Crazy for God, Part I

My title comes from Frank Schaeffer's tell-all book about his parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Now Frank is frank and that's a fact, and it is clear to all that he has had his "issues" through the years (Haven't we all?). The idolizers of the Schaeffers and L'Abri have been scandalized and the hagiographers have been burning up their keyboards trying to set the record straight. What is missed, it seems to me, is that Frank was there and, whatever his issues, he does have considerable inside information about these things.

I, like so many, owe a great debt to the Schaeffers. It was their written work that saved me from fundamentalism and gave me the beginnings of a Christian world-view. I love their memory and thank God for their legacy (at least most of it). But, "the best of men are men at best," and all idols, even evangelical ones, have feet of clay.

Frank's frank assessment that his parents were "crazy, crazy for God" rings true because I have myself been victim to this condition and have spent most of my life in the company of people who were susceptible to religious mania of one kind or the other. I am not being cute. It has only been during the past few years, when my life has thrown me into the company of non-religious people, that I have come to see how pervasive and pernicious this condition is.

So, I want to venture into this dangerous ground and talk about the marks of being "crazy for God." I do so, not to hurt people. To the contrary, this kind of mania hurts people. It does great harm to the individuals possessed by it. It does great harm to their families. And, it does great harm to the people we are trying to give Christian witness to- the non-religious. It is with the wish to help, rather than hurt, that I write.

I think it is this kind of religious extremism that we are warned against in Ecclesiastes 7:15-18. "Be not righteous over much...be not wicked over much." The writer is warning us against an extremism that eschews moderation and temperance.

The "crazy for God" (hereafter CFG) condition is marked by monomania, that is, an obsessive and inordinate attention to and zeal for one idea or a few ideas clustered around one idea. In our case "God" is the one idea and the cluster may be salvation, death, hell, heaven, the good life, etc., all emanating from "God." This is the God-obsessed soul or the God-intoxicated soul. In either case, whether "obsessed" or "intoxicated," these are not generally considered to be healthy states of mind. And the CFG person is generally not a healthy soul.

It is little wonder that the CFG person would be obsessive even if God were not the obsession. Hence we see personalities like Gary Busey's. He is obsessive about drugs, sex, and alcohol. He experiences a conversion. He becomes CFG. The temperament is already there, the occasion/ideology presents itself, and, Voila!, we have a new soldier of the cross. The same thing happens with this personality type who converts to Islam, to Veganism, or to Amway.

Such people become obsessed, or, perhaps, better: possessed. Their every thought is focused on God-things. Their speech becomes laden with God-talk... They have to be so careful here: There must be no talk of being lucky, or being proud, or being happy. It is not luck, but Providence. It is not pride, but thankfulness. It is not happiness, but joy. The English language itself becomes a mine-field where one must be very careful as to where one puts one's foot. And within the community of the CFG folks, a misstep means correction or rebuke. I once was corrected for announcing a "pot-luck dinner" at church by a CFG lady of some years who primly reminded me that the proper jargon was "pot-Providence." And the "possession" goes to every other aspect of life. Every motive, every thought, every action, every word, every omission, and every ambition is scrutinized with surgical exactness to make sure it is "godly." No wonder people on the outside have little interest in and downright aversion to such a life!

The CFG personality is also driven by the baser passions of the human psyche, such as fear, guilt, shame, triumphalism, and pride. How many people are in professional religious vocations, not because they love God and love what they are doing, but because of these dark little critters hidden under the rocks of their minds. So much of what I have described in the earlier paragraphs of this piece is too often driven by these dark things.

Now, it is a fact that people who are motivated by such darkness often soar off into the darkness of darker things. I have at other times described such people as those who have screwed the lid down so tightly on their darkness that they have broken off the bottle neck and all the dark stuff comes flying out- uncontrollably. Hence the scandals among the faithful, the sex, power, money stuff that comes to the forefront in the lives of people like Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, and the Hiker of the Appalachian Trail. These are all CFG people.

There is another factor in this and it is difficult to discuss because of the subtleties involved in it. Christianity is a evangelical faith, it is one of the world's converting faiths. That is to say, it is concerned, in obedience to its Lord's commission, to "make disciples." The problem arises when the darker triumphalist tendencies of the heart to conquer, to overcome, to dominate replace a living and sharing of the Good News that rests upon the sovereign grace of God to gently and sweetly persuade minds and hearts toward himself. CFG people do not appreciate this distinction. As such it is not surprising that they are in spirit much like the New Atheists in their passion to be right and to make converts. There is little contrast between the spirit of a Pat Robertson and a Christopher Hitchens. Perhaps the one is CFG and the other, CFA (Crazy for Atheism).

Over all, the most glaring trait of the CFG folks is their complete incapacity to enjoy life. The festive, partying, eating, drinking, dancing, laughing, singing, shouting life of the Bible is seldom if ever present among these folks. The boisterous, loud, over-the-top living that affirms life, sex, birth, work, fun, money, possessions, the sun and the moon, the sea and the dry land, and even affliction and death, and on and on and on... This is not possible for the CFG person. He is miserable because-and this is the tragic irony of it all- he is not obsessed with God but with yet another projection of his sad self that he visualizes as God (which itself is a form of idolatry).

I close with a little poem that I cannot find the source of. It has meant the world to me for over thirty years. It is the antidote to the CFG mania and admirably capsulizes the truth of Ecclesiates 7:15-18 (and the rest of the book). Here's how it goes:

Man,
Feare God
And bee merrye
And give not for this worlde
A cherrye.

A Low Place in the Ground by E. D. "Shinbone" Smith, Bomar, Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory or "IT"

When my Uncle Nat was jist nine, they was building the big fireplace in the big house. Granddaddy Black John had got tired of messing with stoves and wanted him an open fire in the parlor that he could whittle in front of and spit into if he chose to, though Granny Eller would git after him about spitting in the house- even if it was into a fireplace. So on a fine fall day the mason come and they commenced.

The mason was a feller named Ransom J. Stuck and he had two boys who come with him to mix the mortar and carry the hod of bricks. These boys was none too bright and mixing mud and carrying bricks was about all their intelligence was up to. But, they was right smart workers and that makes up for a lot, even limited brains. The old man had them boys digging a pit for the footer of this fireplace while he sawed out an opening in the north wall of the house for the chimney. Once the hole was dug, they broke up all kinds of old bottles and jars in the bottom of it to discourage the gophers and armadillos from digging under the foundation. They poured a good mess of concrete into the hole and reinforced it with junk iron from the old forge north of the house. Then old Stuck got down to laying the bricks. Granddaddy had traded a cow for them bricks and they was good 'uns, too. Red as the Red River in flood. Now, Ransom may have been jist a sight brighter than his boys, but that old booger could lay them bricks- plumb and level as the Pyramids of Egypt. He had got up to about hearth level when he and granddaddy and everbody else was drawn to somebody hollerin' over west of the place. Now, this hollerin' was serious hollerin' and so they all knew that something serious had taken place.

Now, about a mile northwest of Granddaddy's place was a family of share croppers named Hughes. They lived in a little Jenny Lind house with two rooms and a shed for a kitchen. Four or five kids and a worn out old woman in that pitiful house! Old Hughes- Tom, I think was his given name- though everbody always called him "Hughes" or "Old Hughes," he was a character and put on certain airs, though he was as poor as Job's turkey. For instance, he chewed tobacco and ever time he spit, he made a big deal of the thang, spitting and saying "Phooey!" when he did, like some big exclamation mark. Always wore a cheap red bandanna around his neck like a picture-show cowboy. And always wore a big hat and tucked his overalls legs into the top of his boots. When he come into Thackerville, the men would always say, "There comes old Charlie Goodnight," or, "I thought Booger Red was down in Texas." It was kindly pitiful, if the truth be known.

Well, this feller come a hollerin' for somebody to come, so Granddaddy hitched up a sorrel mare to his buggy and off they went over the new plowed ground of the west field, bumping and thumping all the way. Now, unbeknownst to Granddaddy and everbody else, Uncle Nat had crawled up into the luggage hole in the back of the buggy and was holding on for dear life as Granddaddy whipped that mare across that new plowed ground.

Well, they get to the Hughes place and Leland Foster, the foreman for the Gladney Ranch where the Hugheses share cropped is standing in the yard next to Mrs. Hughes who is sitting on an up-turned lard bucket with her face in her hands. When Granddaddy approaches with the feller who'd come a hollerin', Leland jist tosses his head in the direction of a big post oak tree down the hill from that little shack of a house. Granddaddy starts in that direction when he notices Uncle Nat following him.

"Nat, what the hell are you doing here?" he says.

"I jist wanted to see what was goin' on, Papa."

"Well, come on then. You wanted to see, so now you'll see!"

As they come near that old tree they could see Hughes hunched over with his head on his chest like he was asleep or drunk. Only thang is, they was this dark stain all over his chest that went down past the crotch of his overalls. His booted feet were funny, too, with the toes turned out. Uncle Nat suddenly thought about hog-killin' time. In the sandy dirt next to his blood-stained hand was a cut-throat razor, and we're talkin' about it literally, now, son.

Granddaddy squatted down and grabbed a tuft of old Hughes's hair and gently lifted the head.

"Well, the son-of-a-bitch meant business, anyhow," he said in the loud voice that he normally used.

Old Hughes had cut his gullet clean to the neck bone, first on the left side and then on the right. Two cuts. The blood had sprayed in a half circle all over his front and around him on the ground.
At the sight of the wounds and the pale neck muscles drained of blood, Uncle Nat began to retch and turned away.

"I reckon you'll thank twice next time you want to see,'" Granddaddy said.

Well, they got Leland down and the hired hand and carried the body up to the buggy. The hired hand had to hold the head up to keep it from pullin' completely off. They managed to get the body in the baggage hole and Uncle Nat got up front with his daddy for the ride back to the big house. They wasn't any real roads up to the Hughes place, so they went where the sheriff and the undertakers could come and deal with the mess.

When they got him home and out of the baggage hole, they laid him out on the back porch and poured buckets of water over him to kinda clean him up. Uncle Nat carried that water from the well.

Well, the Hugheses moved away- nobody knew where, and the old house finally sagged and caved in. There's a cattle manger there where they feed the cows, and a barn, but apart from that, there's nothing left of the place.

Uncle Nat and me were squirrel hunting over that way one time, years after this had happened- that was long about 1911 or 12, I reckon. Anyhow, that was thirty years or more after that sad thang, and Uncle Nat took me to the tree and told me the story. Leland or somebody had scooped out dirt at the place to cover the old man's blood out of pity for the family, and the low place in the ground was still there. Still is, far as I know, because ever time I am over that way, I look and remember. That low place in the ground is still there.

I remember asking Uncle Nat, "Did that thang bother you any?"

"Bother me? I slept with old Hughes most nights for the best part of the next year!"

"Why'd he do it, you reckon?" I asked.

"Well, they was pore as pore could be, and he had all these big idees," he said, "and the old lady put it this way: 'I expect he jist give out.'"

Ever time I sit in front on Uncle Nat's fireplace with a big hell-roarin' fire in it, I thank about old Hughes and that fine fall day. It's a fine fireplace, too. Old Ransom J. Stuck could make a flue on a fireplace that would draw mighty fine. This one will pull a lady's skirt and petticoat up.

"He Was Loved" by E.D. "Shinbone" Smith, Bomar, Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory or "IT"

They was this family of Burkharts that lived across the Red River in Sivell's Bend. They had a purty fine place over on Fish Creek-had beef cattle and few dairy cows they milked, along with a few crops. It was a rough piece of country with lots of limestone rocks and jist as many rattlesnakes. One of them big rattlers killed one of their hounds one time and the fang marks on the pore devil's head measured two inches across. But, the Burkharts had inherited money from their daddy who had the first dime he ever made. So, all in all, compared to some folks they was purty flush.

They was a half brother in the family, named Blaine. He took his inheritance and invested it and, though he wadn't rich, managed to live purty good without ever having to work very much. Built him a camp down on the Texas side of the River where he batched. Said he never did meet a woman whose company meant more to him than his own, though they was rumors that a woman or two was seen there from time time. Mostly, if he wanted company, he'd call in his buddies and they'd fish and play cards to all hours- and for days on end. And drink this home-brew and corn whiskey that old Blaine always had a-going. That whiskey would pop the top of your head right off, and I ain't speaking from somebody else's reportage, neither. So, to the rest of the family and to most of the people on both sides of the River, Blaine Summerall or "BS" (he enjoyed the irony) was a "ne'er-do-well." Didn't work, liked to have fun, and drank too much. That'll jist about do to describe a "ne'er-do-well" in our part of the country.

And that's the problem that old lady Burkhart had with him. She'd been a Parsons before she married and her old daddy was a Parsons and a parson, which is to say, he was a Baptist preacher. And among the thangs that they positively hated was not working, having fun, and drinking of any kind. Mr. Burkhart, John Daniels or "JD," he sorta took on her line about thangs when he married her, though his convictions didn't run as deep as hers. She was a very handsome woman, especially when she was young, and some men can put up with a lot to have a good-lookin' woman as a bed-partner. So Mizz Burkhart didn't have no time nor patience with half-brother Blaine. JD, on the other hand, kindly felt sorry for BS. He'd lost his daddy when he was jist a shirt-tail kid and always had this lonely, melancholy streak. Truth be told, he kindly envied old BS a little, too, like a lot of hard-working, serious-minded, and mostly tee-total men in the community did.

Ever once in a while JD'd invite the half-brother up to the big house for supper. Mizz Burkhart would be polite and cook the best of meals (Lord, she was a cook!), but her manner would display her disgust for pore old BS (She always address him as "Mister Summerall."). Any time he was around her mouth was so tight it looked like a razor slit. Anyhow, they'd have a big, fine supper and then set on the porch and talk until after dark. Then BS would light his lantern and walk the four or five miles back to his shanty on the River.

One dark night after one of these fine meals, they's settin' and talkin' and there's this lull in the conversation. All of a sudden old BS jist starts to cry. And I don't mean a weepy kind of cryin' neither. He is sobbin' and snortin' with the tears and snot runnin' down over his shirt front. JD and the old lady jist set there astonished because grown men didn't cry in our community unless they was drunk, and the strongest thang they'd drunk that evening was the iced tea. Finally, JD says in a tender voice, because he'd been purty tore up hisself over BS's outburst, "Brother, what is the matter?"

"I was jist thankin' about what's going to be done with me after I die."

"What-a-ya-mean 'after I die'?" says JD.

"I mean where'm I going to be buried?" says BS.

"Why, Brother, you'll be buried right out yonder with Daddy and Mammy and me and all the rest of us, I reckon."

"Are you sure?" asks BS.

"Sure, I'm sure. In fact, I promise it!" says JD.

"Well, Brother, I thank ye!"

After a few minutes, BS pulled himself together, thanked the Mizzus for the fine supper, lit his lantern, and cut a trail for the River camp.

The old couple set in the dark for a spell before she cleared her throat.

"You'll not be burying him in the same place as me!" she declared.

"What on earth do you mean? He's family." JD protested.

"John Daniels Burkhart," she said, raising her voice jist a little, "I will not be buried in the same place as a shiftless, no-good, drunkard!"

And that was that. JD knew better to argue with her when she took on that tone, so he put the whole thang in the back of his mind, though from time to time, he'd study it.

Thang is, the old lady died a few years later and before JD or BS. She kinda burned out the way a lot of these tightly-wound folks do. JD outlived BS, BS being eight year older. They buried Mizzus Burkhart close to JD's momma and daddy, and left a place between them for JD when it come his time.

JD found old Blaine dead one morning down at the camp jist starin' up into the rafters like he was seein' the angels comin' for him. Folks said he'd drunk so much of that corn whiskey that the embalmers would be wastin' their time and the family's money to embalm him.

But, JD remembered his promise and he also remembered the old lady's strong feelings. He'd studied the thang till he had figured out a way to honor both of them.

So, today, if you can find the Burkhart family cemetery- it's all growed-up with weeds and catclaw, and watch out for them rattlesnakes- you'll find JD and his Mizzus laid to rest right like I said before, right next to the old couple. And exactly thirty-three paces (JD paced it off himself, and very carefully) to the North under an old cedar tree and a respectable distance from the rest of them, you'll find BS's stone and these words engraved in it

Blaine Robert Summerall
1889-1963
Brother to John Daniels Burkhart
"He Was Loved"

The Indian Paintbrush blooms on his grave in the spring.

Epiphany

For years he lived in dark mines, digging in the bowels of the earth. He thought he was mining coal, so dark and nasty his existence was. He despaired and cursed his life and was tempted to curse God. Only when he came back into the air, into the light, under the broad, blue sky, did he see that he covered with gold dust.

SEMPER FI, Part II

"The conditions were awful. It would rain and rain for days. Your clothes would finally begin to rot off you. We lived in a sea of mud. And the heat and bugs. Some of the guys caught malaria bad. Then the stench of death- you could taste it in your mouth. I don't really know how we did it... Had too, I guess."

John Allen Deahl is sitting opposite me in a green leather office chair. He is dressed in his uniform- the one he wears when he does color guard service at military funerals. Behind him is this U.S. Navy flag and the "Welcome Home" banner. He is squinting because of the spotlight I have set up. I am drawing in paint with a brush on the large canvas on my easel- 4 x 6 feet. I am working on the design and composition and am beginning to sketch him into it.

"Pretty soon in them conditions, you lose the idealism, you know the thing that made me go to Pittsbugh on December eighth. You just want to stay alive and you want your buddies to stay alive, so you just make up your mind to kill that Jap bastard that is tryin' to kill you. It comes down finally to killing so you and your buddies will get to go home when the whole sorry mess is over. I still have bad feelin's about the Japs. I won't buy their cars or their TV sets. I saw this commercial the other day about "Mitsubishi" cars. Mitsubishi made the engines in the planes that bombed Pearl Harbor and now they're selling their cars in this country! Crazy!"

"I didn't realize this was goin' to be such a big painting. Makin' a reg'lar production out of this ain't you, Preacher?"

I ask him, "What kept you going?"

"Well, Chloe for one thing. I kept this picture of her in my helmet through the whole thing. The idea of Chloe being here when I came back. I didn't have much of a faith when I left home, but when you see what you see out there, it makes you think. Made me think, anyhow. And, I wanted to get back home and go to work and make a life. Hunt, fish, you know."

"We saw awful things, Preacher. And, we did some awful things. Didn't seem awful then and I still think some of it is funny. We was stackin' these dead Japs one day. Just to get 'em outa the way. There was this dead Jap officer who died with this huge erection- this happens some times when people die in battle. I read once that it happens to hanging victims. Anyhow, here was this Jap officer with this big hard-on, so we just tied a little white flag of surrender to it! I still think that's funny. I haven't even never told my children the stuff I'm tellin' you."

"I mentioned this forgiveness thing, Preacher. I want to forgive these people, but I can't forget what they did. They were horrible, worse than animals- what they did to the Kid and others. What they did to prisoners in them camps. I try to forgive 'em, then I remember something and I'm right back where I started. The Bible says that God forgets when he forgives, so I reckon I haven't forgiven them if I keep remembering stuff. Whatd'ya think."

I tell him that God's forgetting is probably a figure of speech to stress how fully God forgives. God can't not remember, but he chooses to forget in the sense of not holding it against us. We can do the same thing. Forgiveness is not forgetting, but choosing not to hold things against those who have injured us or those we care about. John studies this for a minute.

"I think I like that idea. That's stands to reason about God "can't not remember." I'll think about that, Preacher. How many times will I need to come up here? Not that I'm complaining; I like talkin' with you."

I tell him that three or four sittings will probably be enough and that I can borrow the uniform to work on it and his medals and ribbons without him in it.

In the weeks that follow he talks on and in doing so I think he talks a lot of pain out of his memories- memories over fifty years old.

"There was this sky-pilot, a chaplain, who talked with me near the end about faith in God. Told me God must have had something in mind for me to keep me alive through all those campaigns and all the mess. That's when I started to pray more regular. If I got back home I wanted my life to amount to something."

"Preacher, I'm really glad you decided to do this. All this talking has done me good."

When I finally finish the portrait, I ask Chloe and John to come and see it. Their reaction is mixed.

"I thought you were going to paint him like he was back then," she says. "And he looks so sour, so grim." All John says is, "Preacher, that mole on my face is as big as a Japanese beetle!"

I enter the work in the bi-annual West Virginia Juried Exhibition. It places and hangs in the Capitol complex for three months. I hear that Chloe and John are taking friends and family every week to view the portrait. I have called it "Semper Fi."

Months later the phone rings. "Preacher!" he says. "Come down sometime today when you get time. I want to show you something."

At the end of the day, I drop by. John leads me into his den and asks me to have a seat. Then he goes to his gun cabinet and digs around in it. When he returns he has a bayonet in one hand and his Marine Ka-Bar knife in the other. "I want you to have these. But, don't tell my kids that I gave 'em to you." I am visibly moved and so is he, but he brushes it aside. "I could get into a load of shit if they knew I gave 'em to you."

Years later, I am telling another Marine friend this story.

"He must have thought a hell of lot of you to give you his Ka-Bar and bayonet."

Yes, I think he did.

SEMPER FI

His name was John Allen Deahl. He was born in 1920 and died in 2006. I was his friend from 1979 til the day I buried him in a cemetery in South Charleston, West Virginia. I was his neighbor and pastor for twenty-two years. We spent lots of time together because of our love of art, wood working, hunting, and tools. We regaled one another with stories and jokes (not always the Sunday School variety!). He may have been the funniest human being I have ever known- and I have known some funny ones. He was also rough and tough. There was a brutality in him, even though he was a very gentle, neighborly man. I am going to tell you how that brutality came to be in him.

He married his high school sweet-heart, Chloe. She told me once that her father, a German-Swiss farmer, not given to emotional displays, sobbed on her wedding day. He was sure that John was the wrong man for his little girl. But, they enjoyed over sixty years of wedded life, raised six children and sent them to college, working as a glass-cutter and a nurse. Chloe was a girl of film star beauty; even as an old woman who had endured fifteen major surgeries ("My body looks like a road-map," she once said to me.) and the births of those six kids, she was still strikingly beautiful til her last illness. Chloe was tough, too, more than a match for John. For more than sixty years they were faithful Christians, serving and worshiping in the church I pastored.

On Saturday, December 6th, 1941, John traveled from his hometown of Butler, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh and bought a brand new Oldsmobile sedan with money he had saved working in the glass plant in Butler. On the following day, he took his uncle for a spin in the new car, the radio providing background music for their conversation. When the programming was interrupted with a special announcement, John pulled over on the berm of the country road they were on. They listened in silence as the announcer declared that the American Pacific Fleet had been bombed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

After they had listened for a while, John clicked off the radio and turning to his uncle, said, "I want you to go with me tomorrow to Pittsburgh, take this car back to the dealership, and get my money back. I am going to join the Marines." And that is just what they did.

From the 8th of December 1941 until the 18th of November 1945, John A. Deahl served his country and his fellow-Marines as a combat fighter in the Pacific. He endured some of the most horrific fighting and dehumanizing conditions in places like Guadalcanal and Okinawa. He watched as his fellow-Marines were cut down or obliterated. He suffered the privations and terrors that have been so well documented in the recent HBO series, The Pacific.

"I had this buddy from Baltimore," he told me, "who was always going into no man's land in the lulls between engagements...lookin' for souvenirs. You'd a been like him. Looking for all this Jap junk. Wanted him a samurai sword... Well, we kept tellin' him, 'They're goin' to get you, kid. You keep it up and they're goin' to get you, sure as hell.' Well, preacher, they did get him and we heard him screamin' all night long. Found him the next day. They'd tortured him all night long. Animals. Worse than animals! They'd cut off his privates and stuffed 'em, in his mouth before he died. Animals! I've had a lot of trouble forgivin' the Japs because of stuff like that. I still don't know if I have forgiven them. I know as a Christian I should, but it's hard."

How I came to hear such stories is a story in itself and I will tell it to you...

I am like the "kid" in the story John told. I am always looking for treasures among the junk that other people collect. Some days I am lucky. On this particular day I was very lucky. I was prowling in a real junk store (not an "Antique Mall") on west Washington Street in Charleston. It was a gloomy day and I was about to leave when I spied this plastic bag with something colorful in it. I opened the bag and inside it was a woolen U.S.N. ensign with the battles from the Pacific written in India ink on the canvas rim. Also, there was a home-sewn banner, probably a "kit" from the same period, with the eagle of the American Seal and the words, "Welcome Home" emblazoned on a navy blue ground. I was breathless, as hunters and collectors of such stuff are from time to time. I got both pieces for fifty dollars. I went straight to John's home to show him the stuff. And I asked him if he would sit for me to paint his portrait in front of the flag and banner. He agreed and we started the next week. In the meanwhile, I made a large stretcher and stretched and primed a Belgian linen canvas on it. I let it dry and waited for Tuesday afternoon of the coming week...

To be continued...

Angels Watching Over Me, My Lord

Tbone imagines the angels watching him at various points of his life...

Angel 1: "What's he doin'?"

Angel 2: I'm not sure."

Angel 3: "Not THAT, surely not THAT!"

Angel 1: "He's goin' to do it. I'm sure of it!"

Angel 2: "Naw, surely not...I don't think he will."

Angel 3: "Well, he's done that kinda dumb, stupid thing before..."

Angel 2: "Yeah, I remember, now..."

Angel 3: "No, no, no! Please, Tbone, don't do that! Please, please, please..."

Angel 2: "There he GOES!"

Angel 1: "Oh, NO, please God, NOOOO!"

Angel 2: "He's DONE IT NOW..."

Angel 3: "Well, we're in for OVERTIME again! Blast YOU, Tbone!"