Prize Package 63 Link

prize package 63 

e-books on smashwords by Refried Bean

That We Would Be Called Children of God

Something on Judgement Day that I am not looking forward to is seeing snakes crawl out of my mom's soul in front of everyone, and seeing my dad's grief as he is confronted about his own role in her unrelented abuse of me and psychological dependence that she convinced herself was okay. All of us there at the dreaded day of reckoning will feel the same as we do now, totally unsurprised yet horrified as we sort through the video footage and narrative documentations of the life scenes that turn out to have black bats and rabid pterodactyls flying through each infested backdrop once the spiritual-filter is applied and the whole reality is apparent.  It will be literally dangerous to view the footage of my early years working at barnes and noble, with actual pythons and vipers emerging from the screens and snapping and lashing at all of us conferencing there at whatever Judgement Day location somehow exposes what people refused to deal with on earth. We will go through each segment of recorded evidence, dodging snakes with slitted eyes and giant fangs dripping with actual still-potent venom, probably re-biting and killing some of the friends and neighbors there with us who I thought were safe from additional Satanic attack. I will say, God, my sister already got stung by a jellyfish at the beach one time. I could hardly bear to see it. Can't that be enough?  But it wasn't enough on earth, so why would I expect it to ever be final later on. That is why as part of whatever group of Presbyterians I am assembled with in the horrifying haunted-wilderness-nightscape-welcome-center to eternity, I already know that I will have to rely on my prepared consolation of saying, "I knew we were wrong all along." My preserved doubt will be like the lemon jolly rancher I found in my pocket on the hike back down from Mt. Mitchell as a kid, which was too long of a hike anyway, just like our other trips through the mountains erroneously claimed by the Scotch-Irish, who found their way to South Carolina after becoming too proud that there were no more snakes in Ireland.

"All the Jews Will Be Saved"

Well, already another blog post after quite a doozie about purgatory. But I want to mention a Bible verse that I find very assuring and that is a verse that says "All the Jews will be saved." I forgot where it is in the Bible and I do not care about the context. I don't. I just simply believe it and have hope. But I also know that Jesus Christ is the only savior and the only authority who has essentially made it allowable for anyone to be considered Jewish if they want to. That is why the Old Testament is part of the Bible.  I also simultaneously believe that no one will be saved without faith in Christ.  Well that is where it gets confusing, because one of the great gifts from Judaism is the fact that the Jewish people kept their faith as it is for thousands of years and many have maintained loyalty to that without converting to Christianity. I think some of the answers to the apparent conundrums can be found in the way Jesus died with a sign over him that said King of the Jews.  His power to save his people no matter what they believe may have to do with that identity held on to until the end. The other thing I have to wonder is if some people will lose their Jewishness if they refuse to recognize their king.  Well I don't know, and presbyterian predestination theology might line up with the idea that they don't have to because he recognized them first, and catholic purgatory theology might suggest that of course they eventually will, and waiting until they actually see it is what keeps it real. Well way to go everyone, I might be Jewish myself but probably only got included in Israel as an after thought trailing from God's eternal being.

This is why I am a Catholic

Ok everyone, it seems that it is time to discuss the concept of Purgatory. Why do I sometimes believe in and make plans for purgatory? Presbyterians generally believe there is heaven, hell, and earth, which includes a strict and ordained time limit to experience saving faith in Jesus Christ, without whom no one will be saved from a just and thorough punishment for sin, possibly in a way that lasts for eternity.  I veer from some of these perspectives sometimes by suspecting either that a more final death as a punishment is possible, which would be like a type of annihilation, or that redemption is still possible beyond the grave. I have had to make room for those possibilities in my mind because of caring about hundreds of millions of other sinners who do not believe the same things that I do, and who often don't seem as bad as I am! How can I account for continuing problems in my own life after a definite faith in God, confirmed by now in many ways from the Holy Spirit, and especially how can I tolerate seeing millions of people I care about permanently, horrifically, and irrevocably choose what amounts to perpetual agony forever, all the while being told to alleviate suffering on earth as much as possible. What I most can't get around has to do with believing that death itself is probably not likely to be the automatic or even most common gateway to final righteousness for anyone. People do become clean and righteous in this world, which continues to be imperfect while we live out our lives, so how could anyone assume that what is right after death is automatically perfect, even if people immediately see Christ and are cleansed because of it?  Most people know they face a reckoning for sins in some way after dying, so who is to say that it will be a totally happy experience? The Bible actually says there will be tears, and maybe the fact that they call it Judgement Day instead of something like a Year of Jubilee means something in terms of the process and timing.  But God says a day is like a thousand years to him and a thousand years like a day. So I do not mean to make anyone lose their hope of immediate relief in any way, because the Bible does promise total eternal joy for all believers in Christ and not necessarily for anyone else at all.  However, as an evangelical with a severe scrupulosity OCD, I have found that occasionally embracing almost any belief from Catholicism, including the possibility of millions of years of purgatory, puts me in theology territory where I see a whole new world of justice and opportunity that makes me pray with hope and love for anyone. I am still a fundamentalist of many sorts, but I want to present this purgatory idea to help other people who are in constant torment caused by not really knowing what will actually happen to people in God's presence, which might be part of life now more than we realize. I do not suggest it as an alternative to trusting Christ alone, but while we experience earth and suffering for whatever reason, the concept of purgatory can be a useful mental health strategy to find middle ground that could very well turn out to be a true and obvious reality dearly bought for us by the greatest mediator ever, Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to welcome any friend needing salvation.

eternal york t shirt

 Ok everyone here is the t shirt I made. Do you guys think I crossed any lines with it? I think it is a cool shirt and I am excited about wearing it sometimes. It is true I might start a club and then pass out tracts and communion sometimes in various locations. People might assume that would be unauthorized but I am not sure it would be. After this post I will probably go back to my normal worldly monk posts, though I might add in some bible opinions sometimes like commentary that is different from theology ideas or christian life strategies. if you have not read the bible much before I will tell you my favorite book which never gets old and that is the book of matthew. Most people say to read the book of John first but I like the sermon on the mount which is Matthew 5-7. Genesis is also awesome and Revelation which is freakishly similar to the point where I have wondered if the beginning of the world and even the big bang is in the future and it creates a time loop where everything starts over. People in Genesis live for about 700 years and what if that was from health advances in the year 3000. Isaac Asimov suggests a similar idea in his story called The Last Question but it was presented for fun as a story so he might not get in as much trouble as me. But I am not going to get in trouble at all because of Jesus Christ and that is why I go ahead and do some crazy stuff like make t shirts that possibly only I understand.