This conversation explores the birth of Jesus Christ, focusing on his lineage, the structure of the Bible, the significance of names and terms, the gifts presented by the Magi, and the role of angels in the nativity story. The discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding these elements in the context of Christian faith and tradition.
Part 4
Then Joel saw a rack of clothes in the store, some hoodies and even better, sunglasses. If he was going to be tracked, then he’d need a disguise. He grabbed a hoodie with sunglasses and headed to the cashier.
“Good morning, find everything you need today?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you,” he replied.
When the cashier was finished scanning and bagging items, she asked if he was a rewards member.
“No. Can I get cash back?”
“Up to $200 on debit.”
Joel stood there thinking. $200 wouldn’t get him very far. He considered going to a couple stores to get as much as he could or maybe go to the bank and empty his account. Walking around with too much cash would create its own problems. Then the cashier brought him back to reality.
“There’s an ATM over there. Its limit is $500 if you need more.”
“Thank you, and can I get $200 cash back?”
He finished the transaction and made his way to the ATM. Pausing for a moment, he thought how it looked to be taking out so much. He was going on a trip, somewhere far away.
With his newly gathered treasure, Joel went into the bathroom. He walked in looking like himself, but was leaving as someone else. A hood and sunglasses were a good start. He’d need more later; then he decided to turn his pants inside out for a further disguise. Leaving the bathroom, Joel kept his gaze down and moved quickly to the exit. He had nothing in his hands, not the bag of clothes or the cash. Once outside, he kept walking, hopefully he could figure out where he was supposed to go.
Part 3
With no luck at boating supplies, Joel had to move on. He had too many questions and too many decisions to make. Weight began to build in his head, making him feel helpless. As Joel was collapsing on himself a train horn startled him upright.
“I can’t think!” he shouted. “Why are there helicopters out?”
When he thought about it, he’d been hearing helicopters all morning. Could they be following him? He began looking around and walking under a nearby tree. The odds of him being followed seemed impossible, though it wouldn’t be the first impossible thing of the day. He decided it was better to be paranoid and safe than risk his life. Pulling a phone out of his pocket, he remembered phones could be tracked and recorded. The same for his car. It was time to part ways with technology.
Joel went back to his car in the work parking lot. He dropped his phone in the glove box and closed the door. He was on his own now. Pulling out his wallet, he saw there was a lot of plastic and no real money. Anywhere he uses a credit card would be recorded with what he purchased. To get cash, he walked to the nearest grocery store.
Upon entering, the door rang a bell and a camera turned to face Joel, a red light blinking. He was being watched. He looked for what would be an inconspicuous purchase. A candy bar with maxed-out cash back might look strange. Not as strange as standing in the doorway, he began to walk the aisles. He was safe for the moment, just had to keep walking and looking around.
Wrecking and Rapping ep 76
Part 2
“You can’t be serious. Dreams aren’t reality.” Joel’s wife, Mary, pleaded with him.
“It wasn’t just a dream, or at least it felt like more.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
He shrugged and got up to start the day. As he went through the morning routine, food, coffee, and brushing teeth, inside his mind the world was collapsing. Every second of the dream was played on repeat. The outside went mute; the car radio barely audible. He arrived at work to push papers and clear cubicles. Work didn’t matter. All that mattered to him now was unraveling the prophecy he was given.
There was no one he could talk to about his situation. They would all think he was crazy, even a priest might throw him out as a prankster. People have been predicting the end of the world since the beginning. Maybe he could learn from them, but he didn’t have any information. Stories of floods are in every culture and the angel didn’t give a name. The despair began to grow in Joel and he felt sick. He ran to a sink and gave up his breakfast. Being at work was pointless; he stepped out.
Going home wasn’t any better, across the street was a store that sold boating equipment. He went in. Joel began to ask the clerk questions relating to his flood. He asked whether waves could get too big for the biggest boats, for he knew little about being out on the open ocean. The responses didn’t help. The store was there to sell products and not philosophize about man’s limits. As the conversation went on Joel could see the employee recede, they no longer wanted to talk to him. Exactly how he thought speaking up would go, and he hadn’t even brought up angels. People weren’t ready for this; he wasn’t ready for it.
Part 1
“Last night I dreamt the heavens opened up and it began to rain, maybe forever, but I never saw it stop. People watched the water rising and wouldn’t believe it was coming for them. Every time it reached a new height they were certain that was the end. At no time did they think to run for cover. First, the penned up animals drowned. By then it was too late for any ideas to save us. They were only pointing fingers at who it was to blame, taking action against others while the rain ceased not. There was nothing I could do. It was a dream, though it felt more than a dream for in the end an angel came to tell me it would be so. Eventually only the elite could stay on top of the constant rise. Tides of time changed, waves became tsunamis crushing fleets and cities instantly. The whole world turned blue and the survivors took to the sky. They found no hope. It only delayed the inevitable. The last tribes of humanity clung together and watched each other slowly fall. When I was alone the angel appeared to me. At first there was a bright light, then a beautiful giant of a human with wings. They told me I wasn’t dreaming, that God had chosen me to see this prophecy and spread the word. As I sit there are so many questions I should have asked. When? How? Who am I to be saving the world? The prophecy only showed our destruction, not how we might come to correct our course.”
“Joel”—his wife’s words brought him back—“what are you talking about?”
“I think the world is going to end.”
30 December 2025
Look at me writing again before the end of the year. Felt like the year was dragging on as we wait for the ball to drop. The holidays were good, we had a good stay in a strange house. The photo is one light switch in the house filled with confusing switches. There were three different thermostats on three separate floors. Enough about my life, the reason I wanted to publish this was to make know my intentions for the next year. First, I’m recording my show again and a new episode should be out this Saturday morning. Second, I want to focus my writing with a goal, so I will attempt to use my daily writing towards a single cohesive story. At the end of the year I can collect those writings and edit them into a book. When my next writing seems out of this world, it is. It’ll be difficult and many days I won’t write because of the difficulty of staying on track. I have to do something though, it’s not in me to ride out the sunset the same ways as always. Similar with the show, my wake up from the matrix has been jarring enough that I don’t have much interest in the world’s current state of affairs. I remain ready to fight, but my opinion has become most all conflict is manufactured and unnecessary. What is necessary? I’m not sure, Jesus of course, outside of that maybe I should just be having fun with my life.
12 December 2025
In the continuing saga of trying to overhead press my 140 pound grappling dummy, I was able to get it over my head, but not lock out my arms. That’s ok, I’m still figuring out hand placement and weight distribution. The danger happens after the weight has reached it’s peak height, I’ve got no grip and it’s falling towards my head. I’ve gotta protect myself and the dummy, if it fell from that height, it could bust a seam and make a mess. Moving on from weights, this will be my last writing for awhile, I thought about musing on the meaning of Christmas. It’s certainly been done to death, and I’ve probably done it before. Christ is King, simple enough. The only way to the Father is through Jesus. Now it’s time to move forward, not now, right now we’ll enjoy the holiday. Afterwards, onto new ventures, my show should be starting then and that brings a lot of momentum. The desire not to embarrass myself by recording and having nothing to say pushes me to continue learning. This week I got a new bookshelf for the set and yesterday I was filling it with book. Organizing book is always fun, being refreshed with the ideas inside and putting them together. When we moved I threw away all the book shelves I had at the time, since they’ve been falling apart, a move wouldn’t have been good. Currently, my library is piled on the floor. Now is the time to rebuild the kingdom.
11 December 2025
The big news today is I was able to overhead press 155 pounds. Yesterday, I was talking about increasing the weight on my straight barbell to 155, mostly to look nice and even. A 45 pound plate then a 2.5 pound plate looks a little silly. The fear for me was if I could do it, I don’t think I’ve ever tried press more than 135 lbs before and before this year I rarely did clean & jerk. It has been my belief that currently I’m the strongest I’ve ever been. With my personal exercise the goal has always been aesthetic, to build well defined muscles and lose fat. I’m much happier having a belly and being strong than only looking good. Now that I know the weight of lifting my grappling dummy isn’t a problem, I’m motivated to figure it out. The struggle is weight distribution, the chest is filled with gravel while the legs are something closer to foam, so the majority of the weight is in one hand and the other is trying to figure out how to handle long legs. It’s fun though, I enjoy picking up heavy things, partly it’s the simplicity of the goal, but theirs a special kind of exhaustion with heavy weights. It could be exhausting to run a fast mile, that takes at least four minutes and requires time to catch my breath. Lifting the heaviest I can means every muscle needs to get on board right now, when the weight is released, everything relaxing and I can fall down. Laying on my back after working out has the best and worst feeling, I’m too tired to move and I don’t want to because those endorphins are hitting different.
10 December 2025
Does time even exist between Thanksgiving and Christmas? This will probably be the last week I write of the year and it seems like nothing is going on. I’m going to talk about my gym as I recently increased my weights. In the gym there is a straight barbell that stays on the squat rack and a EZ curl bar on a preacher curl rack. The weights stay on so I don’t have to spend time putting them on whenever I want to lift something heavy, sometimes I only have 30 seconds in passing. The 45 pound plates are on the straight bar and my 25 pound ones are on the curl bar. Recently I put more weight on both as it was time, the old weights have normalized, but I added 5 lbs to each side on the curl bar and 2.5 to the straight bar. My initial reasoning was to bring the heavy bar up to a total weight of 140 lbs as I use that bar for squats and clean & jerk. My goal is to be able to press this grappling dummy I have that is 140 lbs, so my thinking was to match that. Last night, I was staring at the tiny 2.5 pound plates on that big bar and thought it was ridiculous, soon I’ll swap it for the 10 pounders. 160 lbs is still an easy squat though I will see if I can still press that much, if not adjustments will continue. Yesterday I did get a heater to put in the garage that worked nicely. In the Summer it’s 100 degrees in the garage and 40 in the Winter. Mentally it’s exciting to face those conditions, in reality it means I use the garage less at those times. Everything in time, we’ve come a long way and this gym makes me happy.
Chris' Morning Pages 