So This is What Sin Looks Like

One movie I can never pass by when flipping through the channels on television is A Few Good Men. In the movie, Tom Cruise played a military lawyer, named Daniel Kaffee, who defended two U.S. Marines charged with killing a fellow Marine at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Kaffee was essentially a used car salesman lawyer, who exclusively negotiated plea bargains, to the extent he had never seen the inside of a courtroom. Because higher ups did not want a trial, Kaffee was chosen over more qualified lawyers to take the case. After a dramatic courtroom scene, Kaffee turned around while exiting and remarked, “So this is what a courtroom looks like.”

Teaching Children About Protecting Their Reputations

One thing parents often preach to their children is the importance of protecting their reputations. I am one of those and have preached that to my children many times. But recently I heard my preaching regurgitated to me by one of my sons and a glaring omission was revealed to me.

Parachutes Upon The Wind

My short story, Parachutes Upon the Wind, was published on Altarwork.com yesterday. If you have a few minutes, please check out the Altarwork site and provide feedback on the post there.

Parachutes Upon The Wind

 

A Christian Response to the 2016 Presidential Election

Social media and cable news are abuzz with diatribes and vitriol over the 2016 Presidential Election. If you support the Taz, apparently you are a racist, a liar, a misogynist, and a demagogue.

If you support Yosemite Sam, then apparently you are corrupt, a liar and a murderer . . .

and you REALLY love pant suits.

The Plight of the Long Nose

Guilty! Guilty! Lock her up!

The crowd’s chanting cut her to the bone.

With a trembling hand, she tucked her black hair behind her ear and stared at the ground, shame repelling eye contact with her accusers, whose judgmental stares traveled long along the haughty nose.

Guilty! Guilty! Lock her up!

The Haunting Gaze

He has figured me out, I think. His hasty escape to the other side of the street betrays him; his soul laid bare through his nervous peripheral glances. He’s busy. If I had a family and demanding job, I might not have time for the likes of me either, I suppose. If I see him again, I might ask him. Wonder if he will look me in the eye?

A Teen’s Response To Prickly Parenting

[TheDaddyBlitz Introduction]

The following is a response from a 16-year old to my Prickly Parenting post. After she gave some feedback, I asked her if she would be willing to share her perspective on behalf of teens, and she graciously agreed! And without arguing! 🙂

Promote Your Blog Here

If you are a follower of my Blog (new or old), please promote your Blog by putting your Blog address in a comment below along with a brief description of what your Blog is about. Let readers know why they should visit you and what they will find when they do.

If you post below, please consider visiting some or all of the other Blogs listed.

Also, consider reblogging or sharing this post to get your readers involved and connected as well.

I stole this idea from MakeItUltra™, who recently posted a subscriber promotion (click HERE for link) that really took off and appears to have helped a lot of bloggers connect. My Blog picked up a large number of new followers by simply posting a blog description on his link and by visiting some of the other Blogs listed in the comments. So, please visit his post, follow his Blog, and link up your Blog for others to find.

Because my readership is likely quite different than MakeItUltra™, I would like to try the same thing here.

Thanks, and enjoy!

M.A.S.K.D.

Booming, throbbing bass bludgeoned her brain while blackened goth revelers thrashed and bobbed about in a daze, a grotesque menagerie bewitched by the darkness and the dead. Garish locks and bloodied bodies blazed beneath demonic strobes spiraling above the dizzying hoard worshiping in the night’s mass. A macabre brew of black and sweat dripped and smeared across Clisby’s blanched face, rendering a vision of walking death, a coveted ticket to conformity. But the bedlam disturbed the nauseous beast bathing within her sloshing belly, and she bolted for the dark passage through which she had descended into the gloom, bombarded and bruised along the way by blurry, bumping bodies pulsing and gyrating to the blaring cacophony.

Pew Shakers

While sitting in church this past Sunday with 3 of my 5 boys, I suddenly felt the pew shaking during the sermon. I glanced to my left, and two of my boys were in the midst of a “try hard not to laugh when you aren’t supposed to” moment.

Most of us have been there–when laughter is mercilessly suppressed by silence and scorn, causing tears to leak from the eyes and the body to tremble.