“You know, that woman was insane. Really, both of them were. Think about it. They would have to be insane to be so close to Orville in the first place. That in itself shows what kind of minds they had.
If we all would’ve done things completely different, maybe it wouldn’t have happened today, but it wouldn’t change the fact of what kind of evil was in their hearts and what they were capable of. If that type of thinking would’ve been allowed to grow, just think about what could’ve happened in the future ……. to us or the people of Pine City.
The idea of a mother killing her own children, and what the children’s final thoughts were will haunt me for a long time. But we all need to remember; we didn’t kill them, she did.”
Wit was just responding when suddenly the jeep started swerving from side to side. I was just about to ask Mo what he was doing, and then we realized it wasn’t him. The earth was shaking.
“Stop! It’s an earthquake.” Santiago yelled.
I had felt a minor tremor several years earlier while I was sitting at my computer desk, but it only lasted for about four or five seconds at the most. It was like I could feel the floor vibrate under my feet and of course, I was at home alone. When Kim and the kids got home, I told them about it, and they thought I was nuts and started kidding around with me saying that I was losing it.
Later that night, a report came out on the news that we did have a tremor that only lasted a few seconds, so that allowed me to save face.
This seemed to keep going. As we sat there, it was almost funny because when we looked down the road, it was like you could see all the telephone poles vibrating. It seemed to last a good minute and then just stopped.
“That was bizarre,” Mike commented.
“I didn’t know you lived in a place that has earthquakes,” Mo stated, more as a question.
“We don’t! Not like that anyway. I’ve never felt anything like that before. That was bizarre.” I said laughing but with a little worry.
Suddenly several people came over the radio making different comments or asking if everyone had felt it. We sat there for a couple of more minutes and then finally we took off for home. When we got there, Tag came running up with the same questions and then told us how the chimney on the house was just vibrating.
“I checked it out, and there doesn’t seem to be any damage, but for a moment I scared it was going to collapse.”
Kim and Mia came running out and told us we needed to look at something. They took us into the kitchen where the fireplace was, and you could see daylight coming through between the brick of the fireplace and the wood frame. Nothing real big but it was new.
I asked Santiago and Tag to check out the structure and make sure it was safe. Afterward, they said they felt it was but they’d definitely have to caulk the spacing, or we’d actually feel the wind through it.
“Great! Something else coming out of the Pandora’s box.”
Jake came up and told us about what he had felt and seen, and while he was there, we filled everyone in on what happened in Pine City. Everyone was of course, stunned. The more we saw death, the more we became a little more numb to it, but the murder of two innocent children isn’t something anyone could ever get used to.
Later, Kim gave all of us that were in Pine City lunch but this time there was no joking around. Everyone basically ate in relative silence. As soon as we were done, I told everyone except for those that had guard duty, to take it easy. Tag and Santiago both stated that they would rather work on the side of the conversion project as they said it’d keep their minds occupied. So I told everybody to do what they must but not to feel obligated to.
Kim and I went back to our bedroom where I flopped down on the bed. I was mentally exhausted. At first, we both laid there in our own thoughts, and then someone knocked on the door.
“Yeah?”
The door opened, and it was Mia.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Kim replied
She came in and sat next to us and asked me, “Are you alright?”
I chuckled and said sarcastically, “Why wouldn’t I be? This seems to be the new norm.”
I then proceeded to fill them in with even more details, plus what was going through my head while everything went down the way it did. We talked for a good hour among ourselves. Soon, without even realizing it was happening, I fell asleep. I don’t think my body was tired, but my mind was exhausted.
About two hours later I was awakened by that normal severe pain in my shoulder as I had rolled over on it. When I woke up, I immediately reached down to the end table drawer and grabbed a pain pill. When I looked over, both Kim and Mia were lying there asleep.
Mia had come in to check on me, but in a way I think she needed to be where she felt completely safe and apparently, we all just crashed after talking. I had to chuckle thinking that if someone would’ve opened the door, what they would’ve thought.
Mia was part of our family, though. In one way, I thought of her as a daughter, but in another way, it was more than that. She was someone that we could be best friends with, kid around with, even in my inappropriate ways and I knew we could trust her and tell our inner thoughts too.
I then thought back to what I told her the night before the Pine City battle and how true it was. I couldn’t imagine her not being in our life. She was a natural part of it now.
The moment I started to get up, they woke up, and they were both surprised that we all fell asleep.
“What time is it?” Kim asked
“4:30.”
She mumbled, “Wake me in a half hour so I can get up and think about dinner.”
Mia said, “I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
Well, that gave me an opportunity to come up with one of my normal comments.
“Well, I guess I wore both of you out.”
Mia, still trying to wake up, gave a puzzled look but Kim opened her eyes with a sly smile on her face like she was asking, “Alright, what are you going to come up with now?”
“That was exciting wasn’t it? The best I’ve had. We should’ve had a threesome along time ago.”
Kim just started shaking her head with a grin, and Mia laughed and asked Kim, “What does he do, have those things stored up on the top of his head?”
Kim just lowered her head back down to the pillow and with a smile replied, “Who knows how his mind works?”
While laughing, I just started to turn and the next thing I knew, I was being hit in the face by two flying pillows.
“Oh really?” I asked while picking up the pillows and throwing them back at them one at a time. They both dove to the sides of the bed, so I dove in between them, halfway worrying that I would collapse the bed.
“You have way too much energy for just waking up.” Kim groaned, while grabbing her pillow back and tucking it in under her head, “You guys can talk but no jumping around. I want my thirty more minutes.”
I turned over and was laying on my back trying to decide if I could use another thirty minutes of snoozing.
“Vince, can I ask you something?” Mia asked.
“Sure, as long as it’s not going to depress me.”
She then snuggled against me, putting her head on my shoulder, “You have more faith in God than anyone that I’ve ever been around. But at the same time you kid around as you do, I mean about sex or whatever. How do you do that? I mean, you aren’t like any religious person I’ve ever seen.”
“My joking doesn’t bother you does it?”
“Oh no. Not at all. That’s not why I’m asking. I’d worry about you if you didn’t come out with your jokes out of the blue like you do. No, but when you hear other religious people talk, they act like if you say much about sex, you’re going to go to hell.”
I laughed, “Well, first of all, I don’t consider myself religious. To me, that’s a label. I believe in God, and I believe what he says. As far as these other people you’re talking about, well, that’s self-righteous peopl
e for you. Most of them are fundamentalists or who I call modern day Pharisees. Even though they claim to be, in my opinion, they're not real Christians because they think they’re given the authority to judge and condemn others. That’s their interpretation of how they see things. They’re the holier than thou type. They take the words sexual immorality that’s in the bible several places but then they apply their belief of what that is. If they personally don’t like something, they say that it is sexually immoral and against God’s law and then they start judging everyone.
You know, just like I told Carmen, there are 128 scriptures in the bible warning people about self-righteousness and that they don’t have the right to judge others. With that many scriptures, it shows God is pretty serious about it. He says we need to worry about our own sins and not what everyone else is doing.
But these people seem to ignore all those scriptures or think they can’t possibly apply to them. God had to be talking about everyone else, but certainly not them.”
Mia laughed, “Oh, I know the type.”
“Unfortunately, we all seem to have to endure meeting people like that. Like I said, they seem to think God gave them the authority to judge everyone else. In my opinion, they’ll have to answer for that. But, that’s between them and God. But please Mia, don’t use those people as an example of what true Christians are supposed to be like.
As far as what they consider sexually immoral, most of the time, they base it off their own sexual insecurities or fears and some because they just don’t like sex. Most of them are approaching or in middle age. I would bet that most of them are no longer married, or they’re in a unhappy relationship, but they’re the kind that’s always sticking their noses into everyone else’s business or in this case, bedrooms.
Now, don’t misunderstand me, it’s not always the middle age, but my experiences with the self-righteous have usually been in that forty-sixty years old age bracket.
I did know one younger couple that believed that between a husband and wife, God only allowed sex in the missionary position and only for the procreation of a child, and if you did it any other way or for pleasure, it was a sin. I asked the husband to show me where the Bible said it and, of course, he couldn’t. He said he didn’t know for sure, but he knew it was in there.
Trust me; that didn’t come from God but probably from some control freak.”
“Sorry, what’s the missionary position?”
“That means that they only believe that you should have sex with the man on top.”
Mia laughed, “So they weren’t much into pleasure, were they?”
“Exactly! Those same people would say this conversation was immoral and that we’re going to hell. Obviously, they’ve never read the book in the Bible called, The Song of Solomon, where he’s praising his wife’s beauty, describes her body parts and talks about how he loves giving her oral sex. But because most people don’t really read the bible for themselves, they don’t know it. All they do is go by what some other people or minister tells them.
Back in biblical times bestiality and incest were a ritual of many immoral cultures. There was one king that was having sex with his daughter and his wife together. There was another Kingdom whose God was the goat. So, many of the women would have sex with a goat during their festivals.
My point is when God talks about sexual immorality he was talking about a lot more than what some people today call sexually immoral. Like I said, many base it on their own petty jealousies and insecurities.
Listen, Mia; God looks into a person’s heart and knows your thoughts and intent. But man has a way of trying to control one another to fit what they think other people should be like.
For example, You know especially when I’m mad or around the guys, I cuss like a sailor. I cuss like many in the military do. In the military, it’s a normal part of speaking. Should I cuss like that? Probably not, but there are people out there that act like using profanity is one of the greatest sins. These people say there are several verses that applies to profanity. One verse says “Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouth,” and another says, “I tell you on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.” I could give you several.
Now, let me ask you this. Do you think God is talking about saying certain words or is he talking about the harmful bitter things people say to one another that breaks their heart or tears out their soul?”
“Well, if God is like what I think he is, he’d be more concerned with hateful, harmful talk.”
“Well, in my opinion, you’re exactly right. I guarantee he’s going to hold accountable the so-called Christian that never cusses but says hateful, offensive things to people they think are sinning, than for someone that has a good heart, that tries to help other people but uses cuss words.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. Should I cuss the way I do? No, but not for the reasons they say. I usually cuss when I’m angry. Not all the time but most of the time. Sometimes it’s when I’m kidding around with the guys, but I assure you that God is more concerned with me being so angry and maybe even losing control of my temper, than the curse words themselves.
Now, for me, there is an exception. You’ll notice that I don’t say God and then damn as one word. To me, that’s one of many ways that you’re taking God’s name in vain, which is in the Ten Commandments by the way. When you break it down, you're just saying God Condemn, because the word damn means condemn. But that’s a line that I’ve drawn in the sand, that I won’t say. I won’t say I’ve never said it, but I asked God for forgiveness later, and those few times I did say it, I was full of hate and anger. Thank God that has been very few times.
Trust me, though, God means a lot more than that word when he’s talking about taking his name in vain, but most people apply it only to the profanity and saying GD. For example when people use the name of God or Christ to justify their hateful behavior. I’ve seen people that don’t like what someone is doing, or they don’t like some scene in a movie or even a storyline in a book. They spew out all sorts of vile hate and think that person should be stoned or cast out or whatever. Then they have the audacity to say they spew that hatred because of their love for Christ or God. Trust me, them saying that is almost Satanic.That’s a major way of taking the Lords name in vain. Using his name to justify their ideas and behaviors or to try and control someone. Those people are just hypocrites and are about as close to Christ as Lebowski was.”
“Oh my gosh. You’re right. I’ve never thought of it that way, but you’re absolutely right.”
Chuckling, I said, “Yeah, but those hypocrites think they're doing God’s work. It’s really sad.
Another way to take his name in vain is to say something like, as God as my witness I didn’t do that, even though the person is lying.”
“So when people lie in court after they have been sworn in and say, “so help me God,” they’re taking God’s name in vain?”
“Exactly. That’s a great example.
Now, getting back to the profanity, most of the stuff is just words that many self-proclaimed Christians have made forbidden.
Now, you don’t want to offend other people. Before all of this happened, did you ever hear me cuss in public around strangers? You know, when we’d go out and eat or something?”
“Come to think about it, no.”
“Well, that’s just called manners and class. I know the family that’s sitting there with their kids or an elderly couple sitting at the table next to us don’t want to hear those kind of words.
You know how all of us guys talk when we’re around each other. Well, if we all went out together, you’d see the most polite people on earth, and you’d even hear them say yes sir and yes ma’am to anyone older than them. As rough and tumble as we are, we know when to show a little bit of class.
Now, as far as the sex jokes go. Do you think Kim minds?”
“No, she thinks it’s funny.”
“When I say it to you, do you
take me seriously?”
“No, I know you’re kidding around.”
“Oh. Well, that’s disappointing.”
With a laugh, she lightly slapped me on the chest.
I laughed and continued, “Well there are a lot of these holier-than-thou that would condemn me for that and say I was going to hell for having impure thoughts.
Now, I may be wrong, but I think God is going to judge those that try to condemn other people more than for me saying something that he knows has a completely innocent intent.
Mia, don’t judge God by using what you saw on television or some of those that you may have met. Those people try to convince other people and themselves how holy they are.
I’ll give you another example: You’ve seen those people in some churches haven’t you that stand up and raise their arms in the air saying Hallelujah and praise the Lord?”
“Yeah, I know that turns a lot of people off from religion.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Now, I won’t say that there aren’t some that genuinely feel that way and are really praising God but most of them are just putting on a show. They’re trying to convince other people how holy and righteous they are and how much they love the Lord. I’ve seen some people act that way and the minute they get away from the church, they start cursing out other drivers and they go right back to their selfish, hateful, normal way of thinking.
You also have those that go to a restaurant and put on a big scene of saying a formal prayer, making the other guests uncomfortable. Do you remember when we were sitting outside together the other day and you went in and grabbed us both a sandwich and brought it out for us to eat?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you know that I said a prayer before I ate it?”
“No, to be honest, I thought you only prayed during more formal dinners or a big group meal.”
“I always give thanks before I eat. I say it in my mind, but I always give God thanks for his blessings. I ask him to bless the food, and I pray that we’ll always be grateful and never take it for granted.”
Into the Apocalypse Page 20