If My Blog Stinks (repost)

On this blog, I do my best to REPRESENT.  I want you, dear reader, to see JESUS, not so much in me or on this blog, but in that bum you drive past on your daily commute, that bag lady down by your corner Starbucks, that dumpster diver in your alley.  And without the capability of emitting a sense of smell through the website, I must make myself metaphorically stink like Jesus (“the aroma of Christ”) in your nostrils.

I spent an hour talking to a man on the street corner downtown by St. Benedicts a couple of years ago who must have urinated in his pants a dozen times at least.  He was a hardcore alcoholic.  Was drunk at the time when we spoke, but I could not smell the alcohol over the piss.  The smell was overwhelming.  Thank God Lubbock is a breezy place!  I talked with the guy fighting back the urge to hurl while my eyes watered and shed tears.

I mentioned the smell of an untreated psych patient who showed up for shelter one night during a snowstorm (back before the Premier Homeless Church stopped hosting on such nights, and thus before they kicked me out for insisting they continue).  If you are interested in that post, HERE is a link.  This dude may well have crapped his pants.  I suspected that his matted hair probably had feces in it too.  His smell was TREMENDOUS!  And then he farted all night in the shelter too!

Just last year, I met a woman camping under the water tower down on 50th street across from the Market Street store.  I took lunch to share with her on that sticker patch, and when she sat up to visit with me, the body odor overwhelmed me.  I choked on that sandwich as we ate.  So badly I wanted to throw up, but kept stifling it for all I was worth.  She too, gave signs and symptoms of serious mental illness.  But it was sooooo important that I eat WITH Jesus there as Lubbock drove by on that busy street.  For she had been invisible to even my eye at first, and it wasn’t until a friend pointed her out that I saw her there in plain sight!

So, how do I stink on the internet?

(Glad you asked.)

I stink by lurking.  I leave my smelly comments on your provocative posts that so many of you don’t know what to do with.  I sense, in many cases, that you would rather I moved along.  Once in a while someone tries to shew me along, but usually I get the sense that I am like a lingering stale fart in the checkout line that no one openly mentions.

I write posts that are not well crafted works of literature.  I reuse photos over and over.  My blog is simple and not updated or “user friendly”.  I really don’t care if you find eye candy here.  I do not write trendy theological stuff that you can find in your coffee table Christian books.  When I talk about “having a personal relationship with Jesus”, I push the idea on you, dear home-owning Christians, that he is the bum (Matt. 25:40) knocking on your door (Rev. 3:20).  You can open up and have that relationship with him ANYTIME you really want to.  But as long as you just hold to some indefinable, warm, fuzzy, feeling in your heart, the Matthew-25:45 Jesus isn’t really impressed.

Yeah, I do not write here to comfort you in your American Dream, I write here to disturb you and hopefully get you to wake up and wrestle the Angel through the night.  That bum is OUT THERE in the cold while you snuggle on your pillow.  And then I aim to plant a seed of imagination in the soil of your contempt: That’s Jesus out there, and you could very easily invite him to your party!  There is NOTHING stopping you doing it!

And for most of you (however less so for an ever-growing few) that stinks.  And that is this prophetic message… earning a prophet’s wage.  But for the few seeking the narrow gate, it is the Aroma of Christ.