I doubt that any of you read my blog on a regular basis. In fact, I’d be surprised if more than one or two of you even know that I’m keeping this blog. It’s not something that I’ve advertised at our church. No particular reason, really, just haven’t done it. So, I don’t know how I am going to make sure that you are able to see this post. But perhaps that is a problem for another day. Today I will simply spill out my heart.

God has placed you on my heart. For many years, I have had a particular care and concern for teens and, now that I am a part of this church, I have that care for you. I know what the world is like out there. In fact, in some ways, I am amazed that any teen survives to age eighteen intact. Something usually gets broken along the way, doesn’t it? These days that can sometimes mean suicide, but it’s true in smaller ways, too. The pain of rejection when you’re not quite like the others. The pressure to yield to illicit pleasures, to drugs, to sex. The struggle to remain a faithful Christian in the face of apathy or outright opposition.

Back when I was in high school, there were only three teens in the church where my father pastured. There was myself, Michelle, and Erica. During those four years, I watched them slip away, falling farther and farther from the faith. Michelle eventually became pregnant out of wedlock, and Erica renounced the faith completely. Three of us, in a solid, Presbyterian church, and only one of us made it. Even in my own Christian high school, there were times that I felt out of place, like my serious desire to do good work and learn to honor Jesus was strange. It’s hard to be a teen.

But I’m old now. Not “grey-haired� old, but still older than I once was. It has been eleven years since I graduated, and my life is very different than what it once was. I am married, with children of my own to care for. Still, sometimes after worship, I watch you and I wonder where you will be in five years. I want to know your struggles, I want to reach out to you, to help you, to befriend you, so that maybe you will pull through to the other side. But I feel the divide sometimes. An entire decade divides us, and so you go your way, and I go mine.

I have no delusions that somehow my aid or advice will make all the difference. Still, I wish that I could somehow do more to help you. So I want you to know a few things.

First, I will be praying for you. Satan is gunning for you. I believe this with all my heart. He is out there, seeking to tear you apart, and it’s not going to get any easier. So I will be praying that God will sustain you, that He will hedge you about with angels, and that He would give you the strength that you need to stand and fight when you need to fight.

Second, I would like to be your friend. I know that we don’t really have as much in common as your other friends, but perhaps we could try. If nothing else, we’re going to have to spend eternity together. We could start getting to know each other now.

Third, for whatever it’s worth, I am willing to listen to your problems. I want to be there to help you, however I can. I don’t know if any of you will read this, but perhaps you will. So, Ian, William, Abigail, Lydia, Samuel, Theo, know that you are in my heart and in my prayers.

Your brother in Christ, Seth Ben-Ezra

(The previous installment can be found here.)

No gurgle from the box this time, but another key has appeared on my key ring. This one is made of pure crystal. I turn it over and stare at it in wonder. The light dances and shimmers on it. It is one of the most beautiful things that I have seen.

Key 4

endings and beginnings: chapter 25 - a little bit of closure

How are we doing at binding up the broken-hearted?

Making Fiends

Someone at church told me about this site, but I saw it for the first time today. This is funny stuff.

From the Devil’s Dictionary:

DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.

Funny, but I think that he actually has a point.

My apologies for the downtime. Apparently Blogger was having issues, but now all is well with the world.

I am trying to convert some of my unused games into cash so that I can turn them into new games. Given that I haven’t played these games in several years and that I might be able to play some of the new games with my children, this seemed like a good idea. If nothing else, I can clear my shelves of some junk. That sounds like a good idea.

So anyways, my lovely wife just placed several items on eBay. Please check them out or tell your friends about them. For a complete listing of the auctions, click here. Alternately, search for “scbenezra” on eBay.

Thank you for your support.

An acknowledgment of the ongoing persistence of our frailties is, after all, the central groundwork for all comedic expression…. We need a sense of humor. Without it, we lose the ability to criticize ourselves.

Seriousness, after all, can be an excruciatingly inhumane taskmaster. Its vision is very often too small. It doesn’t want to know, for instance, that the person disagreeing with us or whose very existence offends has, as it turns out, a really nice smile. It doesn’t want to hear that a Samaritan would do a thing like that. No time for it. We have to keep an eye on seriousness. It can make us treat people very unkindly. As Percy says of sentimentality, it leads to the gas chamber. Seriously.

–David Dark, Everyday Apocalypse

I keep adding to the list of topics that I should write about, so here I’ll open up a topic, so that I’ll get nagged to write about it later. The issue is creator ownership of intellectual property, also known as being an independent artist. The short short version of the argument is that the general approach to distribution and marketing of creative properties is fundamentally screwed up. Here are a couple articles that discuss the issue in a two different media:

The Cheaping of the Comics
by Bill Watterson (the creator of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip)

The Nuked Apple Cart
by Ron Edwards (the creator of the Sorcerer roleplaying game)

And I’ll get back to this later.

Honest…..

Protesters Besiege Laura Bush During Jerusalem Visit

I ask a simple question. Should it bother us as Christians that our leader sends his wife on a pilgrimage to the holy sites of two other religions?

Of course, this is not the first time that such activities have occurred:

Bush ‘Worship’ at Shinto Temple Troubles Christians in Japan and U.S.

From this article:

Sadly, many Japanese and Korean Christians were severely persecuted because they refused to participate in Shinto rituals, which involved bowing down and worshipping the emperor and other false gods. “Japanese Christians are furious,� Dr. Morey says. “They were killed because they wouldn’t bow before the image of the emperor,� he says.

“Korean Christians had their hands chopped off because they wouldn’t bow and worship the emperor,� he adds. Korea was ruled as a colony of Japan between 1910-1945. “Their descendants see the Bushes making a mockery of those who, like Daniel and his three friends, refused to bow before a heathen idol.�

For the most part, American Christians who admire President Bush hope and believe he acted innocently, out of respect for local customs and traditions. But Japanese Christian leaders do not take it lightly. “According to the Shinto ritual, clapping hands and bows are the set of Shinto style of worship,� says Rev. Isaac Ishiguro, of the historic Mino Mission in Japan. “In Japan all the media reported, ‘Bush Sanpaied at Meiji shrine.’� he says. “The verb ‘Sanpai’ in Japanese means, san—visit or go, and pai—worship.�

Various empires of the past have used religion as a tool of politics. Cyrus of the Persian Empire often styled himself as a god of a local pantheon. The Roman Empire kept local religions intact, so long as they would be willing to add Caesar to the order of worship. I must confess that I tend to relegate such practices into the dim recesses of the distant past. After all, we’re so much more civilized and sophisticated, right?

Here’s a link to her new blog!

Embarrassing link

Remember, fire safety depends on you!

poetry n. 1. The art of naming 2. The art of saying that “A” is “C”.

We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life–they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all.

The Shadow of the Torturer, Gene Wolfe

(The previous installment can be found here.)

The locked box gurgles loudly, startling me. I jump and look around. Is it my imagination, or has the box become larger? I curl myself into the corner furthest from the box, and in my mind, I curse it.

But now two more keys have appeared on my table:

Key 2

Key 3

I sigh.