Disorder in The Church

October 20, 2004

Everybody, take note: The CommonPlace is up and running, and we need everybody's help. No, we do not want your money; we desire instead your gifts and talents. This thing is Christian Democracy in action, or paracongregationalist unity, and there is a seat in our parlour for every born-again man, woman, and child, before the fire. Let each one knit or crochet in the manner most suited to him, and in the end, God willing, we'll have a quilt large enough to cover and comfort half

The Daily Grind

the unchurched and unsaved world, keeping them warm and well-fed as they come to taste the kindnesses of Our Savior, and they, by seeing our good works toward themselves, might come to glorify our Father. Anybody got a problem with that?

We are broadcasting, now; and no idea for outreach is too wild, or beyond our print and internet cap-abilities. We desire your gifts and talents; we solicit your ideas. Got a heart for the lost? Come on over.

This is the ideal opportunity for everyone to practice his chops and hone his axe, although the only axe we have to grind is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Please join with us, please pray for us, please write for us, please participate with us, and let us see what we can do to bring the Good News to...Everybody!

DCA

September 28,2004

Boy, this color is gonna drive my art & design guys right up the wall. I think I'll add a row of golden asterisks:

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Crying Out To Be Said

Some things just cry out to be said: Like right now, my rat terrier is howling in his kennel. He's perfectly happy. It's just, as my wife said a little while ago, "the call of the wild". But he's gotta say it. Without irreverence, I'm thinking of the passage where "the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings too deep for words".

I know he's perfectly happy because, deeply disturbed by what sounded like wolves in the woods, I went to check on him a bit ago, let him out and into the back yard, and right away, with an Autumn moon pouring silver richness over the green grass gray in the night, we were involved in a torrid game of ball, as though it were high noon. Or morning. Or dusk. Or anytime the stars configure that dog, this man, and the backyard. That dog and that ball is just like the child "Pants" and my hatrack, or like Cosby's daughter in the old routine: "HaHaHa. Do it again."

So we went into the yard and the moon did its thing. The cool of evening was come, the dog was eager to please. My boy, after a desperate race to finish his chapter of a "Redwall" book before lights out, was asleep in the top tier of my boyhood bunk-bed; curled beside him was our cat, Cabbage (long a). My wife had turned in at 9:30. Smoky the Labrador Retriever was snoozing upon his cardboard in his solitary garage (he likes it that way). Leo the fiercesome bunny was desirous of hay, but not demandingly so; and acorns are even now pinging off the roof. Lasagna is on the stove, and Gatorade can be good to the point of vocal praise. And these things ought more often to be said. They cry out to be said. But we rarely say them. We often do not even notice them.

For example, earlier today I was on the phone with the neighbor lady, a Christian and my lone prayer ally on a cul-de-sac totally controlled by the Axis powers. She is a friend of but few weeks standing, and, for her information asked me who watches Joey while Diane is at work. "Why, nobody," I replied. "Diane works at the school he attends, and pretty much always has. In fact, the only time in his twelve-year history we've gotten a sitter was last Saturday, in order to attend a Founder's Day dinner for his school." "Well, what a blessing!" Neighbor Lady responded.

...Yes. Isn't it. Through all the years of normal life difficulties-money, too much to do and too little time, our repeated character failings, and so on, had we even once realized how good was the Lord to so arrange things that we should always be together, watching out for one another? No latch-key kid here. These things cry out to be noticed. Once we've noticed them, let us say them, and then return, like the lone leper did, and thank Him for it. If we are silent, the very stones will cry out, for the creation groans, and the Praise of the Creator just cries out to be said.

DCA

September 17,2004

It was P.G. Wodehouse, I believe, who describes a character as having "the demure look of a poet at the reading of his own works". I cannot call the reference to mind; but not even Wodehouse sketches for us the poet, breathing heavily as he looks over the shoulder of the passenger in the omnibus seat in front of him, who is reading that poet's work. Even Ralston McTodd is never depicted as so doing; primarily, of course, because McTodd himself is generally holding the volume, and reading aloud himself from his own works.

Behold, the Poet. I am having the delightful experience of watching my stat-counter log, as two people simultaneously navigate The CommonPlace, reading what is right now, for the most part, my own work. And I'm tempted to go about the place in fake nose and beard, asking strangers have they read yet that rising poet, David Coulson Adams. This web business is an awful lot of fun; and, if I were to cast my emotion into verse, I could only say,

"Across the pale parabola of joy..."

Ah, yes. One of them has clicked onto "Fog". Certainly numbered amongst my greater odes, for density of image, and subtlety of shading...This viewer perhaps is recalled to one of Spenser's hymns; and yet, the cleverness with which the poet insinuates Eliot shows a surety of touch perhaps unparalleled...Why is he clicking out? And after only fourteen seconds? Why, that is hardly time enough to savor the opening, and quite startling, simile. He's heading out to the WWF site! And without subscribing!

"I am a bat that wheels through the air of Fate;
I am a worm that wriggles in a swamp of Disillusionment;
I am a despairing toad;
I have got dyspepsia."

September 10, 2004

Hat

I know a boy, the fruit of the union of our Lead Artist and our Business Manager. He is called "Pants", and he is fifteen months old. I saw him at thehospital, soon after his birth, and I see him fairly regularly now. He comes over to our house, wandering around in his cute little shorts, a sharpish button-down short-sleeve, and extremely regular tennis shoes, the kind I wear, except mine are longer by seven inches or so. Altogether, very Oshkosh. He can point at our house cat, Cabbage, and say "Cat!". He toddles over to my hat-rack, points up to it, and says "Hat!".

Well, ten days ago, The CommonPlace was all red & blotchy, being toted by a nurse as our mother lay prostrate upon a bed of exhaustion. We're now wandering around, pointing at things, and saying "Hat!".

We hope to mature as rapidly as a fruit-fly, and be as longhearty as Moses or the Galapagos Tortoise. But some of that is a question for tomorrow, and the tomorrow after. So, if the Lord wills (and if He tarries), let us go into such-and-such a town and make money, per James 4:13. And in the meantime, let us be "putting on our little red shoes"(Van Morrison), the better to wander without the stubbed toe; and let us, as accurately as we can, point, and let us say, as fluently as we can for our age,

Hat!

David Coulson Adams

September 3,2004

A Salvation Army

But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly
For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be
concerned for your welfare. For they all seek after their own
interests, not those of Christ Jesus.

Phillippians 2:19-21, NASB

Like Paul in the passage, it occurred to me moments ago on the porch, I also have someone to send. I was thinking about a single mom I met recently. Her kids are in trouble. She at least has some familiarity with the Lord; but has no real Church involvement, no real Christian fellowship, and not yet a lot of Wisdom in the matters at hand. It so happens that I also recently met another woman, who lives in the vicinity, who is a married mom, with a believing household, very involved in a Living Church, and who has a passel of God's Wisdom. Amy (whose testimony will soon be up in our Autumn 2004 Issue, currently under development before your very eyes) was thrilled when I asked if I could get her Pastoral Uncle-In-Law to reach out to the single mom; and her words to me were, "I'll go over and visit her myself!".