The last couple days have been packed with good.
Monday I outed myself as a theological conservative in class. We were reading through "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok and the class discussion had gone to why the really orthodox people were scared of "scientific" study of the Talmudic texts, and the conversation was headed towards why those crazy fundamentalists are scared of science. I pointed out that even Theologically conservative people like myself who believe in scriptural inerrancy don't have a problem with textual criticism, since all statements on inerrancy have to do with the autographs, not the manuscripts or translations, and text criticism is the attempt to get the reading most faithful to the autographs. The prof then said, Oh, so you would call yourself theologically conservative?

The next day I went to school (& got there on time, always a plus) where I started classes as normal. Had an easy time of it after christian formation in the Collegium, where I studied for the Bio lab that afternoon and went over greek conjugations and declensions to make sure I had them memorized. Listening to Supertones on my new Ipod with the earphones Brands got for me, and read up on my Miller Urey abiogenesis objections. Then came bio, where after a particularly dogmatic remark by the professor, (who is, by the way, a great teacher, and I can tell she loves biology, she reminds me of characters from the Madeleine L'engle books) regarding the origin of living cells and proteins via chemical evolution. So I raised my hand and asked how she reconciles a certain issue that even the rabid evolutionist author of our textbook admits is a challenge. We went back and forth for a bit, and then I said I didn't want to use any more of her lecture time up (which is true, she's nice and everyone needs to hear the lectures to get the info for exams). She thanked me and admitted that these are the sort of questions that keep her up at night. Then I heard someone behind me laughing, and thought, Oh, great, I'm "that" guy again. Just like in high school. But seriously, in this christian evangelical school no one once has said anything about the repeated dogmatic statements about chemical and biological evolution that have been made since the start of class. I'd say it makes up from one fifth to one third of each lecture. And no one's said anything! So I ask oblique questions to show that it's not cut and clean and to question their assumptions, just to keep my sanity and 'cause I can't stand to just let that sort of thing go. But I limit myself to one such question per class, and make sure I ask other relevant questions about non-evolutionary subject matter. But to my surprise, when we were doing an exercise sheet, the prof. came up and said that I ask such interesting questions and wanted to know if I could stop by her office after class (I couldn't, I have Greek right after). But I said I'd try in the next week.

Then after Bio lab later in the day, one guy from the Ukraine who was in my Lab group said, So, you seem really interested in those origin of life questions...
And I said, yes, I really am, but as you might have been able to tell, I'm not the biggest fan of chemical evolution.
He said, "neither am I, or Biological evolution either."
So then we got into it and I had a hard time getting back to the lab with all the talk about Ravi Zacharias and G.K. Chesterton and why evolution's (chemical evolution and common descent) is bunk. So we decided to be friends, and he said he was glad I'd asked questions in class since otherwise it would be as if the class was giving unanimous assent. Then after the lab we hung out waiting for our rides and he showed me all his quotes from various authors that he's got categorized in folders for research papers. I was impressed. He reminded me of a younger me, since I had to sit there for a while listening to him because he was just waiting for someone to come along that he could recite all his thoughts, quotes, favorite authors and apologetics to. It was a lot of fun and I thanked God for it.

Polycarbonate windows to twenty-twenty
even with insurance, they cost me plenty
Medical magic for my myopea
the key to a mole-eye's eye utopia
A tribute to my new spectacle pair-
now I can see, and my eyes can get air
I cannot live by contacts alone-
but glasses too - til I get Lasik done.

Thank God for school, but Mondays, oh Mondays, they are days of very little sleep.

A really nice side effect of being busy with school stuff is I don't have enough time to stare blankly at a computer screen or keep refreshing facebook hoping some interesting updates will appear.

I love my Greek class. My Christian Formation class is all right, and Bio's fun, until the professor starts telling us reductionist fairy-tales about chemical and biological evolution and how we don't really need God, but to her, that just makes God seem all the greater. *Barf* She & the textbook were going on about the Miller-Urey experiment and when I asked why that was the only example they used if there were others that hadn't been refuted as well as it was and she threw out a long name and said we could talk about it later. But I don't have a later. I have another class right after Bio. Sigh.

There's a study area for commuter students called the collegium that I've been spending a couple hours in between classes, it's heavenly. Big comfy chairs and it's all laid out like a faculty club like one might see at Oxford or something. Very relaxing when you're in between classes on no sleep listening to Beethoven's "Moonlight" which makes you feel academic and heavenly even when you're daydreaming.

And now, I must go and sleep-dream.

I was just forced to shoot a squirrel with a blowgun in self defense.
Even though I hate squirrels, I wouldn't normally think to plug a dart in one, but this squirrel was threatening my wife and children.
At first it was trying to get to the bird feeder that's directly outside of the sliding glass door, which is when Brandy started making shooing motions at it. It moved in closer. Then Brandy opened the door & threw some pebbles at it, and it moved away just far enough to dodge the rocks, then came back and kept lunging at her through the glass.
So I pulled down the dart gun, opened the sliding door, and the squirrel charged. It was about three feet from my face when I hit it in the arm. It ran off into the wild where it belongs shaking it's arm with the four inch dart hanging out of it.
And I don't feel guilty, not one bit.
Take that, nut rat.

Trying to get Enoch to say his "R"s. After hearing "Geen Cab" three or four times as he's looking through his animal book.
"Foug"
"No Enoch, fRRRog, it's fRRRRog."
"Foug"
"Say fRRRRRR."
"Fooooo"
"Nope, Say RRRRRRRR"
"Waaaauuugh"
"fRRRRRRR OOOOggg"
"Foug"
"Okay Enoch, Foug it is."

Venus woke up about the same time as me,
and in her small fire i could feel
the chilly air charged with beginnings.

You've told me the same thing since I was born
The coat you gave me knows my skin
it's the only thing I've ever worn
since I've been born again.

We're reading "Green" - the final book in Ted Dekker's "Circle" Trilogy(?). So far, so good. Also just finished listening to the Audio version of "Til We Have Faces". And about a fifth through N.T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope".

God willing I can finish a few more before school starts.

Regarding my last Blog.

It seems like when I come up against an apparent problem like the last one, or like a couple years ago with my questions about the apparent irreconcileability of the Gospel resurrection narratives, I have a problem. I tend to friek out a bit, and in my frieking out I transgress in a way that Job did not. I come very close to accusing God. I talked to Brandy about this, concerned because it doesn't seem right, and yet my upset-ness is the thing that drives me on for answers. And seeking and finding answers I am convinced is a good thing that pleases God.

Brandy said that the only thing that came to her mind was "Work out your Salvation in Fear and Trembling"; a passage from Philippians that I assumed I was familiar with. So I typed in "Fear Trembling" into the Biblegateway search engine, and the NT verses that came up all have to do with approaching God in one way or another (in one case approaching a servant of God). The Phil. verse in particular follows up this phrase with "Do everything without complaining or arguing"

So this, I believe, is my problem. I need to find a way to approach these things with fear and trembling, since in approaching them I approach God. Somehow I must maintain a strong desire for answers, but to avoid my flippant flirting with annoyance towards the LORD God almighty - who could squish me very righteously and easily, but has not yet.

So, I repent in dust and ashes and ask my God and Father to forgive me, and I ask for you, dear reader not to emulate my bad attitude of the past, and I ask finally for a more reverent heart to seek answers to future questions.

THE WORD OF GOD REGARDING HORRORS, PROMISES, AND RESURRECTION.

[Warning: This is a really long blog. Disclaimer: This is not an attempt to answer the question "why do the righteous suffer at all?". That question I believe can only be satisfactorily answered by the answer that Satisfied Job, seeing God's face. Explanation: throughout I use the words deliver, save, protect etc...in the plain sense scripture uses them most - physical deliverance, salvation, protection.]

Okay, what disturbed me most about Denise Amber Lee's story was that she had sincerely called out to God to protect her and he had not. The reason that bothered me most is because Scripture over and over again says that God's the defender of the orphan and widow, the helpless; Esp. Psalm 50 where God equates true worship as calling out to God in the day of trouble so He can rescue you and you can thank Him. Also it seemed to me in part false advertising that almost every story in the bible is about people asking God to save them in one way or another and then the follow up of God answering and saving them as if this is how it always goes- a misleading impression if, in fact, you can be a defenseless mother calling out to God as you're being dragged off, yet end up getting raped, shot and dumped in a ditch.

To this I found first of all that:

1. There are a lot of implied stories where God does not save the needy when they call on him, not even the needy righteous from torture, rape, and death.

Starting with Abel, who's blood cried out from the ground to God. Which implies he must have done some crying while his brother beat him to death - and yet God didn't see fit to intervene until Cain was walking off. But he did see fit to protect Cain from being killed.

Then Sodom and Gomorrah. Notice how frantic Lot is that the angels who he doesn't know are angels do NOT spend the night in the square. Could this be because they wouldn't have been the first defenseless travellers he'd seen that stopped to rest in the square only to be woken up by a city full of rapists who gang-raped and murdered them? It would seem so considering the LORD's aside to Abram, that the outcry against Sodom was very great and had reached him. Why had not God answered that outcry when it first went out, and prevented the rape and murder of those defenseless people?

In Exodus 2:23, it says "the people of Israel...cried out" it also says God heard and sent Moses, but how many of those who cried out died under the whip? How many mothers saw their children taken from them and chopped up or thrown into the nile to be eaten by the Egyptian's 'gods' (crocodiles) before God saw fit to send Moses?

In Jeremiah 26, a prophet named Uriah it is said prophesied the same things Jeremiah did, and the king sought to kill him, so he ran away (I presume afraid, and as a godly man, also asking God to save him like Elijah did when Jezebel was after him) to Egypt, was hunted down and dragged back before the king, who most likely mocked him before he was hacked to death with an edged weapon and dumped into a mass grave. As for Jeremiah? It doesn't say the Lord saved him from the same fate, but rather that he was buddies with an official so he got a get out of jail free card. (I'm not saying that the Lord's hand wasn't in this, just that Scripture doesn't say it was)

Job said "Behold, I cry out 'Violence!' and am not answered; I cry for help, but there is no justice" and "I Cry to you for help, and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me"

Zechariah 14 says that just days before the Second coming of Christ the Jews in Jerusalem will be defeated, ransacked, and all of their women raped (By nations that the LORD says he will gather there). Then after they're raped the Lord Jesus comes back to save them.

In 1 Sam 22 all the men, women, children and infants in Nob were killed with a sword by Saul's man Doeg the Edomite because they had helped David, God's anointed. It was a priest's city, devoted to the worship of God. I'm sure all of them called out to God for protection. And yet, of all who called, only one escaped. David heard about it, and didn't blame God, but blamed himself, since he knew Doeg was in Nob when he came and would tell Saul that the priests had helped him. David also wrote Psalm 52 about Doeg-it's worth a read.) However, this is the same David that wrote "I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or his children begging bread." Richard Wurmbrand said he had seen the Righteous go insane under torture and their children eating out of the trash.

In 2nd Kings 15:16, Amos 1:13, 2 Kings 8:12, Israelite pregnant women are torn open by invaders. I have a hard time believing considering their heritage even as part of a backslidden country there was not a single one that called out to God for protection before they were torn open.

Habbakuk said: "O YHWH, how long shall I cry for help, and you shall not hear? Or I cry out to you 'Violence!' and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?" - He said this of the land of Judah before the Babylonian Captivity, regarding the way the wicked surrounded the righteous and destroyed them in his neighborhood. Apparently he was frustrated that God didn't prevent this in response to his prayers. Then God tells him that in response he's sending the Babylonians to sack Judah. How many at the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians called out to God and were not answered? Those women being raped and murdered, and their children smashed? The writer of Psalm 137 writes: "blessed shall he be who repays you (Babylon) with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!"


ALL THIS TO SAY - Scripture does give record, albeit in a roundabout sort of way all through that there are many who cry out and yet are still raped, ripped open, tortured, or killed. This answers my first question :"why does scripture maintain in story and promise that God always answers and saves physically and immediately?" The answer is, Scripture doesn't, if you look closely.

SO THEN, WHY ARE ALL THOSE STORIES AND ASSURANCES EVEN THERE IN SCRIPTURE?!? - well, for that, I bring you...
AN INTERESTING NOTE ON HABAKKUK: When God told him how He would answer his prayer for justice, Habakkuk reminded himself of the way God saved Israel at the red sea from their enemies, and said that He would remember this, asking God to revive this kind of thing and in the midst of the years make it known. God had already told him that all of Israel would be crushed by Babylon in hideous ways, and in the face of this he still reminded himself of God's actions at the Red Sea. Then, he didn't put a pious smile on his face at the thought of what would happen to his people, He says: "I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us." - in fact, I recommend reading the last chapter of Habakkuk with the "question" in mind.
WITH THIS IN LIGHT, IT SEEMS THAT THE PAST ACCOUNTS AND ASSURANCES OF GOD'S SALVATION ARE MEANT (or at least used by Habakkuk) TO REASSURE FAITH EVEN WHEN YOU KNOW YOUR PRAYER FOR PROTECTION ISN'T GOING TO BE ANSWERED!

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Question #2: What then, about the apparent promises (Like Psalm 50)? And the stories? What's assuring about them if we have no guarantee that they have any bearing on reality? What of the GOD who cannot Lie?

For that, I turn to Hebrews.

In Hebrews 11, the "Hall of Faith", the first three quarters are those who saw the promise of deliverance in their life, those who "won" and were protected. The last bit, however, are those who were tortured, killed, harrassed and starved in faith. It says they were "commended for their faith" but that (note this) THEY DID NOT RECEIVE WHAT HAD BEEN PROMISED!.

Mind-boggling, isn't it? But why didn't they receive what had been promised? In their case I assume part of their promise was protection and health, salvation and safety, since "In Christ all promises are Yes and Amen" and these things are among the things promised to those people of faith. Yet as already stated, they didn't receive what had been promised. It says rather that "God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." You might say "Something better?!? what could be better than God keeping his promise?!" But it seems that God considers that it's better that he keeps his promise later, at the resurrection of our bodies. (Made perfect is used throughout scripture of our state at the Resurrection, the "Regeneration of All Things" - when the righteous rise out of their graves to everlasting life and the wicked rise to everlasting destruction).

Also in Hebrews5:7-9, it sounds like Jesus' loud cries and tears during his life on earth were to God to save him from death, but his prayer was heard and answered retroactively in His resurrection, not by the prevention of His death.

So it seems that God considers all his promises to be retroactively answered at the resurrection, when we will receive indestructible physical bodies to house our purified souls in a union that fully reflects God.

With this theme the last verse of Psalm 17 makes sense of Psalm 50 in a way, in that David says he will be satisfied (in the context of a prayer of deliverance from the wicked) at the resurrection, awaking in God's likeness (NKJV translation) or awaking to see God's face (NIV, ESV)

ALSO - In 2 Timothy 2:13 (which I've never noticed before is In the context of hardship and suffering) it says: "If we are faithless, he remains faithful" implying that even if we're terrified and can't see or feel God with us as we're being brutalized or killed, God doesn't desert us.

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Third Issue. This one I didn't think about so much when I read Denise's story, but as I read scripture it kept on coming to the foreground.
Apparently, God holds us - Especially those of us in positions of authority - responsible to answer the cries of the helpless for protection and justice.It's not like God couldn't do it, but when the innocent are slaughtered, God blames the men in authority who should have prevented it. THIS Theme is all over the Psalms and Prophets, so I won't weary you with quotes.

As I read in Richard Wurmbrand's "If that were Christ, Would you Give Him Your Blanket" David wrote that he had never seen the righteous forsaken, or their children begging bread, however Wurmbrand said that was because there was a David on the throne who brought the kingdom of God to bear on the country's ills. Wurmbrand said he had seen the righteous tortured to death and screaming in agony, and seen their children eating out of the trash. He also pointed out that the idea that God won't allow his witness to die out in an area from persecution is false, as Islam conquered north africa and the near east, slaughtered and forced conversion of christians there, and thus christianity was wiped out of its former stronghold for a thousand years. - These things Wurmbrand, and scripture, call THOSE IN AUTHORITY, and CHRISTIANS to account for, as things preventable had those men who's responsibility it was had done their job correctly. In Denise Amber Lee's story there was a similar vein, the 911 dispatcher was suspended for negligence and some of the witnesses didn't do anything.

An example of this theme from the Lord Jesus Himself - The parable of the good samaritan doesn't say that the man on the way to Jericho was saved by God, but by a man, and in doing so, the man pleased God. It didn't say or indicate that God was going to supernaturally rescue the victim had the samaritan not passed by. And Jesus told this parable during a very unique time in history when the Son of God was on earth healing all who came to him. He told the scribe to go and do as the Samaritan in the story had done, indicating that even with Jesus on earth the defenseless still needed people to love them as themselves and deliver them from the wicked.

I have been critical of "Social Justice" causes before now, but not so much anymore. I just don't believe they can be empowered by God and sufficient apart from true faith in Jesus Christ.


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AS A FINAL NOTE, for those of you who have read this far.

The Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus says nothing of the great faith of Lazarus, but only that in his life he had bad things, and therefore was admitted into paradise. I hope this is the case with those who had no great chance to develop a relationship with God, but who were the victims of the wicked during their life on earth.


All this would not make me less crushed if anything like what happened to Denise happened to anyone I know, but at least I know there is a future, and I know that God isn't deceiving us with scripture.

I consider myself corrected, may God have mercy on me!

I have read & thought over scripture and I think I have an answer that at least helps me regarding my previous blog. I'll post it soon.

In the meantime though, here are some pictures from my 20 mile (round trip) hike into the Olympic Nat'l Rainforest. My blisters are healing nicely, thanks for asking.

I read tonight a very disturbing story on the news. It was about Amber Lee, a 21 year-old married mother of two who at a little after 2pm in the afternoon last year was abducted from her house by a plumber, driven to his house, raped, shot in the head, and buried in a shallow grave in his backyard. But that wasn't the most disturbing part to me. The most horrifying thing is that when she was being driven to her death at about 6pm, she got a hold of a cellphone in the car and called 911, and as the worthless 911 operator kept saying hello, she was heard in the background pleading with the man to let her go and saying "please God, please protect me!"

When I read that, I felt sick. I still feel sick. I kept thinking about Psalm 50, when God says "call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me." I've thought about that psalm a lot in the past couple weeks, but how can I think of it now? Immediately I think "How God? How could you hear her begging to you to protect her in what was-if anything ever is-the day of trouble? But you didn't save her!"

Some of the most comforting words in scripture are where God is called the protector of widows and orphans, the defender of the defenseless. But she was defenseless! It's not as if she was defenseless and godless, she called specifically on God to protect her. There was no one else who could protect her, only God could protect her. But instead she was raped, taped up and shot.

I guess Jesus called out to God as He died, and asked why he was forsaken, and we can't say if he got an answer on the cross. But even so, He didn't beg God for protection - He chose to lay down his life. What about those who are terrified? Who beg God for protection? Who have no choice?

I don't know what I'm trying to say, except that I will be very, very careful saying to anyone "God will protect you" or telling them to claim psalm 91. Whatever those scriptures mean, It's obvious they don't mean that if you beg God to protect you, you won't get dragged out of your house away from your husband and kids to be raped and shot.

I Know God is there. I know He's real and that when it suits Him, He does protect those who beg. But I don't understand when He doesn't.

I am not righteous like Job, If God can rebuke Job he can certainly put me in the wrong. And what happened to Amber has not happened to me. I am just a man, and a sinful one. If something like what happened to her happened to me, I would not be able to call God to account for injustice. But the thing that sickens me is that a helpless and terrified woman can beg God to protect her, and be left to what horrors stalk the earth; while the majority of scripture seems to imply that this doesn't happen, that those who are afraid and call on the Lord are saved.

Maybe I'm wrong about Scripture. Maybe I've been reading it wrong. I'll search it to see - and I pray that God does put me in the wrong and show me that I'm a fool. It would be better.

If anybody's interested, Christianaudio.com is offering the audiobook MP3s for "Til We Have Faces" for about 11 bucks til the 31st of August, and "Green" the last of the circle (trilogy? it's #4) will be out in Sept. If you pre-order it now off Amazon or CBD, you get a lower price.

I was doing research on slaves and slavery in the early church, and while reading from the "Recognitions of Clement" an early church document from the 2nd century, I got sidetracked in a part where the author is refuting the then common concept, called "Genesis" (what stars you were born under) as a sort of fatalistic determining factor in your behavior & conduct.
The recognition struck me that there is a similar concept, the popular idea that something called not "genesis" but "genetics" determines your behavior, dragging your powerless will behind it inexorably into sins and perversion. I believe Clement's refutation stands for both beliefs, neither of which are supported by reason, science, or Scripture. After giving many examples of populations that have given up sinful customs and lifestyles upon the Gospel's introduction (as proof that people can change their behavior), he says:

"Since God is righteous, and since He Himself made the nature of men, how could it be that He should place genesis in opposition to us, which should compel us to sin, and then that He should punish us when we do sin? Whence it is certain that God punishes no sinner either in the present life or that to come, except because He knows that he could have conquered, but neglected victory."

Also reference 1 Cor 10:13.

Haiku Vs. Limerick.



My leaves drink the sun
veins bring life mixed with water
each fruit holds new seeds
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Each man's work is his gift to mankind
a gift woven with hands and with mind
mine's riddled with knots
it's horribly botched
'cause I weave like I'm numb and I'm blind.



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After I wrote this, I found out that haiku's aren't 5/7/5 syllables, they're 5/7/5 "moras" - which is a different subdivision of language, like a small syllable. I tried distinguishing moras, but it's beyond my ken.
So we'll consider these American style Haikus. We won the war anyway, right? And if they can put mayonnaise and corn on a roll and call it American, I think my imprecision can slide.

Fun with Haikus

Good Shepherd hold me
I know your name and your voice
help me to follow.

I have been near deaf
But your voice has not left me
And neither have you

Always my rising
you shake off the death of night
I will wake in You.

Time rolls on with iron tracks
like a bulldozer without a sense of art
mangled pasts stuck between its plates
this is what I feel from time to time
but when my lids are closed
and my eyes are open
I know Time is my chariot of fire
and the calm hand of God.

I have worked out @ the gym. For the first time in a couple months. Ran about 3 miles and then did some leg presses-which almost pressed out my meager stomach contents.
It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt.

I really really want to go hiking the Hoh trail. If I can't get TJ to go with me I'll go by myself, there's a mountain (called "Mount Olympus") and the blue glacier at the end of the ten mile trail. (The picture above, from Google is a view from the glacier.)
I've been talking about climbing Reinier for about a year now, but after looking into it, It looks way too expensive and complicated to reach the summit.

Tomorrow we're going down to my Aunt's place to visit with the cousins. One of them is asking me to appraise her boyfriend. I pray that I'm equal to the task.

Oh, and I got a new toy!


Well, this is all rather random, and I'm going to go to sleep now.

School starts in a little over a month.

We've been having a family church service Wednesday nights (the church we're going to now doesn't have a Wed. Night service). Brandy plays some worship songs, and I teach. I've been teaching through Colossians and I think it's been getting better because last night's service didn't put Josiah to sleep. Last week he succumbed. As did Brandy, almost.
Thank God for coffee. At least I enjoyed it (the teaching).

Today I visited the "Q Cafe", a christian coffeeshop a couple blocks off campus. It's owned by a church right next to it, and upon entering it reminded me quite a bit of "Sojourner's Cafe" the old coffeeshop in St. Paul. Some of my best memories are from that coffeeshop. Isn't it odd, one would think that a person's best "spiritual" memories should be in church or at a retreat, but the coffeeshop wins hands down.

Read an Oscar Wilde quote the other day, it goes: "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future". It's an interesting quote, and seems to echo the sentiment of most people in that it focuses on the past of the saint, and the future of the sinner.

Why is it that conversion stories are the most interesting? It seems like in all the stories a character gets saved, or gets married, and then the curtain falls, 'cause 'it's over'. The main character may as well have died.

I don't think that's really the case for the saint. Maybe it's because a saint dies to his/her old life, and begins over again. Maybe because as far as the world's concerned, the saint it dead, and that brings in the finality. Now the only interesting thing about him is his past.

But they love stories of a sinner's future, too. At least most people do. It has suspense, climax, and drama.

Even the story of the prodigal son runs like that. The most boring character in it is the "older brother" - the saved guy. I wonder if his character would've been more interesting if he'd gone in search of his younger brother, and used his own inheritance to track him down through all the pigsties and brothels to bring him back. But would that even have been possible? If it were, wouldn't the Father himself have gone?

Unless it's like a Cain/Abel thing. "Am I my brother's keeper"? Cain asked that, and the answer's implied. God didn't stop Cain from killing Abel either. Ultimately, God is his children's keeper, but he seems to expect us to take up that role, and usually is pretty hands-off (at least observably).

So what would have happened? I think it would have been a good story. Maybe that's what Jesus meant when he said "As I am, so are you in this world".

I think that makes for a good storyline too.

This is an Excerpt from a letter Written by Seraphim Rose (An eastern Orthodox Clergyman) to the Trappist monk Thomas Merton concerning Merton's call to "Christian Social Action/Social Justice". In the light of movements in the church at present, and after reading some of Merton's writings, I thought it was very illuminating and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
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Modern idealism, which is devoted to the realization of the idolatrous "Kingdom of Man," has long been making its influence felt in Christian circles; but only in quite recent years has this influence begun to bear real fruit within the womb of the Church itself. I think there can be no question but that we are witnessing the birth pangs of something that, to the true Christian, is indeed pregnant with frightful possibilities: a "new Christianity," a Christianity that claims to be "inward," but is entirely too concerned with outward result; a Christianity, even, that cannot really believe in "peace" and "brotherhood" unless it sees them generalized and universally applied, not in some seemingly remote "other world," but "here and now." This kind of Christianity says that "private virtue" is not enough—obviously relying on a Protestantized understanding of virtue, since everything the true Christian does is felt by all in the Mystical Body; nothing done in Christ is done for oneself alone—but not enough for what? The answer to that, I think, is clear: for the transformation of the world, the definitive "realization" of Christianity in the social and political order. And this is idolatry. The Kingdom is not of this world; to think or hope that Christianity can be outwardly "successful" in the world is a denial of all that Christ and His prophets have said of the future of the Church. Christianity can be "successful" on one condition: that of renouncing (or conveniently forgetting) the true Kingdom and seeking to build up a Kingdom in the world. The "Earthly Kingdom" is precisely the goal of the modern mentality; the building of it is the meaning of the modern age. It is not Christian; as Christians, we know whose Kingdom it is. And what so greatly troubles me is that today Christians—Catholic and Orthodox alike—are themselves joining, often quite unaware of the fact, often with the best possible intentions, in the building of this new Babel....

When I had reached the end of my tether, when my wisdom had run out to the end, when my willpower was revealed as ultimately powerless, when my physical strength was laying dead in the water and without direction, when emotions had lit off all their firecrackers and lay numb and senseless
Then there was Jesus Christ, Crucified, Jesus Christ, with the nails in his hands and feet. Jesus Christ, who bled and died for me, and all my pride was gone, naked I stood-or did I sit? or was I laying? It didn't matter - becuase there was Jesus Christ, the Righteous for the unrighteous, and I knew here was everything I had despised up until then, and that which I had despised was now bleeding for me, and was washing me with that blood. And in the absence of my wisdom, in the death of my willpower, in the release of my physical life and in the irrelevance of my emotions was the One who loved me, the Truth and True Life. And what was not my own he made to dwell in me. It was Himself.

God let me never forget this.