The question of Jesus, of course, begs the bigger question — the only question that really matters — is there a God?
More than half of the world’s population believes in God — that’s more than four billion people.
That’s a lot of people to embrace a myth, to be in the thrall of a delusion, to buy into a lie. Can that many people really be fooled? That’s the question within the question.
We have evolved into quite a clever race that creates architectural wonders and builds spaceships and invents technological marvels. Yet for all that we are like mice, blind mice, trapped in a maze.
Life is a matter of perspective, a point of view. If we elevate ourselves, change our POV, we might see a way out of the maze.
Last night was brain fever night. That’s my name for it. I don’t know if it’s a medical condition or not. A sudden attack of hallucinations and brain shudders. Like a bad trip on LSD.
I don’t know what brings it on, out of the blue, or rather out of the darkness of midnight. Unless it was the four gin and tonics, three beers and two brandies. But I’ve drunk that much before without a brain fever attack.
Maybe it was the Xanax at bedtime that went on a diabolical rage with the alcohol already streaming in my blood.
You can’t sleep. You lie in bed and ride it out like a storm in hell. Around four o’clock in the morning, the waking nightmare begins to abate. Finally you sleep, mainly from the exhaustion of the battle.
The doctor told me my liver was more like a die-r, and to knock off the booze. I don’t see how. Drinking is my last pleasure. Like smoking cigarettes and grass was to my wife. And when she fell ill and was told not to smoke, she still smoked.
And now she’s tokin’ with Jesus.
My wife was a believer, especially when she was high. I try to be, but I can’t get there. Jesus was always high. So were his disciples.
As Matthew relates (14:24): But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And he[Jesus] came to them, walking on the sea. … So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
If you get high, man, you can do anything.
As the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia said:
Getting high on the Universe is cool and I can do that, but taking it a step further, maybe if you get high on Jesus, you end up getting high with Jesus.
Let this preacher loose among a gang of murderers and lowlife thugs and he’d straighten them out in a New York minute.
Rev. Charles Lawson would do more to stop crime in the streets than any police force or social counsellor.
The pastor’s powerful voice would scare the worst godless bastard to death with a terrifying fear of a burning hell.
THEY’D BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT FOR A FIX
He gives them fair warning: “Hell is full of murderers.”
Criminals run wild because “this brainwashed generation will embrace anything,” he tells his congregation in Temple Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. And if they are finally caught, the judges let them go free. “Nobody is convicted of anything anymore.”
In a country where law and order itself has gone all to hell, Lawson preaches the gospel of fire and brimstone.
“There are murderers in this town who would blow your brains out right now for a fix of crack cocaine,” he hollers. “It doesn’t cross their murdering minds that they’re going to burn in hell.”
Hell also has its share of politicians and greedy millionaires, he notes. And more than that. “Without God, everybody would be in hell in a heartbeat,” he says.
“There’s just one name that can keep you out of hell,” he booms, “and that name is Jesus.”
Let this preacher loose among a gang of murderers and lowlife thugs and he’d straighten them out in a New York minute.
