Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift? the fruit of the womb his generous legacy? Like a warrior’s fistful of arrows are the children of a vigorous youth. Oh, how blessed are you parents, with your quivers full of children! Your enemies don’t stand a chance against you; you’ll sweep them right off your doorstep.

Yes, I know that applies to the dad; but genealogy place me squarely at the head of the line.

I’ve got some prolific children. Miles William Gann makes number 10!

He’s extra special… he now shares the date with my queen. Yessir! Double blessing is mine today!

In Facebook, every time someone does anything –adds a friend, changes their profile picture, blows their nose, etc.– you are informed that this activity happened. How do I make it stop?

I have far more of that coming in than actual status updates. I often feel like a mind reader out in public… I’m hearing everyone’s inane thoughts about nothing and it’s driving me crazy!

More properly stated, I’m concerned about all the hype that occurred around Hurricane Irene. For us here in North Carolina, she is now history. Yet, they still are not diminishing their prognostications of doom for the northeast. It is rather obvious, it was not about the storm.

I am in favor of taking precautions in the face of a potentially traumatic event. We are living in a post-Katrina world and that colors everything that we do. That is understandable. That is what has given us seat belts, bike helmets and product recalls. The motive behind it is laudable, the implementation is overkill.

So it is with hurricanes, and more recently on the east coast, earthquakes.

When you close the New York subways days before an obviously weakening storm arrives; when the television spews out imagery and vocabulary indicating the end of the world in the face of a storm that is rapidly dropping from a Category 3 to a Category 1; when the President appears on camera warning of a natural holocaust when history and professional veterans of such meteorological events scratch their collective heads in disbelief; when there are runs on the supermarket, not for bread and milk but for beer … something is wrong.

The merchants of fear are in charge and they are offering up sales of historic proportions.

As the ancient sage might say, “This doest me concern…”

It also has its downside.

One of the downsides is raising its interesting head… hurricanes. In particular, one named Irene, is “bearing down” on Wilmington, NC and the mentality here is something akin to the end of the world. A decade ago, moving into Wilmington, we were hit by three tornadoes in a row. Having been out of that particular mindset for many decades, I find it rather interesting the way the fear has been ratcheting up all over again.

We were blessed for almost a decade with very little activity, but it looks like there’s going to be a run on the supermarkets for bread and milk.

Heat, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes… maybe living at the beach isn’t all it’s chalked up to be…

“Samantha,” my GPS “companion” who tells me what to do, is a hoot. My wife claims I’ve lost my mind because I talk to her. Getting off the interstate to get gas, Samantha tells me to do a u-turn in 100 yards to get back on the freeway. I explain to her that I’m getting off the highway to get gas. She recalculates the turn I should have taken to return to the interstate and tells me to “turn left, then turn right for 200 yards before turning right again on the entry ramp.”

“I will, I promise, but first I need to get gas and I’d like to get a cup of coffee, if that is alright with you.”

My wife gives me “that” look.

Samantha is rather insistent, repeating her instructions but now adding the greater distance I need to travel.

“Would you like coffee, too?” I politely ask my iPhone.

Now I get the “eye roll” from my wife and Samantha tells me she needs to “recaulculate.” After pumping gas and getting back in, she tells me I’ve added 15 minutes to my trip and that I now need to make a left turn at the light.

Just for fun, I circle the parking lot and force her to “recalculate” 5-6 times, changing her instructions machinegun style: “turn left, turn left, turn right, turn left…”

My wife doesn’t share my enjoyment of my GPS.

I suppose you could say I’ve been ruminating.

I’ve had quite a bit I’ve wanted to say; I’ve allowed myself the luxury of not saying it. I think I’m arriving at the point where I’m ready to share again… I think.

Most posts on the GFB trip will come via Facebook and/or Twitter, especially when we head for the interior. If you want to get the updates, please follow me (Twitter) or “become my friend” (Facebook) at either or both of these links:

Twitter — twitter.com/joecarr

Facebook — facebook.com/ubauna.joe

Cool story.

When I was a kid, I used to have a garden. The first time I planted the seeds I couldn’t really fathom what was going to happen. It didn’t make any sense how a small seed that looked deader ‘n a door nail could do anything. To my wild delight, within two days, sprouts were bursting through the soil. I marveled at the growth of the plants, going out every day to check on how much bigger they’d gotten. Image my joy when I actually started pulling corn off the stalks and watermelons off the vines.

Valuable lesson learned.

A few years back I was having a conversation with some people and I was asked if, given a choice, would I elect to receive one million dollars at the end of a month or would I rather have a penny doubled every day for the same 30 days. When I heard this, I knew that the penny doubled everyday must have been the better choice to go with as it was a little obvious to me that it had to be a trick question of some sort. But I didn’t realize how much better it would be. The 30 days would yield an astounding $5,368,709.12! More than $4,000,000 better than the mere million.

Quite a difference.

Here’s the reality. A small kernel of divine truth has the ability to do the miraculous, the impossible, the astounding. Most folks will write it off, demean it, even try to keep you from accepting it, sometimes at any cost. Simply saying that truth is a lie doesn’t change truth. It will transform you, take you where you can’t possibly imagine and create the someone you could only dream of. Only the violent will embrace it; only he who has nothing to lose or she who is desperate will succeed at internalizing it.

It can be scary…

I’m not sure why those who are not Christian would really have any inclination to become one. The feeding frenzy that occurs when someone says anything that is not “correct” in terms of the status quo, Christianly speaking, is horrifying. We are quick to condemn the Islamic response that is so brutal when someone is perceived to go contrary to a particular facet of a particular branch of a very diversified politico-religious system. We use words like “intolerant,” “unjust,” and “uncaring;” we explicitly and implicitly castigate them for such “unbelievable” points of view and belief.

Yet, THAT is exactly who we have become.

We so easily write off that part of the world who doesn’t believe that particular facet of a particular branch of a very diversified politico-religious system to which we adhere. That is at least understandable. What is disturbing is the way we consume our own.

Years ago as a pre-teen, I visited a friend of mine on a farm. She was showing me some newborn piglets. They were lying in thick, stinky mud. Mama sow came over and began nudging them with her snout. Six of the eight got up, moved over and stood expectantly; two seemed to have difficulty getting up. Mama began stomping them, killed them and then began eating them! I was horrified! My little friend simply said, “That happens all the time.”

That repugnance all those years ago is the same that I’m dealing with now. As my friend ruminated, it happens all the time.

The most recent manifestation is the Rob Bell phenomenon that is occurring. If you don’t know who Rob Bell is, you probably want to simply stop reading and just say, “There goes Joe, again.” If you know who he is, you know what I am referencing.

In our flavor of Christianity as marketed in the West, theology trumps love, “correctness” trumps Jesus, every time. It has nothing to do with right or wrong, though we loudly proclaim it does. Tell the person who hasn’t “made a decision” to “accept Jesus in his heart” that we do it because of love. Tell the person who has run from “church” because of the hypocrisy and hate that it our obligation to present truth. They’ll willingly embrace it.

Not.

I’m afraid we’ve ripped the “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” right out of the Word. In our fervor to present Jesus, we do everything to protect him; in our desire to find truth, we become keepers of the law; in trying to find salvation, we run the lost away.

Really. I’m disturbed…