Newspaper Article

By Emily Towns and Mitch Capps (Me). This was written for the high school newspaper. It remains unpublished, so I'll whip it out here.

"We ride through the traffic of a thousand sins each day. And as we ride, can we honestly say we don't run a few red lights ourselves? There is terror in the streets.
But before any of this happened, there existed a foreign government: paradise. Almighty God had laid out a spread for us so scrumptious we can not dare to envision it's taste, lest we understate it to the point of blasphemy. What a racket we had. But as it would happen there was an intruder. An intruder who must have been something of a mystic. For in his cunning he persuaded a perfectly clean pair of lips to wrap themselves with relish around a forbidden fruit.
Then everything changed.
Humanity was cursed to the dirt and sweat and sin that would begin to shape civilization forever. The world began to tear itself apart.
Cain killed his brother. The earth was flooded clean from violence and immorality, but the second batch proved as bad. Noah became a drunkard, Babel built itself higher in their arrogance, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in their sin, Abraham turned his back on his wife to save his skin--twice, with his son following suit, Jacob hijacked his brother's birthright, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and unsuccessfully seduced by Potiphar's wife. When God had had enough and laid down his commandments they were smashed by the sight of God's people worshiping a calf of gold. Sampson was shamed, a virgin daughter of Israel raped until death, medium's were consulted, Saul committed suicide, David committed adultery and murdered. Bael was esteemed, the prophet's of the Lord were killed, the priests married heathen wives.
The planet was in sad shape. A hero was coming...for a price.
It is recognized that this hero was of a divine nature. A painful metamorphosis had to be undergone. His motivation? That would be us. But not the 'us' that you find going to church, singing hymns, or with our nose in the Bible, oh no. The 'us' that you find wasting the blood he spent in saving our skins. The 'us' that on a regular basis spits in the face of salvation and sins anyway. He was going to enter a sin-wired body for this? He was going to mingle with the traitors, the thieves, and the liars for this?
He absolutely was, and He absolutely did. Why? Because we were His children, He loved us, and we needed Him."

On a related note, I was lying down beside a campfire recently and I got to thinking along the lines of the crucifixion and it got me to thinking what love was. I wonder what love is a lot and I often wonder if feelings have to be present or not. Then I wonder if Jesus felt love for us when he was going through all of this. I wonder if he didn't just do it because he loved us (whatever that means) and not because he felt a good feeling towards us that is often related to love, but because we were his kids and he had always known what love really was and its definition. It's a series of acts that are for someone else's benefit. So you know love isn't that fun a lot of the time. I wonder of most of it isn't tough stuff. I wonder if I've ever really acted in love. You wonder a lot of things lying by a campfire. You should give it a whirl.

School: A Most Vexatious Project

The school year is often characterized by boredom, but it's adventurous yet.

School is socially, psychologically, emotionally, physically, mentally, economically, and spiritually trying. I want to say it is an organized mess. It taxes our time and our sanity. Pressure builds and explodes. We sweep up the debris stuff it in a file and try to prioritize before we truly clean up the mess. We scribble, note, and write upon random slips of paper, our hands, legs, arms. We fold, crumple, wad and lose various paper matter. We inhale (barely) and exhale (hardly) what knowledge we've "managed." We make attempts at a constant demeanor. We forget, fail, confuse, and dismiss. We schedule and break, practice politics and engineer purpose. We drag ourselves out of bed, we count down minutes, we get by. We stay after school, we try and justify extra-curricular activities. We read, write, ponder, and orate. We strive, try, believe, do well. We are frustrated, procrastinated and regrettable. We lament and praise. We appreciate and despise. We waste and save. We shove and maneuver. We are nostalgic and impatient. We are spit on and esteemed. We are outnumbered and united. We sit and desks we try to focus. We get behind, we get ahead. We sweat, we toil. We simmer, we boil. We understand, we are hopeless. We work together, we work alone. We work hard in school.

Most of us do.

A Good Reason to Adjust

Christianity began when Jesus started his public ministry. The first guy to ever start tailing him and doing what he did like a kid brother or something was the first Christian. They probably started following him around because he made some conversation with them. They probably were looking over their shoulder to see if he was talking to someone else. They probably did this because they were the scum of the earth. They were probably only ever talked about. And I mean in derision and disgust. Jesus probably said something complimentary and *gasp* shook his hand. He probably asked him why he was wasting his time on such sinful hobbies and told him to come hang out with him instead. Now there was a heart alive. You have no idea how happy that made that fellow. For him to have a friend. Now Jesus' following grew, I imagine, in much this same way and these guys started turning into some decent chaps, lowly though they were. On the other hand all the big, fancy-dressed, scholarly joes of Israel have got their robes in a tangle. The idea that Jesus is running around wising everybody up and breaking bread with sinners just eats them through their ephods.

Nearly 2,000 years later...

The modern Christian is a little different. He is fashionable to a tee. Well read and educated. He walks around being kind to people, because well, they need him. They won't be caught dead sinning (in public) and Jesus is there answer to everything. Really, politics, social opinions. You name it. Our sinners of the day have changed too. They have their own union. Christianity repulses them, but not half so much as Christians.

What changed? Did Christians ride on grace to a loftier castle? Listen to author Philip Yancey's take on the evolution in his book The Jesus I Never Knew:

The more unsavory the characters, the more at ease they seemed to feel around Jesus. People like these found Jesus appealing: a Samaritan social outcast, a military officer of the tyrant Herod, a quisling tax collector, a recent hostess to seven demons.
In contrast, Jesus got a chilly response from more respectable types. Pious Pharisees thought him uncouth and worldly, a rich young ruler walked away shaking his head, and even the open-minded Nicodemus sought a meeting under the cover of darkness.
I remarked...how strange this pattern seemed, since the Christian church now attracts respectable types who closely resemble the people most suspicious of Jesus on earth. What has happened to reverse the pattern of Jesus' day? Why don't sinners like being around us?

It's a question. Sinners liked being around Jesus. Sinner's don't like being around us. Could it be that we have become very much unlike Christ? Could it be that Christian has become nothing but a whopping misnomer?

We need to adjust.

Grace, Lord, Grace.

Those poor crowd-sculpted equestrian figures. High horse and pedestals and all that jazz. Until recently I was dishonest with myself about putting certain people on a pedestal and projecting them places they cannot possibly measure up to. Now quite frankly I admit it. Not so much with negative connotations though. It would neither surprise me nor discourage me if one of these heroes or heroine were to "disappoint." In fact, I know they display fallibility in the same way I know God created the universe. I cannot possibly fathom it, because it has not happened on my senses, but I know it is a fact of life. Truth be told, the chances are high that in the instance they did become dethroned, I would still hold them in the same esteem. My sanity and my stability are a product of grace, not of endurance or strength. Woe be to me if I don't grant the same to my fellow man. I find the denial of grace to be heathenistic, heretical, and horrific. I realize such a statement puts me in an imperative position to be tested. So be it. I cannot and will not go on with this hypocrisy. If God is capable of this amazing feat, and I am on relative terms with His Spirit, and sent-Comforter, and earthly manifestation, then I have no excuse in not participating in the act of forgiveness. Right now it seems mighty easy to forgive. I don't know if this is some sort of inexperienced deception or not. But if I've been wrong or let down, life will go on, and so will my love. This is the power of the almighty God in us. This gift is real and potent. I am repulsed by sin, and will mourn for those who fall temporarily to its arsenal, but I will never, ever have esteem for someone in a moment and disdain in the next. God help me, it was be a crime in itself. I cannot judge lest, Heaven forbid, I be judged. If one falls, they are tortured enough, be gentle in your rescue, I implore you readers. Half our heroes are just ragamuffins. Those that Brennan Manning speaks of: "the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt out, the sorely burdened still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to another. The wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together..." or those named "legion" that C.S. Lewis speaks of that look at them selves and see "a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, and a harem of fondled hatreds." To often we are proudly pounding the gavel and haughtily and often dishonestly saying, "May God have mercy on your soul." May God have mercy on all our souls. Grace, Lord, grace.

"To punch and to kick"

"Anybody can teach you how to punch and kick."

If I've heard it once I've heard it a million times. It's what set him apart. Him being Master Scott Heath. An unsung hero of sorts.

Well he's a lot of things. He is a Christ-follower, husband, father, defender, investigator, martial artist, storyteller, teacher, mentor, friend, dreamer, worker, and the list could go on.

He's a mensch. He's always tried to be a man of integrity and as his life testifies, whatever he tries at, he succeeds at.

He has a story that I could never do justice to. Though it is an inspirational one. For all the "can't do's" he's been thrown, he's retaliated with a "can do." Perhaps one day I can get him to offer his story forth to the Classical Ride readers.

But somewhere in that story, that is continuing as I type, he wound up in our lives, and it was no accident.

On a personal note, he revolutionized my lifestyle and my persona. I was weak and he made me stronger in many ways through his classes. I was a sniveling, self-depreciating, sometimes bratty kid. In a lot of ways I was a loser. I knew it. I know it better now. But he renovated my spirit in a way. It was God, oh sure I know that, but he was a vessel. Probably the greatest gift he gave me was confidence. With it came freedom from fear and also ability. The way I looked at myself and acted changed. It was like having a brand new heart. I felt purpose for the first time in a long time.

So here's to Master Heath.

You sir, have left a legacy.