Have You Had A Taste Yet.....Redux

October 12, 2009

I'm an incurable pack rat. My wife came to me yesterday with a gray disk, about the size of a silver dollar and asked if I knew what it was. It was slightly bevelled and had little holes throughout. I had no idea what it was and she was about to throw it away. What? Wait a second! If we throw this out there will be a day, when I need a disk about the size of a silver dollar, slightly bevelled with little holes throughout. She'll never learn. Just throw the thing out and don't ask me about it! I have in my hands, well actually I'm typing but I have here in front of me a book that I bought from the National Record Mart in the winter of 1973. It's title is Reach Out, The New Living Testament (illustrated.) It was published by Tyndale and I paid $2.95 for it. It has just a little bit of commentary in it and was aimed at young adults. I showed up at church services in Vietnam when in a solemn and introspective mood but the thought of church never entered my mind in my last seven months at Fort Bragg. I started at Pitt in January of 1973. It was a heady time. I read constantly, occasionally even class textbooks  that I was supposed to be reading. I would take my latest book, purchased from that same National Record Mart on the Pitt Campus, into the bar and my friends and I would discuss philosophy or some other subject that we were interested in, until we could no longer pronounce our words. That's when my genius really came out. I remember one night particularly well. We were discussing The Teachings Of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda. Here was a UCLA anthropology grad student taking lessons from a Yaqui Indian shaman on how peyote was instrumental to understanding the mysteries of life. We were absorbed in this while unaware that a couple of quarts of Budweiser did the same thing. In between this nonsense I would occasionally show up at St. Paul's Cathedral but it would be almost a decade before God opened my eyes and I could see the marval of the gospel and the majesty of His Son, but I had had a taste in 1973. Sometimes I open this book up and press the pages to my face, smelling them and imagining how that word Jesus would thrill me before I even understood. I'll read a few verses from this paraphrased translation, for it is not a true translation, and be transported back for only a moment. And a moment is all that I would want for I was  lost back then. I was in love with me and only the grace of God kept me from facing Him until a time would come when He would hold the words of the Bible up to me as a mirror where I could only see corruption. There are so many mysteries that will be explained to us when this life is done but none to me as incomprehensible as to why God opened my eyes. If you are firm in your decision to reject God, and you want a good excuse to bolster your case, just think of me. If God would redeem me, then there is no fairness in the world. And don't listen to the voice on the other shoulder that says if God would indeed forgive me, then there is also hope for you. And whatever you do...don't open His book!!!