "Love Don't Come Easy." Yet the chorus of another song "Take Me Home" keeps knocking around in my head and heart. His video is creative and the song enjoyable.



I long to see Home. I've had experiences in my life that have fully convinced me that my spirit is real. It is something I can't measure or touch, but I can tell you that, while my body is mine, it is not all of me. It is not Steve Walden in his entirety. I know that if I died right here, right now, that it would be amazing and real in a sense that few earthly sensations are. I wouldn't be able to describe how lifting off the ground and looking around would be so exhilarating and freeing, but I would relish it.

So often, we look at life as a brief 70-90 year stint on this planet. We don't know what life is! I cannot prove to you that life is a mirror in which we only glimpse briefly for a few moments in our many years what truly life can be, but I can tell you that there is One Who can, and His Word leaves little doubt. In his writing about the rapture, Paul says "in the blink of an eye" that we who live until Jesus comes will be changed and caught up in the air with Him. It won't be a painful ordeal. If we die, we may feel pain through our bodies, but the moment it stops feeling, that's the end of the pain. We go from that instant to being with the Lord. What's to fear?

I guess living with pain for years has changed my perspective quite a bit. If I do go home without much advance notice, I want folks to know that I have total peace about it. I ache over those who are left behind, but there's one certain way to see me again. And if you take advantage of that offer, I promise I will not throw in a fish emblem for your car. I will, however, give you a big hug when I see you next time.

Starship Crossing

I am a trekkie.

I freely and openly admit that here and now. As with all serious affectations, it started with a family member. In this case, I blame my brother, Mark, who is the other bookend for my family and 12 years older. I still look up to him in a way I suspect all little brothers naturally do. For Mark, I suspect this makes him feel slightly uncomfortable. Like me, he can be painfully conscious of his failings and I think having a brother as a yap dog and worshipper. Still, I've lived in awe of his abilities and talents. His gift of a working Space Shuttle was perhaps the greatest and most timely gifts I've ever gotten. Okay, okay, it was a model, but with the exception skipping the SRB sep, it performed exactly like the real thing.

Mark planted the seeds of Star Trek. Since I've known him, Mark has had the ability to recite word-for-word any of the original series (TOS) episodes, though he has long since stopped performing on cue. When I was 5 years old, we went to Disneyland and oddly we went back to the motel room for a nap in the afternoon. Mark found a station playing an episode and laying there, he would say the lines verbatim before th actors would. I found it mesmerizing and strangely comforting. If Mark knew what happened in the episode, then everything should turn out well by the end of the show. A redshirt may die, but Kirk, Scotty, McCoy, Uhura, Spock and the rest would make it through okay. To this day, Star Trek is a touchstone for me to think about him.

Growing up, I would watch the episodes in syndication every time I was allowed to stay up as late as KWGN, our local independent station in Denver would show the reruns nightly, usually 9 or 10 p.m. or later. For many years, they'd run a 10/11 double-header, one with TOS and one TNG. Eventually that became TNG and DS9 and by then my inner Trekkie had asserted itself, at least at home.

I liked Spock and the way he would get into it with Bones. I wanted to be Jim Kirk and be able to save the day with my courage and daring. I was utterly deflated when I discovered that they were no longer making the series and that the actors had aged quite a bit since it ended. Around the time that Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan came out, I was horrified to hear  that Kirk (William Shatner) had gone bald, and that even worse, he was too vain to appear without a wig. For me, it was inconsistent with the character of Kirk and I found it to hard to like either Kirk or Shatner until I learned to separate the two. Somehow, I still find Kirk tainted by Shatner's vanity. Even though I make the separation of actor and character, some part of me must not be able to fully understand the difference.

My autistic tendencies might be at work in that, and probably run rampant throughout my Trekkie life. I too know nearly every line of nearly every episode of The Next Generation after watching episodes I had taped until 2001, when I found my library had the boxed DVD sets. They had seven DVDs for seven seasons. I would have only a week to watch those seven DVDs, an entire season of TNG. To Karen's dismay, I would attempt and usually succeed in doing so.

Karen does not share my enthusiasm for Star Trek or Sci-fi in general, and I have needed to temper my enthusiasm as a result. She's different from me. Sometimes I find that we are polar opposites in preference or opinion and Trek is something she doesn't get. I used to let it bother me until I discovered that my unhappiness actually was making her upset with herself. Our love naturally manifests itself in the desire to please each other, and when the other is discontent, it causes me or her deep distress. When I found out, I naturally released her and purposefully resolved never to put her in that distress again. It hurt her, and it could have alienated me, so to speak, from her. My kids find it a little more relatable but they don't have more than a few episodes memorized [Melodramatic chuckle, sotto voce] ...yet.

A Post With Waterproof Paint

Life sure has changed in a few years, culminating at 40, I expect. Until a year ago, I was a cat person. This in the face of a cat allergy that once produced mild respiratory distress and swelled both eyes shut. We even went so far as to get manx kittens from a couple of breeders a few years back in order to allow me to still enjoy them. Manx lack an enzyme in their saliva that tends to produce the dander that provokes the allergy symptoms. Manx are incredibly aloof, which is not the case with the Burmese chocolate brown, yellow eyed females my mother has loved since before I was born. It is this "love me when I want to be loved otherwise you don't exist" aloofness that has forced a change.

Now, I'm a dogger. I have changed sides in the cats vs. dogs debate. And, I'm starting to wonder if one is enough. Ace, my year old loyal to a fault Labrador, is incredibly social. If he were any more social, I would fear for his safety. If you are accepted by us as a friend, you are part of his pack and therefore subject to extensive welcoming by him. This does include the customary sniffing in areas that, for the life of me, I'll never appreciate why, are exactly the height of a Labrador's head. So part of me still does appreciate aloofness at times.

He's not "intact," as breeders say, although for all his beauty, you would want to clone him. Actually, it is his sweetness and loyalty that you wish you could bottle, not just his looks. He likes to chase our two Manx whose aloofness seems to be crumbling one claw at a time to his impetuous persistence. He will not kill them, I don't think. He's never once shown anger to them. He's always wagged his tale on approach.

Manx cats don't speak Dog, I don't think, anyway. They haven't let on. On the other hand, I think they've regretted trying to teach him Cat. They've repeatedly said, "Stay back!" and now Ace tries saying it back by swiping his paw at them, presuming, I think that "Stay back!" means "I love you." Half the words in Dog mean some variant of "I love you." The other words are "Out. Out now. Out, please! and Do you want me to eat that for you?"

So, Ace needs a friend, if only to spare my aging Manx's nerves. We're praying about it, because at this point, a paid brother, half-brother or cousin would not be in the cards. It would also increase our dog food consumption and waste removal, things we struggle with like all dog owners. Still, I figure that the more dogs I have, the warmer this house will be. Or maybe is it the more broken-in and loved on the furniture is. Regardless, one lesson we've learned is that dogs will teach you to keep your treasures in heaven. It's the only place they can't reach your stuff.

These Amazing Shadows

I watched a few documentaries about films and film making last night. One of them was These Amazing Shadows. It was about finding and preserving films in the Library of Congress. One of the interviewees quoted the literal "Librarian" of the Library of Congress, James H. Billington, who said in his own interview after 20 years of service on June 30, 2007, this amazing pontification:

"Stories unite people. Theories divide them."

I see why my daughter wants to write stories.