Regina (On the Origin of Sorrow)

I was born in the Age of Missing Children. It was a time when a missing child’s face on a milk carton resonated deeper with a person than it would now. I still remember how I felt as a little child, seeing the faces of the missing and the runaways on TV, and how hard they hit my young heart. I felt like their eyes were calling for me to do something to help them. But what could I do? I think those moments, that always seemed to last forever, were the first times in my life that I was so affected by someone else’s grief, and not the tiny frustrations of my own little world of Legos and bullies. In 1986, a missing child ripped at the world’s heart more ferociously than today.
By 1986, child killers like Albert Fish were forgotten fifty years after his gut-wrenching crimes. I think that, in the public’s subconscious, serial killers or child killers were once thought of as almost anomalies; depravity that reached such levels as Fish must have been seen as somewhat isolated incidents in society, criminology, and even psychiatry. In 1986, two high profile serial killers, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, waited on death row. When the weight of their deeds hit the news years before, it was a weight for sure. The viewing world hadn’t seen anything like Bundy or Gacy since Richard Speck. And even so, the public wasn’t nearly as hypnotized by the crimes of Speck as they were with Bundy and Gacy. But over time, more and more vacant eyes continued to kidnap and rape and torture and kill. And over time, with the world’s increasingly morbid sense of humor (if there exists life on other planets, do they have an entire category of jokes devoted to dead babies?), the serial killer became such a contemporary of the world’s culture to the point that they’ve come to be thought of as grisly novelty.
After Ariel Castro was caught and sentenced to life in prison in 2013, I heard astoundingly little about him and what he had done, considering the heinous nature of his crimes. A month into his one thousand year sentence, when Castro hanged himself in his cell, it was as though a seal had been shut on the whole evil thing, tossed into a box of archives and evidence. Save for a Lifetime network TV movie in 2015, Ariel Castro, and the story of his victims, seemed like an afterthought.
Today, though we have an almost endless array of sciences to document and explore the mind of the killer and the sadist, and Amber Alerts and social media to make the public even more aware of missing and exploited children, I feel as if the world has become desensitized to the horror. It’s almost like mass shootings – Charles Whitman’s 1966 Austin rampage, the 1984 McDonald’s shootings in San Ysidro, the 1991 Luby’s massacre in Killeen, the school shootings at Jonesboro and Columbine, and the Aurora theater massacre all shook the world. But, after twenty children were gunned down in cold blood at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the ensuing debate about guns and gun control was so heated, the nutcases that claimed it didn’t even happen were so vocal, that it almost overshadowed the precious lives that had been stolen – in the media anyway, but certainly not for those in Newtown, Connecticut.
Slowly they became everyday occurrences. Every day someone shoots someone else in full public view. I don’t feel I’m hyperbolizing when I say “every day.” And I likewise don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that, although every day, a child is abducted, raped, or murdered, the world’s heart by now has been broken so many times over these things, that the world can’t grieve as heavily for every life. Maybe it’s the same reason I can’t watch the news when a specific killing is featured, by Nancy Grace or whoever – I don’t have enough emotional stamina to break down for every child, for every life. I suppose that’s why what happened in January of this year affected me so severely.
Not to compare myself to a man like Stonewall Jackson, but there’s an incident of Confederate lore in which the otherwise stoic general broke down and sobbed after learning of a little girl who had died of a fever. His staff was perplexed – Jackson had lost many a friend and companion to war, but he’d never wept for one of them.
Someone remarked, “He’s weeping for all of them.”
In some maudlin way, I believe that’s what happened to me this winter.
On January 11th of this year, my already-beaten and bruised brain was subject to a photograph that did me much harm. On the internet, one doesn’t always happen upon what they were originally looking for, and one can’t always prepare themselves for what they’re about to see. To put it simply, without melodrama or poetry, I was a witness to a crime.
There’s something about what happens to a photograph of disturbing nature when it’s been circulated on the internet or elsewhere, to show the unique split second of pain it holds, that makes the image so dead somehow, so lifeless. It’s as though the image is an excerpt from a mother’s diary that’s been ripped from the book and passed around for people to read, people who weren’t meant to read it, people who have no attachment to the pain that’s been written. And the heart behind what’s written is forgotten, and the words become morbid entertainment. There are lots of photographs like that, that wind up in the vast electronic graveyard. Crime scenes, suicides, tragedies; when those images are tossed into cyberspace, for faceless usernames and unfeeling avatars to observe for the sake of  the gore and darkness they show, like some museum of horrors, the people in those images are forgotten. They’re seen – their blood and guts, their expressions of fright and pain – but the people don’t seem to be there anymore. Their story isn’t there.
On February 5, 1990, a fourteen-year-old girl named Regina Kay Walters, and her eighteen-year-old boyfriend Ricky Lee Jones were hitchhiking in Pasadena, Texas. Regina, in love with Ricky, had run away from home with Ricky. They were eventually picked up by an interstate trucker named Robert Ben Rhoades. Rhoades had been abducting, torturing, raping, and killing women along the interstates for years. He soon killed Ricky, whose remains were not identified until 2008, far away from Texas, in Mississippi. But he kept Regina as his hostage, violating and abusing her.
Rhoades liked to take pictures of his victims. Their discovery would eventually be his downfall. On March 17th, Regina’s father received a phone call from a man telling him he knew where to find her. A similar call was made to Regina’s mother the same day. The man told Regina’s father that he had “made some changes” and that her hair was shorter now. Later, in the fall of the year, Regina’s remains were found in an abandoned barn, far away from Texas, in Illinois. She had been strangled to death with bailing wire, nearly to the point of decapitation.
Through a winding series of events, Robert Ben Rhoades was eventually captured while holding another woman hostage in his truck in Arizona, extradited to Illinois, and sentenced to life in prison for Regina’s murder. Over a decade later, he was returned to Texas to face two new murder charges, and was given two more life sentences. He remains incarcerated and alive as of May 2015.
Rhoades’ collection of photographs of his victims, before and during their abuse was what sealed his conviction. He took a picture of Regina moments before he killed her. One detective, morose over the fact, drew the conclusion that “he told her what he was going to do.” While he held her captive, he had cut her long, curly brown hair, leaving it a choppy boys-length. He made her wear a black dress and big black shoes. Her hands were raised as if trying to shield herself as she was backing away. Her face was pale and frightened, her nose red from the cold, from abuse, or from sobbing.
That image, burned into my mind, is like a postcard forwarded from hell.
Seeing this image sent me into an irrational depression. I had been unprepared to see it, but I think that even if I knew what I would see that day, it would have still torn at my heart and mind. In the weeks following, I began recklessly cutting my own hair with a big pair of scissors, to imitate what had been done to Regina. My emotions somehow reasoned that I was supposed to suffer what she had suffered. I began to hate when my brother would leave our apartment to go to work at night; I’d developed the fear that Regina, or others like her who had been killed, were in the apartment. I began leaving lights on for a fear of the dark.
There were a few times I’d contemplate going to the Amarillo police station and confessing to Regina’s murder. I’m sure the police would know that I wasn’t quite four years old when she was taken, and that I was babbling under the weight of some mental breakdown, and again to the hospital I’d go. But I contemplated this not out of psychosis, but unnecessary guilt, in which Satan delights. It’s not easy to shake such guilt when your mind constantly shows you horrible, violent, blasphemous, perverted images which you despise to no end. It’s as if a gear turns some sort of projector that shows me nothing but horror all day, every day.
It’s the same reason that, among the absurd stories I tell people about my background, some of them are dark and morbid – they reflect the guilt I feel for the despicable things in my head. One such story is my claim that my great-grandfather was a suspect in the unsolved 1912 Villisca, Iowa axe murders. He wasn’t, of course. But I often feel that somehow by making my relatives and ancestors to be violent characters, or to have died from violent deaths, I cry out for judgment and scorn for the ugly images I see seemingly each minute. But of course, no one to whom I tell these things knows that. So they take it at face value.
I also developed the horrible feeling of wanting to kill Robert Ben Rhoades. My mind suggested schemes that involved befriending him via some prison pen pal system, traveling to the facility where he is held, to visit him, and killing him with some crudely fashioned instrument of death.
But I thank God that I was always able to identify these things as irrational and terrible. Other plans involved traveling – maybe even hitchhiking – to the Mount Zion cemetery in Pasadena where Regina is buried, and leaving flowers at her grave. I reasoned that doing some sweet thing like that would make this awful nightmare stop. I thought of writing poems or leaving memorials for murder victims in Amarillo. But I knew that she, being with God, wouldn’t know of my leaving flowers for her. At least, I don’t think she’d know. I don’t know yet if people in heaven can see what we do on this earth. If they can, I’m sure they only see the beautiful things – when I get to heaven, I don’t want to see the terrible things that happen down here. So no one would know but me; I certainly wouldn’t try and find her parents and tell them about it, some mentally ill stranger from out of nowhere, making them relive, in a compressed and babbling moment, twenty-five years of pain.
And, the flowers would just wither or blow away.
I knew where Regina’s remains were buried, because as my mind showed me this vision, not caring if she had a name, I began to read about the case, but specifically about Regina. I had to show her to my mind as the real person she is, not just an image of the moments before a murder, over which ghouls pour in some depraved way to pass the time with WiFi. All that I could read about her of course came from articles that documented Robert Ben Rhoades’ killings. I wanted to know Regina’s birthday, I wanted to know who her parents are, I wanted to know what life was like for her growing up. I couldn’t just let her become some unnamed, residential haunt of my brain. I wanted to know the things that, slowly, made my mind understand that she is a human being who God loves and cherishes.
I know that I cannot let this fixation, this fear, continue. A mind for Christ is not meant to dwell on such things. Paul writes to the Philippians, “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.” Jesus calls we who believe and heed Him “the salt of the earth.” I mustn’t set my mind on death. The prophet Elisha once healed a bitter water supply by putting salt into it: “Then he went out to the source of the water, and cast in the salt there, and said, “Thus says the LORD: ‘I have healed this water; from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.’””
I am the salt of the earth.
I thank God that I believe in Him and everything He’s said. I thank God that He believes my story so that I can believe His. Looking at the burden I put upon myself these past four months makes me shudder to think of what could have happened if I didn’t believe.
Nature without Christ tries to tell me why Regina died. The fact is, Regina made an irresponsible choice. She ran away with an older boy, and hitchhiked with a stranger. But nature without Christ tells me that Regina’s death was the result of the grand scheme of the passive-aggressiveness of nature and genetics. That she wasn’t as likely to survive as someone with better genes. Her parents just didn’t have the genetic variations to pass on to make her successful in the competition for food, shelter, and reproduction. That her genes didn’t contain characteristics favorable to survival, to adapt to the pressures of her environment – the change in climate as she entered those emotionally charged teenage years, or to the number of predators like Robert Ben Rhoades.
The dismissal of the word of the risen Christ tells me it’s best for the human population, if it wants to perpetually survive, if girls like Regina die out. With the elimination of girls with traits like these, the survival and reproduction of the human race will continue for those with more favorable genetic traits, that certain variations in our descendants will be highly valuable, and if those with more favorable genes continue to reproduce, small variations will develop over the span of many generations, and someday, will result in a better human race.
The dismissal of the word of the risen Christ tells me that our population won’t be perfect, but without Regina, and girls with traits like hers, it will be a better world.
A lot of people say it’s easy to believe in Christ. They look around themselves at the wealth of horror in the world and dismiss a God who watches over us and loves us. They say faith in Jesus Christ, or any sort of religious feeling, is a quaint way to bring comfort to superstitious people. But I say it’s one of the hardest things to do. I say it’s much easier not to believe in Him. When we lock ourselves in a box of cynicism and limit ourselves to what we touch and what we see, we take the humanity out of every heartbreaking thing in the world. The girl who died too young is seen as mere matter, though some in this soft palace of disbelief may sprinkle a “triumph of the human spirit” cliché over the strength of the carbon-based lifeforms whose daughter was taken from them. The thick windows of hardened cognitive content help to keep out the pain. The dismissal of God makes the motive behind the murder that much easier to explain, the body that much easier to bury.
But when I believe in abundant life through Christ Jesus, this girl means something. When I embrace the promises of Christ, many of them hard to take, Regina Kay Walters becomes a human being again, instead of the ghoulish image tattooed onto my brain for torment. She becomes a precious soul, and her name is no longer attached to a wide-awake nightmare. When I accept the fact that God has placed every one of us here for a reason, and that His Spirit rejoices over good and is grieved by evil, a man like Albert Fish becomes a human being again, instead of the Werewolf of Wysteria, some mechanism of flesh and organs who did what his DNA destined him to do. When I rejoice in the sheer life that Christ has given me, amidst the pain and the weariness, I believe and jubilate that His command of love trumps what my DNA suggests. It’s only when I acknowledge that life has more sanctity because we are more than mere matter, that Regina’s loss can break my heart. And it’s only when I believe in the love of Christ, the true and sole Source of love, that I realize love and joy and sorrow and empathy are not viruses of the mind.
When I believe in the life given by the Creator, when I believe there is a reason, and nothing is random, only then does a Langston Hughes poem mean something, only then does a crashing wave or a fresh snowfall ignite the imagination, only then does a newborn baby take its first breath in hope; hope, that word that means something, that word we’ve overwrought and overused to become so shopworn; hope, that thing which atheism and nothingness cannot offer, nor does it claim to.

Growing up in Seminole, Texas, a town of less than six thousand people, my mother knew just about everyone, having lived there all of her life, sixty-three years. It seems like ever since I was a child, I can vividly remember my mother being able to seemingly tell the life story of anyone we happened upon while out and about, or some event that happened at any given spot. There was the junkyard of a man known as “Black Joe,” untouched for thirty or more years, located not too far from one of the Dairy Queens my mother used to manage; she recalled one night after closing time when Black Joe’s wife appeared outside, bloody and bruised, banging on the door and pleading to be let inside. It turned out, Black Joe routinely beat his wife, savagely. She later shot him dead.
Then there was the Thurman house on the edge of town. My mother had gone to school with the daughter, who was confined to a wheelchair due to a debilitating illness. “She collected dolls,” my mother said. In 1970, Mr. Thurman, having been fired from his job at a prominent oil company, shot his wife and teenage daughter to death, before turning the gun on himself.
Another time, I was looking through my mother’s high school yearbook from 1969 and came across a student named McNew. In 1982, Mr. McNew disappeared from the oil rig at which he worked. He was later found to have been a victim of serial killer Michael Eugene Sharp, who was later executed in 1997 for another abduction and murder.
My mother also told me of a childhood friend who was raised by an abusive grandmother. One afternoon, the girl’s grandmother made her eat fried eggs that she hadn’t finished before going to school that morning; it made the girl sick, but she would have been punished if she threw up. So my mother and a few of her friends, living just across the street, undercover of night, snuck to their friend’s bedroom window with a waste basket, so she could throw up and feel better.
I also heard the story of a man with a mental disability; when he was a child, he would become frightened that the sky was falling, would point upwards, and scream uncontrollably. Unfortunately, the worst detail of the story was that one of my older brothers would often instigate these episodes by pointing to the sky and mocking the boy’s screams.
I don’t think the boy’s fears that the sky is falling are unfounded.
All of these sad stories never affected me in a negative way. I thank God that I had a mother who never kept the world as it is hidden from me, nor sheltered me with fairy tales. She never told these stories with morbidity, but with genuine sorrow. Whether intentionally or not, I can never be sure, by sharing these people’s painful stories, my mother taught me that life is gritty. I thank God that the Bible does not paint a euphoric picture of life on Earth, but rather the stark opposite. People do evil to other people. But people also do good to other people. Before God, not one fallen sparrow and not one hair on our heads is forgotten, and neither are these people whose lives were taken, or who endured such ugliness at the hands of others. He’s taught me through my mother that everyone has a story. I find it no coincidence nor gesture of sarcasm that my mother’s favorite song, despite all the ugly things she knew in that town, was “What a Wonderful World.”
My mind and heart that see such horrible things all day don’t want anyone’s story to become faded and discarded. I don’t want any heartbreak of any creation of God to become lifeless in the eyes of others. I thank Jesus Christ for the life He’s given me, so that maybe I can look in the eye these ugly things, this violent, unfeeling world, these hideous visions in my head, and say to them – much less melodramatically than with my own words – what God says by the prophet Hosea:
“O Death, where is your punishment? O grave, where is your sting?”
Believe it or not, it is possible for those of us who pray to an invisible, omnipotent God to be rooted in reality. After all, the Book from which we learn about our God is far from a child’s bedtime story. It’s full of ugly days and painful nights, a God who often must perform difficult and sorrowful deeds, and it tells us of all the rotten things people do to one another. Many of its heroes are flawed – adulterers, murderers, backsliders, and some who even turn from God completely.

This is the strange, gritty beauty that is faith. We must remember that the event in this Book that all of its prophets and laws foreshadowed and foretold, the centerpiece of this Book’s meaning, occurred on a bloody, gory day at Golgotha – a day on which our God, so cynically called a figment, a superstition, a Santa Claus, in flesh and bone suffered worse than you and I ever have. He, Jesus of Nazareth, Immanuel, God-with-us, endured such a down-to-Earth yet somehow celestial agony. And He did this so that those who believe will never know the pain He knows, but will be restored and redeemed from our old sins by His precious blood and by His glorious resurrection – new creations given “life, and life more abundantly.”
“Abundant life” means pain that’s more painful, joy that’s much more joyous, sight that better sees the beauty of true good, and the ugliness of true evil. The words “I was blind, but now I see” in the hymn we sing, they resonate so much deeper with abundant life. We can see the good in the world, so that it delights our hearts, and doesn’t fade in the cutest social media post of the day – and we can see the bad so clearly that it singes itself in our memories, haunting us, wailing for us to do something about it, not to forget the faces of those taken away.
Our Lord suffered a very real and ugly death, all for the sake of life.
Today is May 5, 2015. Today would have been Regina Kay Walters’ fortieth birthday. Instead of all the grandiose plans I had to do something to try to make her come to life in my mind, instead of being a specter of death – traveling to Pasadena to place flowers on her grave, writing an attempt at a beautiful poem – I got a haircut. My hair had grown out to a proper enough length that would allow a stylist to see the damage and to even it out. Now I could repair what I’d done when I took it upon myself to sabotage my hair, so that I could somehow suffer with Regina, rather than look forward to someday rejoicing with her in heaven.
The rain poured down on me as I waited for the bus. As cliché as it sounds, it was fitting. My uniform hat’s brim is so wide though, that I stayed mostly dry as the bus ran ten minutes late. I just kept thinking of how fitting and how poignant this was – repairing what I’d done to myself because of death, on the anniversary of Regina’s birth. When I got to the mall and found the hair salon, I was troubled. It was hard to explain to the stylist why I needed my hair cut, and why she’d find it in such a state. But she didn’t give me the slightest of weird looks or ask questions. She seemed very understanding. Maybe she sees this kind of thing all the time. Her name was Mandy.
I felt so uncomfortable as I was guided to a chair, my head pressed back as Mandy ran warm water over my head and shampooed my hair. I’d never had a haircut with the shampoo beforehand. I felt so awkward. What’s more, I felt less and less like this was a beautiful thing done to quell thoughts of death, and celebrate a life. I felt more and more like I was undergoing some sort of sterile surgery.
I hate getting haircuts, because the lady cutting my hair always has to make such close contact. I feel somehow guilty about her tender fingers in my hair, her body brushing against mine. I always keep my hands centered between my legs under the wrap they place over me, because I feel so awful if they make contact with my leg and my hand feels it. My body first, and then my mind, tell me that the woman thinks I’ve tried to grope her. I often keep my eyes closed or looking away from the stylist, for the fear she’ll think I’m trying to look her over. I suppose misusing women as I’ve done over the years could contribute to those horrible feelings. I know God doesn’t want me to feel such torture over things that have been forgiven and removed as far as the east is from the west.
The preparation for the haircut itself proved to be a chore, as I had to remove my cloth cravat and my uniform vest so that Mandy could pull down my collar and cut where necessary. When the haircut was over, I didn’t feel a weight lift from my heart. I didn’t weep tears of joy. I just hung my head, my hair repaired and shorter, and thanked Mandy for fixing it. “It means a lot to me,” I said. As I paid and tipped her, she told me to come see her again, and with an awkward, weakly, hoarsely spoken goodbye. I walked out into the open bustle of the mall and stood there for a brief moment, watching everyone go by, all those people, all those lives. Good gosh, all that life.
Someone could take a lot of heat for believing the world is only eight-to-twelve thousand years old. I don’t know how old the planet is. You’d have to ask someone far smarter about that. But I do think that maybe the earth isn’t as old as it looks; maybe the earth is like a face that’s seen too much that its skin becomes wrinkled before its time, its eyes grow dark and weary when they should still beam with youth, and its hair becomes gray and thin when it should be waving in the breeze in a Corvette with the top down.
I think of every human life that’s ever been lived, and I add up all of the pain, joy, heartache, jubilation, misery, redemption, waste and fulfillment in each of those lives; then I think of the earth itself, and every war, victory, crime, loss, storm, every broken promise and every kept promise this planet has seen since man first appeared; and whatever the true number, all of those things add up to billions and billions of years of sheer life.

(from the book Sheep Named Spike, (C) 2015)

My Mother's Bible & My Theology

I've begun reading my mother's Bible. Her faith was meek and humble, without the mire of theology versus the theology which counters that theology. I'm paying attention to the short notes she made in the page margins and passages she circled, hoping I can learn from them and be more like her, who strove to be like Jesus.
I long to find it more important to be saved than to be reformed; to obey the commands of Christ than the five points of Calvinism or Arminianism; to know the meaning of love than the meaning of transubstantiation; to feed a belly and a soul than to feed the fires of debate and strife.


OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
saved sinner & unprofitable servant

"LORD, my heart is not haughty,
nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
nor with things too profound for me.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with his mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forever."
-Psalm 131

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-29-15: "A Foreign Hunger"

"...on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." -Matthew 16:18

This may sound melodramatic - and I could always be wrong - but I believe Christianity is slowly entering an age where it is most embraced, most sincerely practiced, in those places in the world we often (sometimes carelessly) call "less fortunate." Countries that don't have a cupful of the luxuries we enjoy in America and most of Europe.
I believe one of the reasons for this is the appearance of evil in America - how we in the States perceive evil, what we label to be harmful. Diligent Christians in America are used to the tactic of evil being disguised as things that are good and beneficial - Black Friday is a great example. The media encourages self-indulgence to sell products and rake in money, and we as Christians have to be very discerning in America to see what is noble and what is not. What is truly good, not selfishness disguised as prosperity, liberty, and health.

But in countries like Somalia, Sudan, Syria, evil is not a wolf in a sheep's disguise, but a wolf in a wolf's combat fatigues.

People in the violent slums of the world are so used to being blatantly oppressed, tortured, used, killed, that they know evil when they see it. Therefore, when they're told about the light of Jesus, there's no mire of luxury and worldliness to obscure it. There's no comfort in the ways of the world to deceive them, at least not as easily as it does in America. There's no "prosperity gospel" nonsense, no schisms of theologies to muddle the message. People who are oppressed know that the world is an ugly place, and the beauty of the Gospel is such a stunning, stark contrast.

I believe the difference between hearers of the Gospel in America and hearers in deprived nations harkens to the words of a man named Agur in the book of Proverbs: "Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches - feed me with the food allotted to me; lest I be full and deny You, and say, 'Who is the LORD?' Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God."
I think so many in America have filled our bellies and forgotten God - or have become so bitter by hardship that we say "to hell with it" and outright curse the name or notion of God. Those in other countries, however, seem to be in some sort of strange middle ground; they're certainly not rich, but even as hungry and deprived as they are, they're even hungrier for truth and light.

They're not more willing to accept Jesus Christ because they're gullible - they're willing to accept Him because they see evil more plainly, more nakedly, because they see the works of the ruler of this world so much clearer than we can in the comfort and haze of so many worldly mirages. Therefore to them, the goodness of Jesus is all the more radiant. Those in the countries where the stars seem to never shine are not more willing to accept Jesus Christ because they're uneducated, because they'll worship anything - they're willing to accept Him because they see so many lies and the destruction they cause that they so much more clearly recognize the truth, and rejoice much more in the light it shines.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." -John 3:19-21

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." -Matthew 24:14

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-22-15: "Bin Laden Blues: Thoughts On Hell"

A few years ago, I wrote (very "green") blogs and online sermons under the guise of the character Strother Lee Fiddlebear, a recovering laudanum addict from Big Spring Station, Nebraska. On April 19, 2011, Strother, filled with thoughts of eternity, posted a plea titled "Bin Laden in the Bouquet." It was a somewhat naive challenge to other Christians to pray for Osama bin Laden, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, that he would come to know Christ, and turn himself in to authorities.

Just a dozen or so days later, Osama bin Laden was killed after almost a decade of being the most wanted murderer in the world.

Across America, celebrations broke out at the news of bin Laden's death. Chants of "USA!" filled the air. The man who had devised the murders of thousands was dead. But in addition to those patriotic chants were the disgusted rebukes of some - I heard others say it was a shameful display that we would celebrate so openly for the death of an enemy. I suppose it was, in a vague way, in the same vein as Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox; when news reached the Union troops, celebratory cannon fire began, but Ulysses Grant, being the class act he was, promptly ordered it to be stopped.
I don't know what Strother Lee Fiddlebear thought of it, but at the time, I was irked by those voices. I thought of them as pseudo-intellectuals, obnoxiously struggling to find something else wrong with America.

But now, I feel those voices were right to object to the cheering and champagne. Their reason might not be mine, but the fact is this: Osama bin Laden has gone to eternal condemnation. Why should I be glad that he, or anyone, denied Christ who saves?

For a moment, let's think about what hell truly is. I'd often heard the phrase "hell was not made for humans," which puzzled me, until I realized it referred to Jesus' words about those who will be turned away from entering heaven. He describes a place "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). It's not necessarily as if God has said, "let there be a place of torment for people who don't believe in Me." But even so, there remains a hideous place of everlasting anguish to which the wicked and unbelieving will go. Those who believe in a doctrine of "universal salvation," or any belief that after death everyone goes to some happy or neutral place, might say God would never allow those He loves to go there. But, again, let's think about what hell is, and who goes to hell - it's a place where God is forever absent, and the place where evil and unbelieving people go. So, if someone lives their life denying Christ and His love, His mercy, His providence, in hell they now find themselves where all those things are true - where this is no God, none of His mercy, none of His love, none of His providence.

Hell, and heaven, are in a way extensions of how one lived their life on Earth. If I deny Christ, I go to a place where He truly is not. If I embrace Him, I continue to live in His presence and love in heaven.

As for the agony of hell, I think pain and torment are the only things that can result from God being absent. If God were to remove His presence from the entire city of Amarillo, Texas, and His Spirit from everyone in it, the city would naturally fall into a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

The universalist might also argue that God's wrath fell on Jesus as He died on the cross, that He has taken the punishment for our sins, in our place. Indeed He has. This is absolutely true. But, again, a gift that is made possible must also be accepted - if a child rejects a birthday gift, it doesn't mean the gift doesn't exist. It means the child has rejected the gift and is without it and its benefits. And hell is a place where the blessings of the gift they denied are indeed not there.

Those I found to be obnoxious dilettantes in May 2011 were right. It's no laughing matter or occasion for delight that Osama bin Laden, or anyone, is in hell - if we delight in the thought of anyone in hell, we delight that they've rejected the one and only Savior. Hell is a place that, if we truly believe in God's love and the splendor of eternity with Him, we should never desire for anyone to go. And if we believe in Him and the salvation He offers, we must let His light shine through us; we must sacrifice, we must love, we must risk the breaking of our hearts to point just one more person to the bliss of His everlasting arms.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt." -Daniel 12:2

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-15-15: "I Saw It On TV"

If asked to give a reason as to why I believe the entirety of God's word, this book we came to call the Bible, to be the absolute truth, I suppose one of my answers would be that I've seen it all unfold before me on television.
The Bible is the polar opposite of a fairy tale, and it peddles no easy answers. It promises persecution and hardship for those who zealously believe and proclaim it, and assures us that evil lies in the hearts of humanity, as our race chooses every day to disavow and disobey the loving and merciful Christ through whom we were formed. I've seen people do hideous things even in His name, blaspheming their Creator who despises such violence and corruption.

On TV, I've seen President Kennedy shot down in Dallas by a confused, aspiring revolutionary. I've seen men fight in Vietnam and be spat upon by their countrymen upon returning home, called "babykillers" by those who claimed to love peace. I've seen masked men kill hostages in Munich during the Olympics. I've seen politicians and trusted public servants lie under deposition when accused of wrongdoing. I've seen a twisted man bent on revenge for what went down at the compound in Waco blow up a building and kill children in Oklahoma City. I've seen planes flown into the World Trade Center towers by suicidal maniacs. I've seen a deranged twenty-year-old man enter a school in Connecticut and slaughter teachers and children; I then saw other mad men deny the first mad man ever existed. I saw one hundred twenty people robbed of their lives in Paris by men who gave themselves the right with bullets and hatred.

And, on TV, I've seen a child called Genie raised in isolation for thirteen years, a child developmentally disabled by abuse, who could not speak, delight in laughter and joy at the sight of helium balloons; I saw her use her hands to communicate, sign language that opened her heart to those around her.
On TV, I saw men and women in New York City risk their lives and abandon their own safety to rescue others in the midst of raining rubble as towers collapsed behind them. I saw a Holocaust victim named Eva Kor forgive and embrace a former SS bookkeeper, Oskar Gröning, at his trial, encouraging him to continue to tell the truth about an atrocity that many deny ever took place. I saw Amish men and women extend forgiveness to a deviant who entered their schoolhouse and executed their daughters; I saw one Amish man embrace the gunman's father. I saw men, victims of prejudice, released from prison for murders they did not commit, freed by DNA, by truth, and by faith, against all odds, against all hope.

On TV, I've seen human beings do the evil that only comes from hating and rejecting the love of God, the love He instills even in those who don't believe He could do so. And I've seen the good that can only come from Him, in the midst of the ugliness in this world, good and mercy so alien to us fleshly, greedy, angry, creatures who desperately need our Savior. You don't have to take my word for it, but I tell you, I've seen it in person, right before my very eyes. And what I wasn't there to see, I saw it on TV.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5

"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
even to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his doings."
-Jeremiah 17:9-10

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-8-15: "The Holy Spirit"

"Come Holy Spirit" by Lance Brown
courtesy paintedchrist.com

We often say to others when we can't be there for them in physical presence, "I'll be there in spirit." But, of course, we're not. Our spirit remains with us. The Holy Spirit, however, unlike when we tell a friend we'll be there for him in spirit during his appearance on Divorce Court, is Jesus Christ – God from the beginning, God in the flesh, the eternal High Priest and Mediator between the unapproachable holiness of God and the sinfulness of man – literally here with us in Spirit!
While we long for our own spirit to comfort our friend while he is berated on national TV for sleeping with his soon-to-be ex-wife's sister, the Holy Spirit actually does this, if the adulterer has allowed Jesus into his heart, and therefore allowed His Spirit to be with him, and in him. The Holy Spirit can wrap His arms around the man whose head hangs in shame, and tell him with or without audible words that it's going to be alright, that he can press on, and that He will fill him with the bread of life to help him overcome his unfaithfulness – the presence of a God so holy and glorious that seeing Him would render one dead, now present in Spirit (a word meaning "breath") because He was once also present in flesh, and will someday return.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"Come near to Me, hear this:
I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
from the time that it was, I was there.
And now the Lord GOD and His Spirit
have sent Me."
-Isaiah 48:16

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-1-15: "Catwoman Blues"

"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (John 7:24). Those are the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But it seems my father and I, at least once in our lives, both failed to heed that command.

In 1992, my father was the victim of a hit-and-run that caused considerable damage to his prized Chevette, the little white automobile that dutifully delivered two of my brothers and I to school many a morning. Two doors, and no room for car seats. It was sad to see the Sturguessmobile hauled away by a tow truck. Weeks later, the police found the driver who'd caused the damage and fled the scene, and brought her into custody. On foot, my father rushed to the station. The culprit, as it turned out, was none other than Michelle Pfeiffer, fresh off the triumph of having brilliantly portrayed Catwoman in Batman Returns (eat your heart out, Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and yes, Anne Hathaway). Upon entering the station, and seeing Ms. Pfeiffer, my father adamantly declared, without hesitation or timidity...

"I'm dropping the charges."

But my father said this not out of mercy and forgiveness, but out of little more than the fact that...it was freaking Michelle Pfeiffer.

Cut to twenty-one years later, in a similar situation: I was saddened to learn that actress Emily Deschanel, of Bones fame, is an agnostic. But, I wasn't necessarily saddened because she doesn't know the Lord - I was sorry, rather, because she's such a lovely woman. Fortunately the Holy Spirit convicted me of my shallow thinking. Even if Ms. Deschanel looked like Danny Trejo in drag, my heart should still be pained and stirred by the fact that she doesn't know Christ. As well, believers should be roused with the desire to see anyone who denies Jesus be saved and blessed with eternal life, no matter who they are, or how kind or unkind they are. Faces wither (unless you're Patrick Stewart), but souls are eternal - the souls of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Speaking of biases, we shouldn't show partiality to fellow Christians, or expect them to turn a blind eye when we've erred. We should fully expect - and desire - to be corrected by a brother or sister in Christ when we've done or said something against the word of God. The psalmist writes, "Let the righteous strike me; it shall be a kindness. And let him rebuke me; it shall be as excellent oil; let my head not refuse it" (Psalm 141:5). But if we react with anger, stubbornness, and shouts of "don't lecture me" befitting an angst-ridden teenager, we've failed to grasp Jesus' command of meekness and humility.

The reason I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to stay on the narrow way is not because I have the deluded belief that committing a sin or making a mistake renders one's salvation null and void, or that one is less of a Christian if he or she stumbles. Neither is the reason so that I can make some claim that Christian works make one morally better than the rest of the world (a claim which would forget God's grace). The reason I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to do well is, simply, because I'm weak. I'm among the most habitual offenders and worst backsliders to whom God ever showed grace, and I need my Christian family to keep me accountable.
I need my Christian family to talk me out of dealing three-card monte at the children's hospital; I need them to remind me of what our Lord says concerning covetousness and lust; I need them to have fought that gutsy fight to remove the plank from their eye, so that they can see clearly to help me remove the plank from mine.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-25-15: "God's Will"

One of the "Christian terms" some believers use the most carelessly, without prayer or much discernment, is "God's will." Some even use it as a means to comfort others when someone else has done some horrible thing. "It was God's will" - as if God approves of us doing sinful and destructive things to hurt others and ourselves. When a woman discovers her husband to be unfaithful, there are some who would say, "It was God's will." No, it wasn't God's will that the woman's husband spit on their marriage.

I was doing some research on mass murderers for a YouTube video I recorded about the gun control debate. I read about James Oliver Huberty, who in 1984 killed twenty-one people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California. When Huberty was a child, his mother claimed she had received a "calling" from God to leave her family and become a sort of street preacher. The abandonment by his mother devastated Huberty, and he spent his childhood - most of his entire life - sullen, angry, and in pain.
I've often said: in His grace, God often won't punish us for our sins - but we sure make each other pay for them.

God can call us to do some very seemingly crazy things. He called the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, as a message to disobedient Israel, who had repeatedly turned away from God, who remained loyal.
God called another great prophet, Jeremiah, to wear a yoke around his neck as a sign to Judah, whose apostasy would lead to their destruction by the Babylonians, and who scoffed at the idea of wearing the "yoke" of Babylon for their own good, denying that Jerusalem could be taken by any foreign nation.
God called the apostles to proclaim the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ in decadent Rome, telling them beforehand that they would be persecuted and killed for doing so.
God can, and will, call us to do some daunting, weird, and frightening things. But He will never call us to sin.

James Huberty's mother's calling to preach may have been from God, but it was not His will that she abandon her son, leaving him to become a bitter loner. God does not contradict Himself, and being perfect, He cannot - He is so pure and good that He is incapable of it. Though we often wait for God, who sometimes remains silent for a season, as we wonder what He wants us to do, what His will for us is, though we often go days or years without answers, we can be sure that He will never call us to do wrong, to do that which is of the devil, who only seeks to "steal, kill, and destroy."
We can be sure God's will includes abundant love and mercy, that His will calls us to show such things, love and mercy so alien to our natural, fleshly state. We can be sure God's will includes sacrifice, for the sake of spreading the Gospel, for the sake of blessing others. We can be sure God's will includes His goodness shining through us, so that we may be a light to the world.

So, while sometimes we feel "in the dark" about God's will, we can be sure it has no association with the works of darkness, and that His light casts every shadow from among those who believe and diligently seek Him.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-18-15: "Cain, Abel, and Tom Landry"

After Cain had killed Abel, his flesh and blood brother, committed the world's first murder, God asked him, "Where is Abel?" And we all know Cain's notorious response. We often use it ourselves in a sarcastic manner when we don't feel obligated to care for one another; Cain retorted, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
The answer to Cain's bitter question is: yes. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. We have a responsibility to one another that all too often we shun. We think it's beneath us, a waste of our time. But as Christians, we have a responsibility to look out for one another lest we fall into temptation or stray from God. If we also care for those outside of the Body of Christ, for those who don't believe, they too will "by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation" (1 Peter 2:12). If we care for both our brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who have not yet come to Jesus, they will praise God for our compassion if we remain humble and give the glory to Him from whom love truly comes. "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one" (Colossians 4:5-6).

In November 1979, during a game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Oilers, my uncle Mortimer Sturguess ran naked onto the field in an overzealous frenzy when Houston defeated Dallas, 30-24. As Mortimer was dragged from the field at Texas Stadium, coach Tom Landry handed my uncle his trademark fedora hat, saying, "Here son, cover up with this." The gesture stunned Uncle Mortimer sober. Coach Landry hadn't simply handed him a sweaty, used towel with which to cover his nudity, or worse, slugged him in his soggy gut while security held him in place. But with compassion and gentleness, he ruined a perfectly good hat - even if fedoras are really for women - for a man who had humiliated himself and his family on live television.
"For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; So that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty." -Job 6:14 

Mortimer Sturguess never forgot the kindness of Coach Landry. And to me, it encompasses everything about giving. Tom Landry gave of the best of his wardrobe for a total stranger, not merely a used handkerchief. Likewise, when we give to others, we give to God, and must give of the first-fruits of what we have – our very best. This is why God accepted Abel's offering of the firstborn of his flock, and rejected Cain's hasty offering of his fruit. This is why God have His first and only Son on the cross for you and me.

When we give, we must give our best, not our leftovers. And when we bless, just as when we are blessed, we must acknowledge Him who truly gave. Our good deeds should be responses to God's gorgeous command to love. God does not want good deeds done out of guilt and pressure – that's what tipping your server at Applebee's is for. Rather, a good deed should come from the heart, from the desire to walk in Christ's love.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

PS I really do tip, I was just...you know...some people give you the stink-eye if you don't, and that's not the reason to leave a tip. But we should totally tip our servers at restaurants, with a genuine heart for that person and how hard they work.

from the book Sheep Named Spike

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-11-15: "Mocked By Charles Manson"

A follower of Christ absolutely cannot afford to be distressed or discouraged when our beliefs are criticized by the world. There are three reasons for this. The first is that criticism and mockery mean little when one considers that in many countries, Christians are imprisoned or beheaded for their faith. The second is that a person only has so much emotional stamina to spend - energies that should be applied to ministering to those in need and to spreading the Gospel; it would be devastating to our mission if we let wicked words steal our emotional strength.

Finally, a Christian cannot let his or herself crumble under the words of this society given the depraved everyday goings-on in the world from which we were saved and set apart. After all, only the deranged would allow criticism from Charles Manson to tear them down. We must remember when ridiculed for believing in God's role in creation, in a Christ who rose from the grave, in eternity after death, that the same society who ridicules us is the same society in which:

- people deny the Holocaust or the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre ever happened, and claim climate change is a myth,
- unborn human beings are killed without regard and with approval of governments and "rights" groups,
- an entire category of jokes is devoted to dead babies,
- women are sentenced to be raped and paraded naked through the streets of India,
- a nation prioritizes access to firearms over human lives, despite at least 230 public shootings in that nation this year alone,
- professional athletes are paid 90 million dollars a year while single parents work two jobs to support their children,
- Charles Manson has been engaged, and I can't even get a date.

This is not a world from which we should take ridicule to heart, not a society of high learning and evolved thinking. The principalities of this world are evil, but also absurd.

As I mentioned before, we American Christians should acknowledge how abundantly blessed we are in the fact that, in most cases, we only endure criticism and ridicule by peers and media for our beliefs and our Christ, when others throughout the world suffer truly horrible tortures and deaths for proclaiming Him. I think there are much fewer martyrs in America than we might assume. Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who was jailed for refusing to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is no martyr. She made a choice to break the law and make a spectacle of herself, when she could have chosen to resign from her position, knowing she would have to perform duties contrary to God's word; I would not accept a job at which I'd have to sell Nazi merchandise or pornography. If one asks, "Why should she have to quit her job?", they must remember that Jesus never said following Him would be easy - in fact, He clearly states the opposite. And I would ask, "Why should she have to go to jail?" No, Kim Davis is not a martyr. Kim Davis is quite free in America. We should embrace the blessing of freedom to spread the Gospel to as many as we can before, in some dark time in the future, Christians truly are persecuted in America. We should also seek the peace of our land, as God commanded the captive Jews in Babylon through the prophet Jeremiah (29:7).

Before I make my own sole aim to angrily retort, "How dare you, with the blood of fetuses and refugees on your hands, with jeggings on your legs, condemn me for insisting there is one God who loves you?!", I must remember my commission is not to rave at the world, frothing at the beard. My job is to tell the world this: Jesus the Son of God is risen, and desires to remove their sins from them, as He did for an undeserving thing like me. My job is to tell the world that Jesus the Christ is inviting them this very day to eternity in His glorious presence, where there shall be no more dying, suffering, lying, shame, rage, or bleeding.
My job is to love the people of this absurd and wicked world, no matter what absurd and wicked things they say.

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-4-15: "An Uncomfortable, Inconvenient God"

I've often heard it said and written, as an antithesis to the existence of, or belief in, God, that the concept is much too "comfortable" and "convenient" for Him to be true. That with the idea of a God, we fit too well in the world, in the universe. I've learned, however, after reading the Bible, the Book from which a Christian should derive his or her notions about God, that though He is loving and wonderful, His truth is anything but comfortable and convenient.

How convenient it would be if His holy word did not tell me that life on this earth will be rank with injustices and grief; how convenient it would be if He promised me smooth sailing instead. But He doesn't. How comfortable I'd be in this world if He gave me an explanation of the universe's origin that didn't make Bill Nye think I'm a superstitious bumpkin. But He didn't. How I love to lust, to be angry and spiteful, to hold grudges, to hate. But what a buzzkill that I believe in a God who tells me these things are destructive to myself, and to others.
How convenient to my morality would it be if I had no one to whom to answer, to whom to be accountable, and if all my rotten deeds (and even my few good deeds) rotted along with my corpse after death as I cease to exist, and if those I left behind would wait for the sun to explode and to be like me. But, what an inconvenience it is to my conscience that I will answer to Almighty God for my time on Earth.
How comfortable it would be to blend in with the rest of the world, to be just like everyone else, a world where every fingerprint and snowflake are exactly alike and mean nothing (except when my DNA is needed for a conviction for my embarrassing acts in Santa Fe when I'd stopped taking my Lamictal regimen back in 2011).
How comfortable it would be to go unrecognized in the moral dilemmas we make, to have no conviction from Christ, who the world dismisses and calls a liar. But His Holy and inconvenient Spirit reminds me to speak up, to proclaim Him who died for me and rose again, and who longs for the souls around me in the world - the world in which I don't fit - to be saved as well.

God is beautiful, He is true, He is sovereign, He is merciful, He is good. I suppose He is convenient for me in that respect - that the only real God is the One who took on wrath and punishment on the cross, so that the punishments I deserved would never fall on me, so that I could live abundant life. I am one lucky bumpkin.
But how inconvenient it is for my flesh that the same God convicts me to do good and to shun evil. How inconvenient it is for my flesh that He tells me He loves me, and other gorgeous things that make my cynical mind cringe, when I fail.

I thank God for making me so uncomfortable, for being so inconvenient.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"Now when I looked, there was a hand stretched out to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. Then He spread it before me; and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe. Moreover He said to me, "Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll.
And He said to me, "Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you." So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness." -Ezekiel 2:9-3:3

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 9-27-15: "Soft Answers & Fake Accents"

Long ago, when dealing over the phone with customer service (particularly when it pertained to my internet service with a company I won't name), I found that the inevitable result of my shouting and cursing could be curbed by a simple trick: faking an accent. At first, I chose the voice of Al Pacino in Scarface, but it wasn't long before my throat felt quite rough and was frankly killing me. Aside from that, the Tony Montana voice actually encouraged the rage and profanity, rather than diverting it. So, next I chose a British accent. Having long been a fan of British rock, and listened to many interviews by many English artists, I felt I could fake one at least well enough to quell my anger while on the phone with [internet company].

"But Bud," one might ask...
"Captain Bud."
"But Bud," one might ask, "how did faking an accent keep you from flying off the handle?"

It's simple: I was too focused on keeping the mild-mannered British accent (not the angry British accents, like from Snatch...or were they Irish?) to lose my cool. If I said what I needed with a focus on not only communication, but on keeping my fake Cambridge accent, I found I was too preoccupied to handle being angry. And anyone who's ever been angry knows, anger takes up a lot of space in one's mind. There was simply no room for it in my brain or on my tongue with a fake accent.

In the book of Proverbs, it's written, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." If, mentally at first, then verbally, we can talk and think about our issues with a calm and cool voice - literally - it will do a surprising bit of good to avoid becoming more upset than we already are. Much like the fake accent, focusing on a reserved tone will leave us too preoccupied to lose our grip on being calm. Not only does it give us more opportunity to search for the right words carefully, so as not to add insult to an already ugly situation, but the softness of speaking in such a way can have a calming effect on one's body and mind. Maybe it's some kind of physiological thing I discovered.

And no, you don't have to try to sound like Rex Harrison while doing so. Be yourself.

As for the anger that must be released, there is always One to whom we can take those burdens. One to whom we can cry out, even shouting that we don't understand, that He's allowed us to go through something awful and unfair, that we've been unjustly treated, that we've treated others unjustly, One who, being our eternal High Priest, Advocate, and Savior who took on God's wrath on the cross, will listen to our most inarticulate rage with understanding: the Lord Jesus Christ.

But with people, we flawed and disappointed things, use a soft answer. An actual, verbally soft answer. Even if that soft answer doesn't turn away the wrath of the person offending you, it will certainly help ease your heart, and turn away wrath from yourself. Which is abundantly healthy, because anger will consume our thinking and eat us alive, rendering us broken vessels for Christ's love, dimming beacons for His light of life.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"Make no friendship with an angry man,
and with a furious man do not go,
lest you learn his ways
and set a snare for your soul."
-Proverbs 22:24-25

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 9-20-15: "Queen Elsa Rhapsody"

This past Tuesday saw my last performance of my "summer job," playing Queen Elsa at children's birthday parties. I probably could have kept up the performances through the winter (fitting, as the character is from a movie called Frozen), but at this last party, I exhaled a little too hard and the paunch of my Elsa costume tore. This job playing Queen Elsa was a tough one. Not just because I've still never seen Frozen and didn't know what to say to the kids (besides "you kids go play - ol' Captain Bud needs to sit down"), but also because a nagging thought stayed in my mind, namely, a statute in the Torah (the Mosaic Law) that forbids transvestism.
I tried to remind myself, "It's not like I'm Tim Curry in Rocky Horror. And I'm not wearing this stuff to fill some sensual thrill."

God reminded me of what He spoke through the great prophet Jeremiah to disobedient, wandering Judah: "For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you'" (Jeremiah 7:22-23).

Obey God's voice. And what does God's voice speak to us under the New Covenant sealed by His own blood on the cross, a Covenant foretold by the Torah itself? God speaks, saying we are not under the threat of a cosmic hammer; we are not under the world's misconception of God - we are under the law of the true God. Not the Law of the Moses, the Torah, that beautiful prelude of salvation to come, but the law of grace and righteousness in Christ Jesus.

As I learn more that Christianity is not about rules and fear, I realize that the "secular" world has barked more orders at me than any pastor ever did. The world tells me: "Don't do this, don't do that. Don't say this, don't say that, lest you feel the wrath of Twitter and a boycott. Don't eat this, don't eat that. This is now acceptable, that is not. Saints worthy of praise are: Darwin, Dylan, Reagan, Roosevelt, O'Reilly, O'Maher. And, beware of boogeymen and devils like the Illuminati and vaccines that cause autism."
The world makes for a fickle god with its own unstable religious doctrine. A doctrine of rules and regulations, of exclusion and prejudice, of ignorance, of humiliation, with no redemption unless Oprah can get a tearful interview from it.

I thank God that His voice commands no such things. I thank God that His voice calls me back to Him when I stray, reminds me of the unkillable truth of His joy when I'm alone. I thank God for such a beautiful voice to obey.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!" -2 Corinthians 3:7-11

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 9-13-15: "Am I Right, Fellas?!"

Last week, I became enamored with the new lady who works in my apartment's office. She's one of the loveliest dames I've ever seen, and makes Rebel Wilson - the most beautiful woman in Hollywood - look like Ron Perlman. I declared to my friends that the mystery lady and I would surely someday be married...I didn't know her name - I assumed I'd probably see it when we signed the paperwork at the Justice of the Peace. Ever since that gorgeous new lady began working in the apartment office, I found any excuse I could to go and see her: I took a croquet mallet to my walls just so I could go to the office to report the damage, and I even pretended I couldn't read or write, so she'd fill out my checks for me.

But I was soon convicted by the Holy Spirit, who once spoke through my brother in Christ, Andrew, who has often discussed his own struggle with the carnal mindset. Andrew once said that, as Christians, men should look at women not as their next potential love interest, but as sisters. Andrew was absolutely right. If we Christian men don't see our sisters in God in this way, or if we don't see unsaved women as potential sisters rather than potential girlfriends, our understandings of the Holy Spirit's instructions to the Church through Scripture have grown dim.

My mistake with women, emotionally speaking (never mind the fleshly lusts), has always been getting too attached to them within an extremely short time of meeting them. As evidenced with the apartment office mystery lady, I see a future that usually won't come to be, and my disillusionment is nobody's fault but mine. When it comes to the ladies, we men-folk should see ourselves as their brothers, their fellow saints in Christ, their teachers, their students, their protectors, their friends, as surely Christian women should see their male counterparts. And when it comes to the unsaved dames, we must see them as we see any unsaved person - someone to love in a Christlike manner, someone to whom to witness, to bless, someone for whom to sacrifice of ourselves so that maybe they would be led to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we don't see women - sisters in Christ or daughters of the world - in this way, we objectify them. And when they reject us, turn us down for dinner at Outback Steakhouse, or don't reciprocate our gooey, mushy, crushy feelings, we scoff at them to hide the pain, saying things like, "If that chick don't wanna know, forget her! Dames...am I right, fellas?!"
And what an abundant chance to show love has been lost.
Should we fall in love with a woman, that's beautiful. But, after prayer and discernment, when we know it's right to pursue a relationship, let us keep her exalted as a sister in Christ until she becomes a girlfriend, and after. This is how we can keep our relationship with her, whether it be platonic or romantic, in a godly perspective - if we continue to see her as our sister, bound by the precious Blood of the Lamb, we approach and react to every disappointment and every delight in a way that is fitting for the saints: patiently, with wisdom and edification. For there is "neither male nor female," but we are all one in Christ Jesus.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life." -Galatians 6:8

"Young women of Jerusalem, promise me by the power of deer and gazelles never to awaken love before it is ready." -Song of Solomon 8:4 (CEV)

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 9-6-15: "Captive Hearts"

When the Supreme Court voted to legalize same-sex marriage in June, God told me (not audibly, but you know what I mean), "Muse on this in your heart, but don't speak about it; wait until I give you the proper things to say." Now, He has.

In Christian history, the name "Babylon" has often been applied to any place known for excess and decadence. In the early days of the Church, Christians and Jews alike referred to the authority in Rome as "Babylon." Rome...that place of rampant murder of emperors and politicians, and sexually immoral behavior not seen since Sodom and Gomorrah. So, if the followers of Christ who lived in such a place were focused on proclaiming the Gospel rather than trying to prevent various sexual sins (including homosexuality, quite the norm in Rome) via political power, why aren't we in America doing the same? Granted, those in Rome didn't have much political power with which to work, lest they lost their heads (literally), but you understand my point.

The fact is, so many in Christ's Church reacted to the same-sex marriage issue (long before its legalization) as if America were our god. We weren't dismayed by the fact that God's word forbids homosexual relations - we were dismayed because it's not what John Wayne would do. We were dismayed because it's not the good wholesome America of Eisenhower's day - apple pie, crew cuts, and segregated schools. We chose to live in political strife, rather than accept, and practice, what Christ's word tells us - that the world will turn further and further from His instructions, that people will heap up for themselves teachers of false doctrines; that we're to persevere and spread the Gospel despite living in evil times in an evil world. What little faith we have in God's word to be so surprised when these things come to pass! What audacity we have, what distrust in our Savior, to seek an answer in a good, decent candidate who can lead our country in "the right direction again," instead of earnest prayer and sacrifice.
We were up in arms with posts and polls, instead of prayers and petitions for those in need. We looked forward to reading the voting ballots for various propositions to proclaim same-sex marriage unconstitutional, more than we looked forward to reading God's word - the word written by the Holy Spirit through those who lived in turbulent and decadent times, but whose desire was not in legislation, but in leading the lost to Christ.

When we base our faith on politics, worldly protocol, and other such idolatry, we try to manipulate Jesus into "our" Jesus - the conservative Jesus, the liberal Jesus, the middle-of-the-road Jesus, the hippie Jesus, the tough guy Jesus. We place our idea of the American dream and American values over the commission given to us by our Christ. If we think America didn't fit the Babylonian description before the same-sex marriage debacle, or that the exaltation of homosexual relationships is the only sin that makes us like the decadent Babylons of eras past, we are certainly deluded.

The prophet Jeremiah told those in sinful Judah that the nation would be overrun, its inhabitants taken captive to Babylon. The Lord instructed Jeremiah to tell the captive Hebrews in Babylon to live life for God, despite having been taken captive to a foreign land, rank with other forms of the ungodliness that had caused His judgment to fall on Israel and Judah. He also rebuked false prophets who said it wouldn't happen, that Judah was safe from destruction - much like we in America have the same notion that we're somehow immune to becoming a fallen empire like Assyria, Egypt, Rome, and even Babylon.

Jeremiah wrote to the captives there:
"Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters - that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the LORD" (Jeremiah 29:5-9).

If those in Babylon were instructed to seek the peace of that ungodly empire, and to even seek the good of its leaders as the prophet Daniel later did when Babylon fell to another empire, what gives believers in modern America a license to live in strife and debate, rather than in love, in ministering, in being witnesses for the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Isn't that our best way to seek the peace of our nation?
A debate on same-sex marriage never led a soul to Jesus; nor did a vote, nor did a Facebook profile picture that changed the pink "equality" sign into a cross. These things never fed a starving belly nor tended to a helpless person's wounds. God's instruction to believers in America is no different than His directions to those carried away to Babylon, or to those in the early Christian Church, so abundantly slaughtered by Rome - to seek the nation's peace, to be holy. To be holy is to be set apart. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2).

How will Christ's love be evident through us if we serve American values - whatever those are - rather than the Lord Himself?

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 8-30-15: "The Cure For the Fear of Being Average"

I recently happened upon a quote by Taylor Swift (who you all of course know from the hit "Blank Space" song), who said:
"I am intimidated by the fear of being average."
Maybe in the right context, those words were meant to describe a different sentiment, but repeated so often as a mantra, by her fans and non-fans alike, it struck me as a pretentious, typically "celebrity" thing to say.

I'd rather be an average nobody than live in fear of being like the Grammy-less commoners. I'd rather be the humdrum guy the commercials warn you about (the ones that tell you by not buying their product, you're somehow succumbing to the blah and the boring) - that is, the guy who stays home on the weekends. At least, I'd much prefer to be the average guy if my only other choice is living in the dread of not being able to post pictures on Instagram every Saturday of some new, exotic place I've been, some trip that I feel somehow makes me free inside, or that I'm liberated from the dregs of life by posing next to the world's largest hand-carved statue of Stevie Wonder in some adventurous place like Saginaw, Michigan. Nothing against Stevie or Saginaw.
The reality of life is that the average mechanic who raises an average family in average Iowa has done an amazing thing, even if he's never been canoeing or read Atlas Shrugged. My mother managed an average Dairy Queen for thirty-plus years in average Seminole, Texas; she never made it to the cover of Rolling Stone. But she was the greatest mother I could have asked for.

There are people who, by being themselves, stand out. They're quirky, they're colorful, they're characters. And, there are people who, by being themselves, blend in very easily with the average crowd. But there are also those who, in an idolatrous mindset, are so fearful of the thought of being considered "normal" or "average," that they go out of their way to stand out. It's the wrong kind of attention to desire, because that person is not being who they really are; they're stuck in a one-person show with quite an uncomfortable mask, and addicted to any applause they get. Even sadder, there are so many people like this, it makes them more normal than they think.

But every one of these people - the stand-outs, the average, the fake - are never forgotten before our Father in heaven. And even the most average among us is precious in His sight - He gave His Son for all of us.

If you are in Christ, and you want to be different, you already are: you accept Christ in a world that has rejected Him as God. You're different because you're holy, not through any holiness of your own, but by Christ's holiness. God exhorts the Israelites several times, and repeats through the apostle Peter, "Be holy, for I am holy." To be holy is to be set apart. The apostle Paul urges believers not to be "conformed to this world." The ways of this world are, among many other things, self-absorbed and self-serving. If you dread being complacent, lackadaisical, and average, abide in your Lord and be set apart from this world. Do the mighty works He's called us to do, spread the gorgeous truth of His Gospel, and minister to those in need. Only don't do so to be different, but because Christ gave Himself for us and saved us; do so because you long to see others believe and come to know this joy and grace.

And if those things, the Great Commission, the Gospel, the name of Jesus, makes you average and obscure, unknown and common in the eyes of the self-soothing world, you're in good company - our Lord also humbled Himself and was mired in obscurity as a carpenter for much of His walk on Earth as a Man, far from palaces and praise, spat upon and mocked. If our peace and joy is in Him, we won't be stricken with fear at the thought of being average in the world's eyes, nor will we seek our identity in fleeting things, our liberalisms and conservatisms, our feminisms and masculinisms, our nationalisms and humanisms.
Christ's Holy Spirit writes, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:3-8).
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"He must increase, but I must decrease." -John 3:30
"And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." -Matthew 23:12

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 8-23-15: "My Lunch With the Nerds: Thoughts on Pride"

Nerds have certainly come a long way. Back in my day (the 80s and 90s), they were ostracized and shunned from the community. And now, they rule the world. People even strive to be like nerds, and call themselves nerds even if they're not. It's a huge shot in the arm for a people who were once held up by the cool guys like me, as examples of what not to be. The schism was deep:
"Detached and subdivided in the mass production zone,
nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone
Subdivisions in the high school halls,
in the shopping malls -
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions in the basement bars,
in the backs of cars -
Be cool or be cast out..."

"What are we having?"

Only now, it's cool to be a nerd. I have several friends who are nerds, and I don't have to hang my head when I say it - even if I can't really identify with the struggle (says the man who wears clothes from the 1870s, and just quoted Rush, the nerdiest band of all time). Recently, I had lunch with a few of my nerd friends (who are also my brothers in Christ). They began debating some nerd topic; probably Star Wars related. Years ago, I'd have beaten them all up and made their girlfriends hold my jacket and hat (though years ago, they wouldn't have had girlfriends). But, times have progressed, and more importantly, so has the Holy Spirit's work on my hard, hard heart.
Anyway, the longer I listened to the nerds debate their topic, I saw that it was becoming more and more heated and impassioned. Their talk turned a bit ugly. Points on which movie will ultimately have left fans more disappointed, The Phantom Menace or The Force Awakens, became thinly veiled personal attacks.

The strife in their conversation led me to realize something: the reason we get upset when someone insults us, or something we love, is, deep down, due to idolatry and pride.
If our all is truly focused in Christ, we know that it's a very meaningless thing if Boba Fett's death in the Sarlacc Pit in Return of the Jedi was as humiliating and hilarious as some depict it (it was), or if it was a noble end to the galaxy's most feared bounty hunter. Our identity is not in our entertainment preferences, our intellectual stimulation or lack thereof, and not even in our own dignity. If, as disciples of Christ, we find ourselves in a rage when insulted personally, our minds have strayed a bit off-center. Jesus tells us to expect ridicule for our beliefs, and to turn the other cheek - how can we allow ourselves to be enraged by attacks on things far less important than the belief in Jesus as Lord?
Or, what about when we're called out for our own sins? Is it not pride and self-righteousness that make us angry when a brother or sister, hopefully in a "spirit of gentleness," admonishes us?

This identity in Christ not only applies to our relationships with others, but to our walks in this imperfect world. Anyone who desires to follow Christ must seek their identity only in Him. If I claim Christ is my all, it's nothing short of idolatry to claim my "identity" as a Greek, Jew, Creek, Sioux, nationalist, pacifist, patriot, environmentalist, feminist, conservative, progressive, liberal, criminal, radical, fanatical: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
Oswald Chambers once said, "Discouragement is disillusioned self-love." I wouldn't have known that if a friend hadn't sent me a message asking what I thought of that quote. I suppose it's true: if we fully embraced that our identity is in Christ, that our strength, purpose, and hope is in Him, and that He will never leave a good work incomplete, we wouldn't be so quick to be bitterly discouraged. We're discouraged because we want to do better for our sakes, not for the sake of the Gospel and the glory of God. We're frustrated because it's not going the way we want it, on our terms.

This is certainly not to say, however, that any outpouring of emotion that stems from negative things is somehow bad. Good gosh, I'm not Martin Luther, you know. A Christian, or anyone with a heart, can't help but feel agony and pins of despair in their guts when they hear that Islamic State militants have beheaded an 82-year-old archaeologist in Palmyra, that abortion is legal, praised, and encouraged, or that many witnesses in countries around the world are tortured, imprisoned, and killed for teaching the Gospel. But there is a difference between godly sorrow and godly anger, and petty, prideful, selfish rage - fury that amounts to nothing.

Not only must our identity be found in Jesus, but our value. At our church community group, a sister in Christ recently shared something she heard; to paraphrase, "a car, for example, is often valued by how much was paid for it, and who owns it. God paid the ultimate price for us, and we belong to Him. That should tell us our value." If we stay deeply rooted in this truth of identity and value, it can only follow that disagreements, insults, disappointments, struggles, and all other buffetings of this fallen world will only be met with forgiveness, love, perseverance, longsuffering, patience, and the reassurance of peace in our all, the Lord Jesus Christ.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there." -James 3:16