A Blast From the Past

My friend, Patrick, treated me to a movie tonight. As many of you may know, Patrick is quite the movie buff. He lives to watch them, then he lives to discuss them. He could give Ebert a run for his money, to be sure.

That was off the subject. This is about my feelings of the movie. I’ll get it over with right now . . . Ninja Assassins was a violent and bloody movie. Don’t take the kids to see it.

Okay, enough of the bad. If you watched the ninja movies of the eighties, then you are definitely old enough to see this movie. And if you enjoyed them, then you should definitely watch it. The action sequences, with real martial artists and little-if any-wire work, were breathtaking.

And Sho Kasugi was in it. Toward the end of the movie, when Raizo attacks Ozunu (Kasugi) with his kusarigama, I nearly jumped out of my seat when the 80s ninja icon swiped the hooked end of it off with one swipe of his sword. For his age, Kasugi still has the makings of a action star. Make him a little older and have him smile a little more, and he’d make an awesome Tanemura Funakoshi . . ..

Hey, an author can wish, can’t he?

Child Support Laws Need an Overhaul

Two years ago, my ex-wife left me for another man. Granted, she probably would have left if he hadn’t been around, but he gave her the initiative to speed up the process . . . as well as the SUV in which to leave. Buckling my daughter into that vehicle and watching that man drive away with my world was the most painful experience of my life.

Unfortunately, the story didn’t end there. It wasn’t enough that my ex tore my heart out and stomped on it. She also had to take me to the cleaners with our divorce. I got my paycheck from work today. Keep in mind that I didn’t miss any work during this period. This is a full paycheck. My gross pay was $970.83. I even got $0.78 in accidental overtime pay. My total Social Security, Medicare, Federal and State taxes were $119.10. My total insurance charges were $212.50. My Child Support was $426.25. My take-home pay to live on for two weeks?

$213.76

What she has done to me shows that the custody and child support laws, at least in ….Missouri…., really need an overhaul. I have no problem with doing my best to take care of my daughter. But the laws shouldn’t make it impossible for me to live. I’m not a deadbeat dad who, for example, would quit his job to avoid having to pay child support. But, if that person is in the boat that I’m in, then I can certainly sympathize with him. The Missouri Child Support system is literally sending my ex-wife twice as much as I get to bring home. Perhaps the most aggravating thing is that my wife, stepchildren and I struggle to meet our bare necessities (relying on the good nature of many Brothers and Sisters in Christ), while I will talk to my daughter three, sometimes four times per week from the restaurants that her mother can afford to take her to. The purpose of support is to provide for my daughters needs, not spoil her by taking her out to eat all of the time or letting her pick out $200 glasses frames because they are her favorite color.

I’ve had many people tell me that I should take her back to court. The problem is that the current laws are what allowed this to happen. They figure child support at 1/3 of my gross income. Plus, they awarded it back to when she filed for the divorce, putting me three months past due as soon as the judgment was made. After taxes and the court-ordered health insurance, this ends up being more like 2/3 of my take-home pay. And the courts don’t see anything wrong with this.

I had a conversation with my ex this week over those $200 glasses frames. I told her that I am trying to support a family of four on just over $400 per month and she let our daughter pick out frames that cost half of my monthly take-home pay! Her response to this was that it wasn’t her fault that I have so little money with which to support us. Just because the judge awarded her so much in child support, didn’t mean that she had to take it. Many honorable women have refused to take so much when they knew that it would make it nearly impossible for their ex’s to support themselves.

The only consolation that I have is that the lawyer who helped her to do this messed himself up. She had paid the retainer, but he got it put into the decree that I am responsible for his fees, too. So he gave the retainer back to her, and then put another garnishment on my pay. Since Missouri state law only allows garnishments of up to 50% of after-tax pay (before insurance), he actually can’t collect on it from my paycheck. Child support trumps any other garnishments.

My Walk With the Lord

Last night, I was challenged by a friend regarding the types of blog entries that I write. He told me that my writing always seems to center around politics. Ignore the fact that this friend is my most politically active friend or the fact that the only person to comment on my poem about my wife was said wife, and I considered this a challenge.

I went to the altar for the first time when I was twelve. I did it because my mother did it the same day and most of my adult years I have lived with the knowledge that I wasn’t truly Saved at that point.

Let’s skip forward nine years. I rededicated my life to Christ when I was twenty-one. This was the time when I can truly say that I became a follower of Jesus. From that point forward, I read the Bible regularly (I’ve read the NIV from cover to cover, though not necessarily in order), prayed daily and began entreating the Lord on behalf of my, at the time, unsaved father.

But even now, as I approach my thirty-fourth year, God is still revealing new things to me. I’ve spent my entire life living as a Christian, but not wanting to rock the boat. What I’ve discovered is that my walk wasn’t really Christian at all. To paraphrase Ray Comfort, one of my new heroes in the faith, if we call ourselves followers of Christ, but don’t have a longing to reach the lost, then we should reevaluate our Salvation.

The problem is with the concept of “freedom from religion.” What made me realize that I wasn’t behaving as a true Christian was the fact that I, for most of my adult life, viewed evangelism in the same way as our new president. When he was asked if Christ was the only way to Heaven, he said, “He is my only way.” So Obama seems to view Christianity as one of many roads to the same place. He doesn’t want to offend his base. The problem is that people die for their faith in Christ everyday and all over the world. But even more go to Hell each day. And I was afraid to offend people by “pushing” my views on them. How can I have been so callous as to be more concerned about offending them than warning them of an eternity of torment?

Another change that I have noticed is my views on doctrine. Most of my adult life, I have considered myself a member of the Assemblies of God church. I looked at things from an Armenian point of view and enjoyed every message in tongues that I heard. I am still a “continuationist,” meaning that I believe that the spiritual gifts like tongues, healing and prophecy still exist. My issue is with execution. Paul, at one point, lays down the rules for speaking in tongues. He says that only a couple of people should speak, then there should be an interpretation, preferably from the person who gave the message. The last AG church that I went to followed this rule. I only remember ever hearing messages one at a time and they were always interpreted. But I often went to churches where almost everyone around me was yelling something in tongues and they were never interpreted. As near as I can tell, this isn’t Scriptural.

And, while I still believe in prophetic messages, I don’t believe that they will ever contradict Scripture. Benny Hinn is NOT a prophet. He says things that cannot be proven in Scripture, or even by common sense. Remember when he said that Adam could fly around like Superman? Huh?

I have also spent a great deal of the last year reading things by the likes of R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur and John Piper. But I’ve also spent a great deal of time perusing the blog of my mentor, John Sneed. What I’ve come to realize is that I am much closer to being a Calvanist than I ever thought that I was.

Dr. Sproul once commented on praying for the lost. If we truly believe in Free Will, who are we to intrude on someone’s right to choose by praying that God would same them? Remember that I said that I was praying for my father’s soul? He got saved in 1996 and went to be with the Lord ten years later.

Total depravity
I think that anybody who is a Christian should believe this one. Man is born in sin. We have no way of getting ourselves to Heaven apart from Christ. It’s that simple.

Unconditional election
I’ve heard people who don’t believe in predestination say that this point would make evangelism unnecessary. As Pastor Sneed points out, though, we don’t know who would be the elect. God doesn’t tattoo it on their foreheads. So we witness to everyone, assuming that they are of the elect right up until the day that they die.

Limited atonement
This one seems open and shut for me. Christ died for Christians. He didn’t die for Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Neo-Pagans or agnostics, unless the people who led these lifestyles in the past turned to Christ before their deaths. Then they are Christians.

Irresistible grace and Perseverance of the saints
These are a little more difficult for me. Hebrews 6:4-6 says, “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” (ESV) I have had people who are much more intelligent than I say that this is a warning. But I just want to understand why God would have included a warning in Scripture about something that couldn’t happen. Trust me, I don’t want to anger any of my Calvinist friends (least of all my beautiful wife), but I would really love to understand this better.

I use a dear friend from Ireland to illustrate my point on this. I won’t mention his name here, but he is an author whose blog I follow regularly. At one point, he was one of the most passionate Christians that I have ever known. He was a true apologist who would defend his faith strongly. Then, less than a year ago, he posted on his blog that he is no longer a Christian. I pray for him everyday, not to offend him, but because I don’t want to be callous about his eternity. But was he ever truly one of the elect? If he had died a year ago, would he have made it to Heaven, but would now see Hell? I am just confused about situations like this.

So, for those of you who haven’t seen me in a long time, you are probably scratching your heads as you read this. “What happened to Jeff?” I am a Baptist minister. I am a continuationist. I am a “three-point” Calvinist.

Any other questions?

My Movie Review

In my nearly 34 years of existence, I have never seen a 3D movie in the theater-until tonight. My Bloody Valentine opened tonight. As many of you may know, I spent my childhood and adolescent years as a slasher-film fan. I own every Jason Vorhees movie on DVD. I have, admittedly, never seen the original version of Valentine, but I don’t think that it would have changed my feelings about this update.

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Have you ever watched one of those movies where the movie’s ending shocks you? For example, The Sixth Sense? We have a shocking ending in Valentine. It really took a great deal of time for me to formulate what it was that really bothered me about this movie. The problem, first of all, was the execution.

With the classic Sixth Sense, we were shocked when we realized that Bruce Willis was “dead people.” I will admit that I didn’t see it coming at all. And, when you looked back on the subtle things that the director threw in during the movie, the ending made sense. And some of you, no doubt, figured it out beforehand.

But that’s not the case here. What you have are two possible killers. You have Tom and you have Axel. The problem is with one very important scene. The killer kicks Tom into a mine elevator and locks him in it. We see the two of them staring at each other. We see Tom trying frantically to escape to help the man who is being slaughtered outside of the elevator. We see some miners pry the bent bar off of the cage door to the elevator in order to free Tom. We see the deputy tell the sheriff (Axel) that there is no way that Tom could have done it, since these men had to free Tom from the elevator. My friend, Bobby, who normally cracks these things pretty quickly, concluded that Axel must be the killer.

So when Tom was revealed to be the killer, I felt cheated. Perhaps it was a good plot twist, but what makes these plot twists so enjoyable is having the chance to figure it out on our own before the revelation. And the director went out of his way to make sure that this didn’t happen. Yes, he showed that Tom was insane and had a split personality, but only after the fact. Leaving the elevator scene out of the movie would have made the twist so much more satisfying.

Another thing that intrigued me was my reaction to the staples of the genre. The “obligatory” nude scene lasted not seconds, but probably five minutes of the movie. I was more disgusted by this that I would have been ten years ago. The over-the-top murder scenes grew irritating after a while. I used to like these movies. I am planning to see the remake of Friday the 13^th. But I am beginning to simply ask myself, “Why?”

Big Surprise

Well, the California Supreme Court, which had originally validated homosexual marriage in the “Sunshine State,” is going to hear arguments about why the constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage should be overturned. The biggest argument given by those who are challenging the law is that voters shouldn’t be allowed to decide the issue. So much for “For the People, By the People.” How about “Screw the People?” As is pretty typical when it comes to liberals, if the majority of the voters don’t support their viewpoint, they just run crying to the activist judges. I agree with Ann Coulter when she said that we are having to accept Obama as president, so the gay people in California should have to accept the majority rule there, as well. Can we take it to the Federal Supreme Court to try and get his election overturned? Of course we can’t. The majority voted for him. And the will of the people is decided by the majority. That’s the way that it’s supposed to work in the United States of America. You shouldn’t be able to run to a judge and overturn the will of the people.

Oh, and another small thing to point out. The court gave the proponents of the new amendment until December 19 to submit their arguments in support of the ban. The opponents of the amendment were given until January 5. I wonder why those who were trying to overturn the will of the people were given more than two weeks longer to formulate their responses? It’s not like the proposition of the amendment had been known for sixteen days longer by the proponents than it had by the gay rights activists.

A BOOK REVIEW

CHION

 

As most of you know, I have a special place in my heart for independent fiction.  I had wanted to read Darryl Sloan’s YA thriller for awhile.  I’ve listened to all of the MP3 files that he has placed on his website and know just how talented he is.  And Chion wasn’t a disappointment.

 

(WARNING:  SPOILERS AHEAD)

 

The story centers on Jamie, a boy with a dark secret who is plunged into a nightmare about snow.  Yes, you read that correctly.  A snowfall has taken place in Ireland that makes super glue seem like kindergarten paste and anyone who goes outside is stuck fast.  The book follows Jamie’s point of view-mostly-with regards to what is going on with the students at Clounagh Junior High School during this ordeal.  Eventually, he decides to make a break for it, taking his girlfriend, Tara.  Roughly the last half of the book details their trials as they follow his escape plan.

 

The book does set up some disturbing images.  It shows how a major disaster like this would affect society.  We see people killing one another over food.  We see a man murdered in front of his small children.  We see a child held at gunpoint by a teacher who has decided that “survival of the fittest” means that the teachers should live and the students should starve.  Sloan didn’t put these things in for shock value.  Indeed, the bloodshed is not detailed very much at all.  This is not a boiled-down thriller.  We see a sense of realism that shows that even our society’s innocents would be harmed in these events.

 

On a side note, Jamie’s “secret” has caused him to rethink his relationship with God.  He prays and finds himself putting Tara first, time and again.  We see a young man who, through trials and tribulations, has come closer to God, rather than pushing Him away.

 

With a bittersweet ending, this is a story that you simply mustn’t miss.

I’m starting to get irritated with how poorly some people park.  Okay, one neighbor in particular.  A person who has a gray Ford, extended cab, full-size pickup and has North Carolina plates TSJ-XXXX (I replaced the numbers w/Xs for legal reasons) lives in our building and has, at least five times since I’ve lived here, parked ON THE LINE right next to my car.  As with the other four times, I actually had to climb into my car this morning through the passenger’s side, then maneuver over the console in order to get out of my space.  Some people get angry about bad drivers.  I get angry about bad parkers, especially if the person has done it more than once.

 

I have pneumonia and the flu.  This “odd couple” of illnesses was compounded by the fact that my daughter was also sick while she was here.  Honestly, taking care of her made me feel better.  It wasn’t until after I’d taken her home (her fever broke on Tuesday), that I’ve realized just how poorly that I feel.  To make matters worse, I forgot to leave her car seat with her mother, so I just had to wire money to her to buy a new one.

 

The last two weeks with my daughter were wonderful.  As happens each time that I take her back to her mother’s house, I spend the following day moping, missing her bright smile and energetic laugh, not to mention her love of giving hugs for no reason.

 

It’s going to be an affection-free two weeks.  And I’m not looking forward to it.

Some Updates

 

DRAGONLANCE

 

As a junior in high school, I borrowed my first Dungeons & Dragons novel from my buddy, Evan.  It was Dragons of Autumn Twilight and I was blown away by just how awesome a read it was.  The book made the rounds and friend after friend loved it.  Now, after fifteen years, they’ve made an animated movie.  And it stacks up to the book fairly well.  Obviously, they had to cut out a great deal of things.  Gone is the giant slug.  Gone is the banshee.  But, the movie is still very good.  Michael Rosenblaum does a top notch job as Tanis Half-elven.  Lucy Lawless is the best choice as Goldmoon.  Keifer Sutherland is a great Raistlin Majere, at least until he casts a spell.  The way he speaks the incantations sounds more like he’s growling them, rather than chanting a complex series of mystical words.

 

I also had a problem with the animation.  Though drawn well, they made the decision to make all of the reptilian monsters computer animated, while drawing all other characters and backgrounds in cell animation.  Not only did the two forms not go well together, it spoiled the surprise of an attack that came from a group of “monks” who were really villainous draconians, since the monks were computer animated.

 

MARVEL HAS DONE IT AGAIN

 

I used to love Spiderman.  I really did.  They’d mess him up, but eventually fix anything that they screwed up.  I stopped reading the comics totally when they made him announce his secret identity to the world.  I waited patiently for them to find some world-shattering way of making the entire Marvel Universe forget that Peter Parker is Spiderman.  But, not even having fixed the last mess-up, they’ve made the worst mistake ever-they’ve had Peter and Mary Jane make a deal with A DEMON for the life of Peter’s aunt.  And the cost of the deal is the wiping of their marriage from history.  Yep.  They’ve destroyed an institution from the comics that has lasted for half of Spidey’s career.  And they used a demon to do it.

 

I really can’t say what I want about the writers of the Spiderman comics, considering the fact that I’m a Christian.  Just suffice it to say that Marvel will never see another dime of my money.  I’ll see no more of their movies or purchase anymore of their merchandise.  And I’ll never buy another one of their comics.

PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN

 

After so long, the liberal, activist judge’s blocking of Bush’s partial-birth abortion ban has finally been overturned. Those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life can take comfort in the fact that a fully formed baby can no longer be pulled out of its mother’s womb and its brain sucked out of its head.

 

I don’t mean to describe the process in such crude terms, but such a crude process deserves nothing better.

 

Until next time, God Bless!

CHILD OF THE ‘80S

 

I was born in 1975 and spent the majority of my childhood in the 1980s. I like how that decade has started to become retro in recent years. I’ve purchased the “Top Ten” episodes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe on DVD. I’ve purchased the first eight Friday the 13^th movies on DVD. I’ve started collecting new Transformers.

 

The He-Man DVD has my two favorite episodes, Teela’s Quest and To Save Skeletor, on it. It also includes commentary from the writers and producers of each episode. I found out, for instance, that one of the writers from the series also wrote the screenplay for Friday the 13^th the Final Chapter.

 

The Jason Vorhees set was a trip down memory lane. Okay, I’ll admit that the movies are definitely not family friendly, but it is interesting to note just how much the MPAA has changed in what it finds acceptable for an “R” rating. Compared to the horror films of today, these were mostly tame. Also, some pretty famous people were in some of the films, including Kevin Bacon (Part One), Corey Feldman (Part Four), Tony Goldwyn (Part Six), Kelly Hu (Part Eight) and even Left Behind’s Gordon Curry (Part Eight).

 

Of all of the things that I remember fondly from the 1980s, my favorite was definitely “the Transformers.” At one time, I had over one hundred of the first generation toys. Though my collection has slowly dwindled, I had not opted to buy any of the newer, gimmicky sets. But now, there is the “Classics” set, which looks more like modern versions of the cartoon characters. I’m collecting this new set and, so far, have Starscream, Rodimus (formerly Hot Rod), Grimlock, Bumblebee, and a set with both Optimus Prime and Megatron. I’m also waiting in anticipation for the release of the live action movie.

 

BEREAN UPDATE

 

I took my final exam for “The Prison Epistles” yesterday. I got a 90%. I’m really enjoying these classes. I never really understood just how little I knew about the Bible before now. The next class is “Introduction to Pentecostal Doctrine.” I’ll be going to pick up my texts at Global University today.