Fluff v. PB

This is the story, so true but so sad
Of Cap'n Fluffypants run in with that dastardly cad
That vile vitriolic villain of venomous woe
That infamous thief with the gangrenous toe
His crimes are displays of his powerful might
Yes the one the only Bucktooth the Pirate

Cap'n Fluffenstuff had bravely traveled the seas
Protecting crew and cargo as her ship followed the breeze
She bounced port to port procuring her wares
Particularly peaches and pumpkins and pears
It was some wonder that in all of her days
She and El Bucktootho had never crossed ways

Then one dark dismal day fate dealt her a hand
Bucky Bucktooth passed by with his bucky buck-pirate band
With a flourish and a wave and a flash of his blade
This warning he gave to Cap'n Fluffenwhatnot the brave
"Beware, be forewarned, be afraid and in doubt
For all that you are with you will soon be without"

She stood stock still in horror aghast at his gaze
Cap'n Fluffennugen's brain quickly mired in haze
What "with" did he mean, her crew and her ship?
And how would this without come to happen so quick?
She stared as he walked, nay he crept down the pier
What a horrible man to snatch away all she held dear

She stood there for minutes as he boarded his boat
Minutes drained into hours as she lost all her hope
For days in despair Cap'n Fluffenthangs stood on that dock
And a week passed in seconds tick-tocked by the clock
For seven long days she moved nary a muscle
In the midst of the port's busy hustle and bustle

When she finally awoke from her fear induced coma
Cap'n Flufflebutter startled to a startling aroma
Her cargo of fruit was well in to decay
Her crew all abandoned and went on their way
She was all by herself not a cent to her name
She shed one single tear from frustration and shame

But that one tiny drop as it slid down her cheek
Dredged up in the Cap'n something still silent and meek
Her courage and conviction she had managed to keep
She would reclaim what she'd lost to that deplorable creep
And Cap'n Fluffaluffagus vowed that she never would sleep
As long as Bucktooth the Pirate terrorized the deep

She needed a hand, a friendly friend by her side
So Cap'n Fluffers did search first far and then wide
For who one would wonder would be worthy of this?
This searching the seas, this motoring in mists
This running and gunning, zip zooming to find
The one winged white walleye, the last of his kind

"Hold on," you might say surprised at the claim
"a one winged white walleye? why that's simply insane
walleyes are fish and as fish don't you see
they have no use for wings as they swim through the sea
and on this point too, I must declare you're at fault
for walleyes are green and prefer fresh water to salt"

My dear listener of course you've hit the nail on the head
If there were ever such walleyes then they all must be dead
but Cap'n Fluffles had heard and had since then believed
That one, just one walleye had thus been conceived
and that one, just one walleye was all she would need
and for that one walleye she would scour the seas

She had heard long ago that this one walleye did dwell
In a shack in the shade of a shallow sea shell
In this hideout he hid out to ride out the storms
That shook round the sea shell when the shallows would warm
None knew of his nest, his home he had shroud
"But find him I must" Cap'n Fluffycakes whispered aloud

Cap'n Fluff had an idea, a vision of sorts
She would build a new shelter, a mansion, a fort
whatever when witnessed would woo one walleye away
from the leaned over lean-to where that walleye now stayed
A perfect conclusion, and at once she did start
And into that home she poured all of her heart

The place now constructed she spread round the word
And the walleye secluded, even he heard
About the fine house Cap'n Flufferberry designed
and that he alone was the tenant she had in mind
his curiosity did kill him (but his cat was alright)
and at once he did leave, this one winged walleye of white

He arrived at the spot he was told it would be
This brand new abode built beneath the blue sea
But no home did he find, no dwelling to dwell in
No cottage, no condo, no castle, no cabin
He found not one thing like a house or a hut
But he did find that louse Bucktooth the Pirate

But perhaps one should say that Bucktooth found him
Since things for the walleye looked quite sour and grim
For Bucktooth had twisted Cap'n Fluffington's directions
And led the walleye away from Cap'n Flufflebunny's affections
And here in the remotest part of the ocean
Bucktooth planned to destroy the object of her devotion

But as he drew out his saber to dispatch the white fish
Cap'n Flufferbell appeared and interrupted his wish
"I knew you would hurt him, you awful old man
I knew you would try to hurt me again
I knew you would lie and he'd get lost on his way
I knew he would die if you had your day

"But Bucktooth, oh Bucktooth" Cap'n Fluffylumpkins went on
"Bucktooth your pirating days are long gone
You will now be without as you wished upon me
You will wander alone as you wander the sea
You'll never hurt my white walleye with only one wing
You'll never steal cargo or crew or bling bling

"For Bucktooth" she said as a tear breached her eye
"Bucktooth you are a disgusting deplorable guy
You thought your curse robbed me of all that I loved
But now you see clearly that those things were just stubs
Filling holes in my heart that this walleye now fills
For I searched the world over for his scales and his gills"

Bucktooth stood and he listened to every last word
And forgot about the white walleye with one wing like a bird
His mind melted to mush as Cap'n Fluffenfluff finished her spiel
She left him one last lump of truth of the ordeal
"All that I was with I can now live without
I have this white walleye, through in and throughout"

"But you sir will wander this world where we stand
With no one, not one man in your bucky buck-pirate band
You will only have you, and with you will you be
Forever alone as you sail on the sea"
With a sigh she then turned and with the walleye went on
He watched without moving not an inch till they'd gone

They say Bucktooth still roams and he moans till this day
Riding alone on his ship as it breaks through the waves
He endlessly searches in hopeless pursuit
He cases the crooks and the crannies to boot
He looks for a white one winged walleye of his own
But there is one, only one, and now with the Cap'n, he's home

The Walk

Some places are haunted. I don't mean by ghosts or spirits; that debate is not on the table here. Some places are haunted by the memories of what was but is no more. And in some of those places we erect metal and stone and wood ghosts to draw out those memories and make sure that the now is infected by the remembrance of the not.

It's been ten years since I walked on the dusty deathbed of a dozen memories. I have never forgiven myself for that year or that night, but I have learned to carry the burden as though it were one of the million logs that weighed on my back before it. I recently walked to that site that knew well my boots and my blood, my sweat and my tears. And as all good journeys should begin, it started with a step.

But it's a step I had not taken for so long, I think I forgot how. I had not even looked in that direction for so long, how could I walk it? I could not go with someone who had known the twelve, how could I look them in the eye. I could not go with someone who knew what I had lost, I could not stand on that ground with someone who pitied me. I could not go with someone who thought it was unimportant, I could not honor the past with someone who didn't respect it. And I could not go alone, never alone, not alone... I would never leave.

By some miraculous twist I have been given a true friend. I have had many friends who have loved me very much. Many people who have respected me, who have learned from me, who have taught me. I have had many people who would lose with me and gain with me. But never before have I had a friend with whom all of that was secondary to the point of meaninglessness. I have never had a friend whose joy is to give me a safe place, who selflessly gives and finds it unthinkably selfish to take. And this friend took the first step.

It was a long walk, a very very long walk, full of history and trivia and stories and memories and traditions and novelty. It was a good walk. I was sore and tired and sweaty, but I was smiling and laughing right up until crossing the last street from the marble scab over my deepest wounds.

It is hard to explain what goes through your mind when you see the ashes of your world paved over with pretty stones and rocks and manicured grass. When your eyes are filled with tears and shame at the sight of your brothers and sisters frozen in carbonite and thrown up on display in a near mockery of the comraderie shared before the fall. It's hard to explain why 10 year old grief still sits so near the surface and comes out in anger and indignation and disgust. It's hard to explain why I walked around perimeter the wrong way, why I never stopped to read the inscriptions, why I looked at the rocks at my feet more than anything else.

But it's easy to explain why I held on to my friend for dear life. Because my friend is dear. My friend is alive. That field is dead. Those stonehenge monuments don't tell the time today, but of a decade past. My friend walked a very very long way with me. My friend walked a very long way back. I did not go alone, and everything I came with, I left with. It was a hard walk, a very painful walk. But I walked it, we walked it, and that walk is done.

To all of my friends, thank you for the walks we've shared. I have enjoyed them all and long to walk with each of you again. To my friends with whom I will not walk again, those journeys were not in vain for either of us, you will always be remembered. To my friend, for whom this very special walk was a sacrifice and a blessing, you have been my great gift, thank you.

One Unit To Rule Them All

And so, my dear pupils, it is time for another foray into the deep effervescent thoughts of that most delightful system of measurement, the Mike Unit.

Now, as a brief refresher, remember that a Mike Unit is a specific unit of measure. That is to say, if you pour liquid into a cup and you measure the volume of the liquid in the cup, you'll find that it is one Mike Unit. If you measure how hot the liquid is in the cup, you'll find that it is one Mike Unit. If you measure the pressure of the liquid in the cup, again, one Mike Unit.

As a corollary then, if you measure the volume of liquid in another cup, you will again find it is one Mike Unit. But if you then pour this one Mike Unit of liquid into the other cup which already contained one Mike Unit, you would now find that you had one Mike Unit of liquid in the cup you poured into. Curiously enough, you would also still have one Mike Unit of liquid remaining in the seemingly empty cup.

The key here is that performing any operation on Mike Units results in a Mike Unit. So one Mike Unit plus one Mike Unit equals one Mike Unit. One Mike Unit minus one Mike Unit equals one Mike Unit. The same is true for times, divided by, raised to the power of, et cetera.

In my previous post, I mentioned that you can't cancel Mike Units, so moving from 1MU + 1MU = 1MU to the seemingly identical expression 1MU - 1MU = 1MU is actually quite difficult. Let's look at what would happen with normal numbers:

1 + 1 = 2
1 + 1 - 1 = 2 - 1
1 + 0 = 2 - 1
1 = 2 - 1

Here we subtracted 1 from both sides because subtraction is a special kind of operation that preserves equality when it is applied to both sides of an equality relationship. Then because 1 - 1 is 0 and something + 0 is the something, we wind up where we expected to be, namely that 1 + 1 = 2 implies that 1 = 2 - 1. The fact that we can apply an operation to both sides that in effect reduces one of the operands to zero is what we refer to as canceling.

Now let's break down what happens if we try to follow the same logic with Mike Units:

1MU + 1MU = 1MU
1MU + 1MU - 1MU = 1MU - 1MU
1MU + 1MU = 1MU - 1MU
1MU = 1MU - 1MU

Notice here that subtraction is again equality preserving, so we were able to subtract the 1MU from both sides and still have equality. But on the next line, notice that we did not reduce that 1MU to zero. Instead, it remained one Mike Unit. Then we used the fact that 1MU + 1MU = 1MU to wind up with the final equation. But we never canceled by taking something to zero.

This is because there is no zero in Mike Units, there is only the 1 Mike Unit. Even when there is seemingly no Mike Unit, if it can be measured, it can be shown to be 1 Mike Unit. Fascinating, isn't it?

In

I'm in love.

Yeah, it's crazy, I know. I can't stand the phrase. I've offered up alternatives. I've fought for more rigorous definitions. But I have to face it...

I'm in love.

That is not to say I'm wrapped up in some squishy feeling. There are certainly plenty of feelings, some of them even squishy. And I do have a strong sense of being overwhelmed and overflowed. But the phrase is not a reference to feelings and emotions at all. They are signs of something, not the something itself. And what is this something?

You love me.

You act intentionally, demonstrating your deep concern and compassion for me. You provide for me a safe place, an inviting place, where you treasure me, you delight in me, you satisfy me. You give me tiny things, rich in meaning and substance. You surround me with good things, with pleasing things.

I'm in that.

You have given this to me, not as a retreat, but as a home. You invite me to dwell there, to reside within your love. You have surrounded me with this love, you have made its walls strong, you have made its foundation solid. You have made it a shelter and a place of comfort, of healing, of hope.

I'm in love.

And you have not left me here to enjoy it alone. You have been here all along. You have been waiting patiently for me to call this place mine. You have longed for me to take hold of the gift you have given freely. You have made this not for me, but for us. This is place is ours. This home is ours. This love is ours.

I'm in love with you.

You have invited me to participate in this love, to act and react with intention, to follow you, to walk with you, to go where I will that you may go with me. You have brought me here to commune with you, to fellowship with you, to marry you.

You're in love with me.

You are beautiful and amazing and wonderful. You shower me with blessings. I have hurt you and you have forgiven me. I have not trusted you and yet you are faithful. I have worried more about others than about you and not once have you returned the insult. You have made me special. You have made me new. You have made me worthy. You have made me yours.

I love you.

It's a reaction, a response, barely anything more than a reflection of all that you have shown me and given me. All I have is yours, not because it is mine to give, but because it came from you. All I am is yours, not because I am in control, but because you have given me the choice to be with you and for you and of you and near you. Every promise you have made, you have kept. Every word you have said, you have meant.

I love how you love me.

All Things Great And Tiny

I'm blessed to have re-re-re-uncled. My 4th neicephew arrived late last year, and while I haven't verified it myself, my brother assures me that this latest entry into the family has in fact resolved as a nephew. I've seen him a few times now, and I gotta tell you, he's a stud. A tiny tiny little man, but stud none the less. His sisters adore him, and I'm fairly confident that they're just the first two in a long line of adorers.

He's a funny little guy though; he doesn't cry exactly. He makes a severe cry face, holds it for a while, convulses a little to make sure you understand it's for real, then lets out this fairly quiet bleat sort of sound. Now that I think about it, that's very close to the sound he makes all the time; he's a bleater. He bleats when he's taking a bottle too. Personally I think it's his pacing sound. At least that's what I use to tell when it's time to burp him... 14 to 16 bleats seems optimal, after that his burps take on a little more substance.

Honestly, it's kinda fun to throw a tiny little baby over your shoulder and pound on him for a while. Especially when he bleats the whole time. He's not as squeaky when he's burping as when he's feeding, but he still bleats a bit. Maybe I should call him goat-boy. I bet that'll make all the girls swoon.

I wonder a bit if it's not because he's number 4. At this point my brother and sister-in-law have got child rearing down to somewhat of an art if not a science. Goat-boy barely has to make a sound and they know what he needs. In fact, they pretty much have him on a schedule where he never even makes it to "need". It's time to eat, he eats, time to sleep, he sleeps. He lets out an occasional bleat and gets his diaper changed. Ah, to be tiny again.

So I'm sitting there, hanging out on the couch with tiny goat boy when I realize that I'm probably pretty protective of him just because he's tiny. I don't know if I'm super-over-protective of all my friends, but i definitely am with the smaller ones. Yes, it's possible that I'm just that conditioned to stand up for the little guy, a point I would especially like to make to any would-be applicants for my currently open midget secretary position.

But yeah, sitting there looking at tiny guy when I have the overwhelming sensation of tininess. I'm a tiny tiny little man in the arms of a God who thinks I'm so important that he'd have his son become a tiny tiny man too. He then had that tiny man die all alone so that this tiny man wouldn't have to be dead or alone any more. That can make a tiny man feel pretty big.

My little goat boy nee neicephew was baptized this past week. And though I admit I was terribly frustrated with the service, I'm thrilled that my daddy loves my nephew so much that he'd want to make this tiny tiny baby man a big important son too. Ah, to be tiny in the hands of an awesome God.

Normally I would pretend right about now to write something to you even though I'm just writing it because I so desperately want to read it... But this time, please forgive me for not pretending... And so my tiny little fuwjax, whether you are bleating for your pizza or bleating for nap time or bleating for a change from all the crap you're wading through... you are tiny that you might become great, you are suffering that you might know peace, you are on your own that you might know true companionship, you are wandering that you might know your home.

While I'm at it, I'd like to take the time to thank a tiny friend of mine. She pointed out that my previous post was total crap. I call "God" a man who cared only about those he loved and called his own. He did not care what people said. He did not care what people thought was appropriate. He cared only about His Father, His Father's will, His Father's truth, His Father's word. He cared only to love his bride with every ounce of his humanity and his divinity. This is the man who has called me his own.

It feels broken to me to have physically intimate relationships that are emotionally and spiritually void. I have no reason to think that your physically intimate relationships are emotionally and spiritually void. I have no cause to judge you for your relationships. But it is easy for me to judge me for mine. I have taken the beautiful and made it broken.

It feels broken to me to deny physical intimacy in emotionally and spiritually rich relationships. I find it suspicious to hear people preaching "laws" like abstinence as though they were truth. While I have no cause to judge your abstinence, I do find great cause for alarm that you would bind your brothers and sisters by your own laws when Christ has gone to so much trouble to set them free.

I find that there is great joy in limiting yourself for the sake of someone else. There is something wonderful about being tackled by a four year old. There is something humbling about having a six year old tell you which cars you get to play with, even though the other cars are cooler. There is something peaceful about building a super badass wooden train track just so a two year old can play with it. There is something deeply passionate about denying yourself something, so that someone else can experience you on a level that grows your relationship instead of sacrifices it.

Yes, I'm referring again to sex. And to alcohol, and to playing with hot wheels, and to tackle time. But really I'm talking about what God does with us. Ah, to be tiny...

Who's On First, Fuwjax Is Off

It's a surprisingly common misconception of people who do not know me well that I am afraid that people will think I'm crazy. This is, in fact, not true. I am afraid of two things when it comes to my sanity, that people will think I'm sane, and that I'm really not.

As I am wont to do, I gave only half of the story in my previous post. One of the major reasons for doing so was that I was very angry when I wrote it. A friend of mine was looking for a "god-reason" to break up with his girlfriend. Well, that's not exactly true, he was looking for a "fuwjax-reason" that he could twist into a "god-reason". That made me pretty angry. I know better than to blog when I'm angry. As an apology, here is the second half of the story.

Matt 5:28 spells out perfectly clear just how far is too far, "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." The appropriate response by the way is not to break up with her, the next few verses say "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

So you see, I can hardly worry about whether I'm off-base; I follow a man who was truly insane. Can you imagine a culture that gouged out their eyes for lustful looking? But there is no other course of action. If you intend to save yourself from hell, you'd probably better get going on the self-mutilation. Of course, there is that other option.

There is forgiveness. That truly insane man cut himself off. He threw himself away. He died to give us his body. He rose so that we would be a part of that body, that we would not be cut off, that we would not be thrown into hell. He has paid the price. He has set me free.

I'm not joking that you've been set free from the law. Check out Romans 8, it's amazing. And I'm not kidding that all things are permissible. I quoted 1 Corinthians 6 last time. This time I'm quoting 1 Corinthians 10. "'Everything is permissible'—but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is permissible'—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others." And now we come to the crux of our freedom.

Is it ok to have sex? Not if it becomes your master. Is it ok to have sex if it doesn't become your master? Not if it leads someone else to sin. Keep reading the rest of 1 Corinthians 10. "For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for? So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved."

Here Paul is talking about eating food sacrificed to idols, but it applies equally well to "whatever you do". If you've found a way to drive faster than the speed limit, steal, lie, sleep with your girlfriend, beat your kids, abuse your spouse, get drunk, get high, or pretty much anything else you might believe is a gray area when it comes to righteousness... if you've found a way to do these things to the glory of God, for the good of many that they might be saved, then don't let me stop you.

So how far is going too far? If you look at someone lustfully, you've gone too far. What you have done in your heart is no less a sin than what you have done with your... hands. If holding hands with someone makes someone else gossip and slander you, then you went too far. It's easy to love the girl who is affectionate; it takes a real man to love the slanderer.

That said, I have one final point. Stop making up laws. If the laws from God's own lips are not in themselves powerful enough to save, then how much more worthless are your own laws? If God has given you a way to glorify him through sex, then you would be a fool to not take advantage of it. It's not a loophole in the law; the law serves his glory not the other way around. Just understand that if your abstinence only serves to glorify you as a tool to condemn others, it is certifiably not from God.

Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave

Frankly, I'm not sure how God could be much more explicit about sex. Sex is obviously good. He created us as sexual beings. There is an entire book in the bible dedicated to sexuality. Sex is not sinful.

There are however conditions where sex is an affront to God. He spells them out in Leviticus 18. Don't have sexual relations with your blood relatives, your blood relatives' wives, your neighbor's wife, animals, members of the same sex, a woman during her period, or a woman and her offspring. There you go, as spelled out as you can get. This is the strict biblical definition of sexual immorality.

So now we live in a time when "good christians" demand that their children be abstinent. Try researching abstinence in the bible. You'll be hard pressed to ever find unmarried people singled out and directed to abstain from sex. Everyone, regardless of marriage status is directed to abstain from sexual immorality. Sexual immorality of course being spelled out in Leviticus. We're also directed to abstain from blood, food sacrificed to idols, and meat of strangled animals.

Now, that said, let's shift to 1 Corinthians 6. Look at verse 11. You are free to do everything. You have been set free from the law. The law no longer binds you. But just because everything is permissible does not mean that everything is beneficial. How do we identify those things which are not beneficial? "but I will not be mastered by anything."

There was a time in my life when a woman could have taken off all her clothes, laid down on top of me and and I wouldn't have been tempted to do anything more than discuss the relative merits of reverting to a gold-backed monetary system. It was no temptation at all to sleep in the same bed as a female friend. Now, I'm afraid I have succumbed to the temptation to push sexual boundaries so often that I am not capable of the same self-restraint. It can too easily master me, and therefore it has become something that is clearly not beneficial.

For those who are capable of sharing innocence without letting it go, then by all means, share whatever you'd like. Just be aware that you are opening the door to give it the opportunity to become your master. If you can smoke without it becoming your master, then by all means, smoke away. For me, I am not capable of your self control. "I'll just do it once" becomes "Anyone got a smoke?" If you can have sex without it becoming your master, then by all means, sex away. For me, "I'm only sexually intimate with a girlfriend" becomes "I only have a girlfriend to be sexually intimate."

I think honestly, for me it's less about the innocence and more about the boundary. If I'm free to do anything I want, I'll want to do amazingly creative things that are very expressive of myself and the way I care about the people I'm around. If I have boundaries, I'll just want to push the boundaries.

Sex is a good thing. It is a God pleasing thing. He has heaps o' blessings in store for you through sex. It's not sinful to hug someone. It's sinful to let hugging someone become your master. If holding a girl's hand makes you push her to have sex, then do something else to show her you care than hold her hand. Not because sex is bad, but because it has become your master. Why are you opting out of the blessings He has in store for you just to become a slave to sex?

I would like to throw one more tiny little thing out there. Sex is marriage. It doesn't say in Genesis 2, "and a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and they will become a legal taxable entity, licensed by the local government." No... it says "and a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and they will become one flesh." Is God waiting for you to commit to a woman for better or worse in the front of a church and sign a piece of paper to call you married? Or is he waiting for you to become one flesh?

I understand this isn't exactly true, and that I'm pushing yet another boundary by saying sex is marriage. But is it more false than true?