A couple of days ago, a north Georgia buddy sent a message from God via Facebook messenger. My buddy claims he was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, attended the University of Alabama, met and married a Birmingham, socialite and ended up becoming a member of the upper crust Birmingham Country Club, until a divorce ended that chapter and set him on his journey, which wended its wonky way through Atlanta, then into north Georgia, where he hit his stride and eventually met a pretty gal who said she would marry him but she was not going to live in his trailer. The rest of the story perhaps is for another time, other than to say, after I met him in north Georgia, in mid-2001, we quickly became good friends, and sometimes he referred to himself in correspondence as Na Ga Hick:
Redneck Mystic:
Redneck Mystic replied:
I wonder, amigo, if God authored it through a person, or a person authored it without God's input? I wonder, there is a whole lot of praising God in Christendom's churches, it went on a lot in your nearby Methodist church, it goes on a lot in Muslim and Jewish churches. However, my experience is where the rubber really meets the road with God is how people live. If they live in keeping with God's ways, that praises God. If they give God credit for their station, instead of, like Nebuchadnezzar did, claim credit for themselves, that praises God. If they are grateful to God for what they have, that praises God. If they live as Jesus lived and taught, that praises God. But if they praise God, but behave as if they never heard of God, or of Jesus, is that a bit perilous? As Jesus' brother James wrote in one of his letters in the New Testament: Ask him not about his faith, but look to his works and there see his faith.
Na Ga Hick:
Na Ga Hick:
I believe firmly it is about how we live and faith that praises God and let’s us feel God and the Holy Spirit working in our lives. God bless you my dear friend!
Redneck Mystic:
Redneck Mystic:
Got to thinking, amigo, of all the times I was accused of being crazy for talking about God, angels and demons, yet such talk is heard pretty much every Sunday in Christian churches. Have my civil rights been violated? Heh.
Na Ga Hick:
Na Ga Hick:
Now would be a good time for your legal background to kick in. My layman’s opinion is that since you showed symptoms there of and suffered no damages as a result of, there is no probable cause to pursue such action!
Redneck Mystic:
Redneck Mystic:
I suppose it might not have helped my defense, if I said I thought my accusers were out of touch with reality and they were who was crazy.
Na Ga Hick:
Na Ga Hick:
Only if you hired a lawyer that had a PhD in psychology and you could claim you were Silas Mariner !
Redneck Mystic:
Redneck Mystic:
Alas, every psychologist I met seemed out of touch with reality, as I understood it, so I'd be left representing myself. Okay with that in God's courtroom, not so much in human courts and forums. Heh.
Na Ga Hick:
Do ink block test and let that be Exhibit A. And I will raise my “left” hand and swear under oath to my opinion of your sanity as I am an expert on you and the matter as you have lived with me and I have off and on been in psychotherapy for 40 years!Na Ga Hick:
Redneck Mystic:
My writings are my ink blot test, tens of thousands of pages. God is who decides if I am crazy. But then, when I lived in Boulder, Colorado, I published a little book called A CRAZY PERSON PERSON'S BIBLE. I had maybe 2,000 copies printed in all. Put them out in a box at Pearl Street Mall for anyone to take for free. They all disappeared. Most of it came to me spontaneously, word at a time. One little piece was something like:
Although he tries to love God, he has a hard time doing it because all of the crazy things God puts him through, and all the crazy things God asks him to do, such as love people who aren't nice to him. Thus he concluded, the only way to love God is to be crazy!
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com