Blog on the Lillypad
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Just got off the phone with Betty, a friend from BJU (on staff there). Betty is a breast cancer survivor, a year older than I. Her father has had two strokes in the last two years. He lives about three hours away from her. He's a very godly man. He doesn't want to come join her but prefers his quiet but independent life down in rural Georgia. He's a gentle, god-fearing man, and he told me that in WWII, he was an MP. I was stunned that this small man had been an MP. "But sir, how were you picked as an MP?" I asked him.
He smiled. "The Sergeant came up to the men and told us to line up. Then he told the first dozen of us to take a step forward. Then he told us we were now MPs!"
He was given the assignment of guarding condemned US service men on French soil. These were boys who had committed capital offenses while in service in France. Army policy was to treat them according to French law, but carry out executions under the jurisdiction of the military.
Obviously, these were some of the worst offenders in the army---murder, rape, gross violence and cruelty. He told me that many of the men wept over their sins, and he had a good chance to speak with them about the Lord before their final moments. But he remembered one man who was brought before the American commander and informed that his time had come.
"Do you have anything to say?" the commander asked him.
"Yes I do," the young man said. And he let loose a string of profanity and reviling that actually embarrassed the MPs. However, the military commander took it all quite calmly.
"Now you've had your say," he told the boy. They put him against the wall and shot him. And that was the end of him.
This identification as the mouth of the fish pinpoints the person astrologically. For in the heavens, Aquarius pours out the water from the never ending flow to the open mouth of the Southern Fish. Aquarius depicts Christ, pouring out life to His people (the Fish). That flow never stops. And the fish never closes its mouth. So to us this flow is ceaseless, and we never have to shyly withdraw, thinking we've asked too much of him for grace. The fact is, everything is by grace. Yet still the flow never ceases. It's written in the heavens.
Betty told me that this story has prompted her to think about grace from many angles and reconsider again and again how ceaselessly He bestows grace to His own, and it's comforted her. Good! This is why I write fiction.
He smiled. "The Sergeant came up to the men and told us to line up. Then he told the first dozen of us to take a step forward. Then he told us we were now MPs!"
He was given the assignment of guarding condemned US service men on French soil. These were boys who had committed capital offenses while in service in France. Army policy was to treat them according to French law, but carry out executions under the jurisdiction of the military.
Obviously, these were some of the worst offenders in the army---murder, rape, gross violence and cruelty. He told me that many of the men wept over their sins, and he had a good chance to speak with them about the Lord before their final moments. But he remembered one man who was brought before the American commander and informed that his time had come.
"Do you have anything to say?" the commander asked him.
"Yes I do," the young man said. And he let loose a string of profanity and reviling that actually embarrassed the MPs. However, the military commander took it all quite calmly.
"Now you've had your say," he told the boy. They put him against the wall and shot him. And that was the end of him.
 | Betty listens to my Doctor Who fiction on tape (now created digitally). She told me that my story, INSIDERS, is still on her mind. That story depicts Sarah Jane Smith hiding out in caves on a strange planet, being hunted by the tusked, boar-faced Ivorites as food and by the shimmering, cloud-like Insider to serve as a parasitic host for its species. As she tries to find a way to survive, she becomes sick, and then dehydrated, and then stumbles into the lair of a huge spider-like creature that destroys her savage Ivorite pursuer in an instant and yet spares Sarah Jane. Later, Sarah Jane realizes that some sort of ghostly but powerful person dwells in these caves. And the two of them are so different from each other that they are always trying to figure out what is real about the other. This strange being, Fomalhaut, describes herself to Sarah Jane in terms of mercy. Yet Fomalhaut's view of mercy is so experiential a view of mercy that Sarah Jane realizes she has never truly grasped what mercy is:
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"But you talk so much about Mercy." Sarah Jane hesitated, embarrassed, but she blurted the truth. "I don’t mean to sound stupid, but what, exactly, is mercy?"
"It's what the water bearer forever pours into my mouth, Sarah Jane. In fact, I am the mouth: the mouth that receives the joyous giving of the life that is poured into me, and from me, an ocean is poured forth."
Sarah Jane stopped and stared at her.
"If he were ever to stop, I would cease to exist, but the flow of the water is written into the heavens. It's written that I must always be given water from that heavenly abundance. Therefore, because all my life is the receiving of mercy, I am mercy. I am the mouth of the fish that receives mercy, and you first perceived my great emptiness, my waiting, and my expectation. This frightened you and made you feel abandoned, for in your world, these things mean hunger and privation. And in mine, they mean the certainty of fulfillment."
This identification as the mouth of the fish pinpoints the person astrologically. For in the heavens, Aquarius pours out the water from the never ending flow to the open mouth of the Southern Fish. Aquarius depicts Christ, pouring out life to His people (the Fish). That flow never stops. And the fish never closes its mouth. So to us this flow is ceaseless, and we never have to shyly withdraw, thinking we've asked too much of him for grace. The fact is, everything is by grace. Yet still the flow never ceases. It's written in the heavens.
Betty told me that this story has prompted her to think about grace from many angles and reconsider again and again how ceaselessly He bestows grace to His own, and it's comforted her. Good! This is why I write fiction.
