I stood there taking in the sights and sounds: the water as it gently
lapped the bank, the playful twitter of what I could only assume were
birds of some sort as I couldn't see anything through the dense foliage,
the tall - monstrously tall - trees, thick with leaves of deep green, gold, red, orange, and purple (I swear - purple leaves!).
How had he done that? How had Mr. Throgmorgenson transported me here?
This island shouldn't exist anymore. The Naterans took care of that
hundreds of years ago, and yet here I am. I'm not complaining. I mean,
this is amazing. Awesome. I scanned the landscape, but it was impossible
to see anything through the pack of trees that stood at attention like a
massive army. The center of the island could be mountains, or valleys, a
huge crater, or maybe marshes, it could be forest all the way through
to the other side. There was only one way to find out. I headed inland,
but just as I began to walk, enjoying the peace and the time to think, I
heard the scream. It stopped me cold in my tracks. "Sam?" I whispered and began to run in the direction of that blood-curdling sound.
I used to label myself as a conservative Christian. Used to. Lately, I'm almost ashamed to even be called a "christian" (that lowercase "c" is on purpose). It seems that over the last eight to ten years, being "christian" has become more about being right than about being Christ-like. It's more about enforcing a perceived level of moral behavior that has nothing to do with a person's heart (what was that Jesus said about a "whitewashed tomb" in Matthew 23:27?). Being "christian" has become more about power, control, and supremacy than it is about loving your neighbor or your God. I'm deeply saddened by the current "christian" focus on the sins of others (LGBTQ anyone?), by the lack of humility, by the pain inflicted (knowingly and unknowingly) on those who are unlike us. I've recently seen the ugliness of my own whitewashed tomb. I don't like it. I cried to see that my heart contains such haughtiness an...
Dang... don't leave us hanging like that! Was it really Sam? What was wrong? Was it as bad as she feared?
ReplyDeleteI MUST KNOW!!!
;-)