Poem: Breakfast With Saucy Jack

I got a standing breakfast date with Saucy Jack 

every morning at the same time, around dawn, 

as hell's bells cease to chime and I hear the 

bells of Old Bailey (that's an England thing 

for you Yanks). Jack never tries to pay me, 

and he never says thanks. The deal is, he 

tells me about life, things gritty and ugly 

and hard, things that made King George crack - 

and I don't tell Scotland Yard his name ain't really Jack.

I know what he's been doing all night, 

but I've never said I knew. But this morning, 

the severed kidney in his pocket killed my 

appetite (I wager it would yours too), so 

I ask my friend Jack, face to face, if only 

out of spite because my breakfast went to waste:
"Jack, how can you do what you do every night?"

"It's easy, boss," he says, "you pick the ones 

nobody wants - you can usually tell 'cos they 

got no teeth - pick a simpleminded one, a 

drunk one wobbly on her feet, and wear a 

dark coat so no one sees you run."

"I don't mean that, Jack. I mean, don't it bother 

you to kill?"
"Nah, mate; if they ain't human, it ain't murder. 

If I don't slice 'em, the Tories will."

"But don't you think it's a sin? Don't you think they matter?"
"It's a sin to starve in the East End, all the while Her Majesty gets fatter."

I don't bother to argue or tell him two wrongs 

don't make a right. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Mate, you know I never sleep a wink."

He's late for a meeting in Parliament and has to find a sink. 

Jack asks me to mail a letter and promise not to tell. 

It's a letter to the police, saying they'll never catch him, 

they're far too late, and it says it's sent 

"From Hell."

Jack puts on his coat and heads for Westminster. 

I tell him I'll mail his note, afraid he won't be my friend 

if I don't. I'm tempted to tell the Prime Minister, but it 

would do no good - he's the one who signed the bill 

Preacher Booth called a license to kill.

Tonight, below my room on Mitre Square, I hear 

a scream. I think of Saucy Jack - if she ain't human, 

what does it matter? I pretend it's all a dream, I pretend 

I'm not a coward, all the while a toothless nobody is 

sliced and overpowered. A little while passes, it's quiet 

on the Square; she ain't human, I think, 

why should anybody care?

Like clockwork, I hear a call for help and a 

peeler carriage clink and clatter.
Like a postcard from hell, my heart receives a message - 

"she ain't human; what's it matter?"

The Unfair Gospel of Jesus

Infamous serial killer, cannibal, and necrophiliac Jeffrey Dahmer accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior just two years or so before he himself was murdered in prison in 1994. For a life lived in disbelief, for well over a decade of murder and gruesome, vile acts upon other human beings, Jeffrey Dahmer served just over three years in custody before, according to the facets of the Christian Gospel, he was sent to the eternal bliss of Paradise. A saint simply being one who is in Christ, Jeffrey Dahmer holds the same title as Billy Graham.

This is unfair. The families of Dahmer's victims, who hoped to see him locked behind bars - and worse - received less than an ounce of justice when you consider Dahmer's short prison term on Earth, and the Gospel's promise that he, having accepted Christ, has been given eternal life with God.

The Gospel is a beautiful Gospel, but it's also a difficult one, a gritty one, a gory one, and by the standards of us fleshly creatures, a very unfair Gospel.

Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes may be unique in their exceptionally bizarre and heinous nature, but his circumstances as a whole are not. Multitudes and multitudes of sinners like Dahmer, like me, like you, have accepted the salvation offered by Jesus Christ through His sacrifice on the cross, and our crimes have been washed away, expunged from our records. We were not punished, we were not stoned to death by the congregation, not swallowed up by the earth, not plundered and torn apart by Babylonian invaders.

I, as the 57th worst sinner who ever lived, am not sorry for this. I feel no guilt or shame that I've been rescued from my sins while having paid no price for it to be so. I regret the price I made others pay in my sinful behavior, but the One who removed those crimes from my record doesn't desire that I wallow in shame and misery over it. He is faithful to give me tasks and duties to glorify Him, to live a life in light rather than the one I lived in darkness. But He's not required me to roll in ashes and beat my breast, declaring what miserable, rotten things I've done; He's not required me to pay a monetary tax as penance to keep me in His embrace.

This is grossly unfair. But if it's any consolation to the outside observer, God played by His own unfair rules when He came to Earth in the flesh and suffered just like you and I do.

He endured temptation, but was without sin. He faced scorn, ridicule and plots against His life, though He had done no wrong, though He had brought an abundance of good in His ministry. He endured every day frustrations and agonies like you and me. And, He was tried and condemned, though without sin, and executed in the most agonizing way possible. A true criminal, an insurrectionist named Barabbas, was meanwhile set free.

While He was fastened by nails to that ominous cross, slowly dying, a criminal crucified next to Him groaned in his own agony that this Man from Galilee had done nothing wrong, and asked the He remember him when He came into His kingdom - if the criminal even knew just what that meant.

The condemned sinless One declared to the condemned rotten one, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

For all his years of habitual offenses and recklessness, a few hours of faith in the One who shows grace and mercy brought the unknown criminal to eternal life where there is no more pain, decay, sorrow or death.

There is no way around it - the Gospel of grace is an unfair Gospel.

drawing by Albert Servaes

"'Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you'...So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen."
-Jesus Christ, Matthew 20:14, 16

Poem: "Shangra Lah" (In the Wake of Sri Lanka & Christchurch)

Sri Lanka sounds so exotic
Christchurch is too sacred to say
The only bloodshed I know is in
Cochise County and this ratty paperback about Khe Sanh
So I'll give an exotic name to the space under my bed
When I hide there, from your bombs and bullets,
I'll feel cultured in the dark
I'll feel far away, part of a UN assembly to solve it all
I'll call it Shangra Lah; that's what I'll call
the dark under my bed
I'm the US Ambassador to Shangra Lah
It sounds so exotic, someplace they find rare pearls
I must have heard it in a song
or another worn out war book with outdated maps
I'll be in Shangra Lah when you need me
If you want my thoughts on Peru or the President
you'll have to wait - I'm on diplomatic business,
deep in the dark of Shangra Lah.

-Bud Sturguess,
April 24, 2019

Poem: "Peckerwood Hill"

You don't know much yet -
you don't know laws or judges, priests or rites
You don't even know the words to "Hey Jude"
But today, today is your birthday
Conceived by cousins and poorly sculpted
by the cosmos

The doctors -
Oppenheimer, Kevorkian, and a nurse from Buchenwald,
they've all taken the oath -
welcome you to the world
and do what love will never have a chance to do -
they stop your heart

They won't send you, what they can't use of you,
expendable outlaw,
to Peckerwood Hill -
that crowded concrete orchard in Texas
full of executed killers and three-strike scoundrels
who wasted away in the infirmary
Their brothers ceased to speak their names
the day the verdict came down,
the day the warrant was signed
So to Peckerwood Hill they went
unclaimed, unloved, unnamed,
to await the Resurrection and a brand new trial

But you, birthday boy,
Peckerwood Hill is not for you
That's for human beings,
forgotten, discarded as they were
You're less, so you'll be put somewhere less
Dissected, photographed
Maybe a jar of formaldehyde is the best they'll do for you

Today is your birthday and I cannot promise you a thing
No fairy tales, no fables, no lullabies
Not even a crowded garden of rocks called Peckerwood Hill -
that's only for us killers and thieves

-by Bud Sturguess

Matter of Record: Tim Keller Quote Used in My Book

Uh-oh... today I saw this Timothy Keller quote on Twitter:
"The church is not a museum for pristine saints, but a hospital ward for broken sinners."
I wrote something extremely similar to this in one of my books, Sheep Named Spike. I've never read Tim Keller's books, so I'm thinking maybe I saw it quoted somewhere else and it stayed in my subconscious. The first version of my book was published in 2015, and I'm guessing Mr. Keller wrote that statement before then (though I haven't checked). How embarrassing for me. Buuuuuut I know he won't sue me because 1 Corinthians 6 forbids Christians from suing other Christians! HA! YEET!
Anyway, I'm posting this for what it's worth, in the rare event my book ever takes off, to acknowledge my accidental plagiarism. My apologies to Mr. Keller, and kudos for writing such a poignant statement!

-Bud Sturguess
January 18, 2019

Stop Saying "If You Don't Vote, You Don't Get To Complain"

An argument often used to persuade people to vote is the cliche, "If you don't vote, you don't get to complain!"
Though voting is a great thing that should surely be embraced and exercised, this expression is not the way to win over a cynic, for three reasons:

1. The expression doesn't reflect a love of democracy - only a love of complaining.

2. It tells the potential political proselyte that voting inherently leads to disappointment and, again, complaining. It makes them wonder, "if my vote helps anything, why am I being told I'm sure to be disillusioned and complain?"

3. Sometimes, it makes no sense to complain even if you did vote. For example, in 2012 I voted for President Obama. Later, I was very much against his decision to militarily involve the US in Syria. But, how could I complain? I helped put him in office. My vote helped keep him in the job!

Voting is a right we mustn't take for granted. But, like fear mongering or guilt tripping, some tactics we use to promote that right do more harm than good. Some talking points don't make much sense: we've repeated them so often without really thinking about them. If voting is so important - and it is - our efforts to persuade others to take part in the process mustn't be anchored by angry, shopworn expressions.

* - My vote for Obama only contributed to his re-election in theory - the popular vote doesn't matter much in Presidential elections as long as the Electoral College exists.

Why I'm Going To Name My Son Charles Manson

It's no revelation that parents live vicariously through their children. One of the ways they do so that we don't often realize is in the process of naming the child. I think many parents want to give their child a name they wish they'd been given, or at least one less boring than theirs. This is how the planet has wound up with girls named Whisper Wildflower Smith and their brother TroyAikmanFordTundra Jones. Some parents get more inventive and make up a name, giving us the abundance of MacKinzileighs and Brylaylees in the world. And, sometimes, parents have a sadistic streak and want to punish the fetus with a "traditional" name spelled woefully "uniquely" so that the child will grow up with the burden of constantly correcting people: Khourtni, K'Leigh and Thhommass have my sympathy.

(Take this with a grain of salt, as my name is Bud Sturguess, which I've often said sounds like the name of a backwoods worm salesman who runs a secret polygamist cult in his basement.) 

Speaking of parents punishing their children, I've said many times that in His grace God often won't punish us for our sins, but we have no qualms about making others pay for them, This is best exemplified in parents who abandon, neglect and abuse their children, or pass them from relative to relative, guardian to guardian, leaving the child prone for more mistreatment and abuse. In an overwhelming amount of cases, the child grows up feeling unloved and unimportant, and therefore sees the world and everything in it as lacking love or importance, or not being worthy of such. Just the way they were shaped to think by abusive wretches.

This is the case with many notorious criminals and killers in our world. There's no shortage of infamous names associated with depravity and violence whose upbringings were marred by neglect, sexual abuse, and a wealth of other things to which no child should be subject.

A man who often talked about how much he loved children and bemoaned the world's treatment of them - though usually as a dodge to answer questions about his crimes - was Charles Manson, perhaps the most recognizable name in American murder history. There was no doubt Charles Manson was a madman, a remorseless and deluded man who killed and ordered others to kill out of a desire for control over others, and a warped vengeance and hatred for the world he felt had shunned him.

But Charles Manson, murderer and cult leader as he became, was once a child. And like a vast number of adults who develop bloody world views like his, his childhood was rank with abuse and neglect. He was even called "No Name" by his mother, a teenage prostitute, before being given the name Charles, and the surname Manson, after a man to whom his mother was briefly married (who his biological father was remains a definitively unresolved question). In any case, the elder Manson soon disappeared from the young Charles' life. When he was in the custody of his mother, who was in and out of jail, they lived in run-down motel rooms with her male acquaintances, all of them heavy drinkers, until she decided she'd had enough of Charles and allowed him in the hands of a school for boys. When Charles was twelve, he ran away from the school, back to his mother, but she didn't want him. His teenage life was thereafter filled with crimes from petty theft to auto theft. As an adolescent he told the wardens of these jails that he didn't want to leave, feeling there was nothing and no one for him outside the prison walls. As he entered adulthood, Charles Manson's crimes became more and more serious, his jail sentences lengthier and lengthier. 

We know how that life of crime culminated to its bloodiest and most shocking heights in 1969.

It would be presumptuous of me to claim that if Charles Manson had had a stable upbringing he'd have never become the person he became. After all, Ted Bundy had a relatively normal childhood. But there is no doubt that treating a child in such a loveless and cold manner shapes his or her view of the world, and of themselves, and Manson's own words in his many crazed and furious interviews reflect this. Even if he hadn't become the leader of a murderous cult, there's no doubt Charles Manson was shaped for a life of crime. 

The blame doesn't lie with his mother - only with Charles. But his mother did punish her child for her sins. Charles Manson never had a chance in this world from the day he was born. 

When King David of Israel committed adultery with Bathsheba and subsequently conspired to have her husband killed, the name of the prophet who uncovered his sin and rebuked him was Nathan. When we read the genealogies of David and of Jesus, we see that one of David's sons was named Nathan. I can't help but think that each time David called Nathan's name, he was stung by the memory of what he'd done, of the life he destroyed by his lust and selfishness. The name must have been a heavy reminder for the king. Painful, even. And that's not always a bad thing.

So, despite not being great with kids, and despite being unable to produce any of my own due to a particularly hellacious game of Twister in 2013, I've resolved to name my son, if I ever have one, Charles Manson Sturguess (pending wife approval - I suppose I'll need to find one of those, too).
I want to be reminded every time I call his name, every time I tell him to get down off of the furniture, every time I tell him I'm proud of him, every time I tell him I'm disappointed in him, every time I tell him he can be a great man someday, that I have a responsibility to give this kid a chance. To give him everything he needs to survive, but also everything he needs to thrive, to be reminded he's loved, cherished, and irreplaceable. I want to remember the Charles Manson who had none of these things, so that it will never leave my heart to treasure my Charles Manson.

I'm not one who believes in teaching children they're inherently "amazing." I would teach my child that he or she (Charlotte Manson, I suppose) is one of a kind and show them they're loved abundantly, but until they cure Alzheimer's or invent some innovative longer-lasting urinal cake, I won't teach them they're "amazing" by simply being themselves. But even if Charles Manson Sturguess grows up to be a garbageman - which is a noble profession, so drop your elitism - and no astronaut or world leader, I hope that I will have done my best to teach him even in his humble position that he is loved. That he is valued by God, by his parents, by others around him. That Jesus gave His life for him. I hope that I will have done my best to teach him that no matter how bland or average he may see himself, there is only one of him - God made only one Charles Manson Sturguess, just as He made only one Charles Manson. I hope that the name given to him will remind me to encourage and teach him to teach him to use his life, no matter how drab or how fascinating it may be, to make wise choices, to use his breath and time for good and not for evil.

If it takes naming him Charles Manson to remind myself in the most heated and frustrated moments of parenting that I'm responsible for loving, cherishing, and shaping this human being, so be it. Maybe someday your neighborhood garbageman will be Charlie Sturguess. Or, maybe the fifty-fifth President of the United States will be remembered in history books as Charles M. Sturguess (glossing over the Manson part for the same reason Barack Obama never went by Barack Hussein Obama).

In either case, in either profession, I hope to give him the chance that so many never had. And may his name remind me of those who weren't given the chance. And if I never have a son, may God lead me to do more for children who are in the same position Charles Milles Manson was when he too was just a lonesome, loveless child.