Playing House And Playing Victim

Written on the third anniversary of the day when I proposed marriage to my Janalee, who now has a Heavenly mansion to dwell in--close to my first wife's mansion, there in the Kingdom where there is no rivalry or jealousy.

Long ago, around the time I got married to my Mary, there was a vacant house across the street from the formerly-vacant house we were homesteading under a city program. The owner of this unused house was hoping to rent it to someone. What he got was fifty percent of what he was looking for: that is, he got all of the burden and none of the reward. What happened was that a homeless family literally BROKE INTO the house, just like burglars, and began helping themselves not only to shelter, but also to heat, light and water that were being paid for by the owner.

The owner of the house hated to turn poor people out on the street, so he WENT ON paying for these utilities, which he could have cut off--much as the government of Israel in recent times has shown mercy to the very Palestinians who shoot rockets at them from Gaza, by NOT instantly cutting off their electrical power supply. The house owner, however, was so evil and mercenary and wicked and inhuman as to ask if the thieves using his property might consider paying him rent.

When months had passed with no rent forthcoming from the thieves, the owner of the property finally decided that he had given them a free ride at his own unrewarded expense long enough. So he called on the police to evict the long-term burglars. That's when the real fun started.

The liberal establishment in our city immediately erupted in furious outrage against this EEEEEE-vil, GREEEEE-dy landlord who had so cruelly turned out his poor "tenants." That's right, the thieves were spoken of as "tenants." The leftwing establishment was careful not to mention the inconvenient fact that the squatters
WERE NOT tenants, that they were nothing but burglars in the very truest sense of the term. It made a better story for the owner of the house to be dressed in a Snidely Whiplash outfit, complete with top hat and cape. The thieves, being white American citizens, didn't have the race card to play; but the class-envy card was enough to make them innocent victims. They weren't evil right-wing capitalists, so they could not be wrongdoers, that wouldn't fit the script.

As I say, this happened a long time ago. Enough time has passed that the children of that family may by now be doing their own break-ins just like Mom and Dad. But I've been reminded of the incident because of recent mortgage problems nationwide.

Now, I've never pretended to be an economics expert. My grown daughter (who, with her husband, actually PAID FOR the place where they live) works for a credit union, and understands far more than I do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But I don't need to be a degreed economist to notice a slant in the public discussion. When home-buying is the subject, almost all I ever hear is how EEEEE-vil the sellers and lenders are. I don't deny that there are crooked businessmen and heartless rich people; my Mary came up against privileged, pampered crooks in a different context in the course of her honorable career as a nurse. But I know for a certainty that
there's ALSO such a thing as irresponsible behavior by some buyers, borrowers....and thieving squatters.

If you insist that the EEEEEE-vil rich people by themselves constitute the entire and complete explanation of the mortgage crisis, then you're not really looking for a complete explanation; you're only looking for a convenient villain, and you figure
that "Thou shalt not steal" should only be binding on the wealthy whom you want people to envy.

Saturday's memorial service in Colorado went well.

People who had only met Jan--and therefore had come to love her--in her last year on Earth, got the chance to find out more about her life previous to Colorado. Not so entirely new to Jan, and paying their respects, were my daughter Annemarie with her husband Anthony Martinez, and my cousin retired USAF General Wayne Schultz with his wife Susan. One person among those present whom I had _not_ met before was a young mother named Dawn, who had received the last one of the baby blankets Jan had knitted to give away via our church (along with a mitten set). Dawn showed us her treasures, mementoes of Jan, and told me that she had at least glimpsed Jan on several occasions when Jan was volunteering in the church's childcare space.

Although I lack the technique to post pictures directly onto this weblog, a kindly brother in Christ has made it possible for me to provide a link to the last photo of Jan ever taken in mortal life. The very timing of this picture even occurring revealed God's merciful providence, ensuring that there would be a very recent image to let those who love Jan remember her in a happy time.

http://royalmagi.org/janjoe.jpg


After all, we can't look straight up into Heaven from here and behold Jan as she is NOW--apart from the one dear girl who was given the vision of Jan seated at ease up there. But while all trace of illness, pain or aging will now be gone from Jan's immortal features, her same lovely smile will doubtless be recognizable.

God's Gestures Of Consolation Are Diverse

Lots of mail accumulated for me in Colorado while I was in Illinois and points east. upon coming home and picking it up, I found many kindly cards. One was especially intriguing.

It was from a Colorado address, and the sender was a woman I had never heard of. So a thought came to me: "Wouldn't it be neat if this person turned out to be one of
the impoverished young mothers for whom Jan made baby garments under the auspices of our church?"

Then I opened the envelope, and that's _exactly_ what it was. The woman told of receiving a blanket Jan had knitted, and said she would cherish it gratefully. A
piece of Jan's bread cast on the waters thus returns.

The picture on the front of the card featured a yellow butterfly. And on the long walk I took today, precisely at times when I had been thinking about the
heartwarming condolence card, two yellow butterflies at separate moments flew past close to me. This is the kind of occurrence I call "a postcard from Heaven;" and for
that matter, the first comforting "butterfly incident" I experienced after MARY'S passing also involved a yellow one. God likes to show patterns in events, letting us know that we are not struck in a coldly meaningless universe.

Fruit From A Fallen Grain Of Wheat Includes The Revival Of My Ability To Compose Music

Before I share the lyrics of the new song I've written, let me mention that God had a distinct reason for letting me seem to hear Jan calling my name as already described. It was leading up to something. On the Friday after Jan's homegoing, I received a sympathetic e-mail from a pastor's wife Jan and I had known in Maryland. In it, this good lady included Isaiah 43:1, in which God says to the believer, "I HAVE CALLED YOU BY NAME." That is just one of the ways in which God has come to my spirit's aid in this loss.

The following song was initially inspired by our use of a wheelchair during Jan's final earthly weeks. The part about the mountain and the breeze acknowledges another of God's signs of comfort. A teenage girl we were acquainted with, who had recently come to Jesus, was granted a mental image of Jan up in Heaven, sitting at ease on a cliff edge where she could look down and see me. My thanks to that sweet girl for sharing the vision with me; it is now the way my mind sees Jan. And the Scriptural phrase "Taste and see" came to mind because one of Jan's effects from her head injury in 2001 was a near-total loss of her sense of taste. The angels must now be bringing her hot-fudge sundaes, which now she CAN taste.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

"LADY JANALEE WAITS"


Under dark brown hair, green eyes are aware
Of all others do to love and to care.
When I step away, she waits for me there;
I always have returned.
In her chair she waits, with trust on her face;
The carriage will come, to find her in place.
Her body so frail will feel my embrace,
My love once more confirmed.

Lady Janalee, you came to me
Afflicted by your burden;
When I met your need, I gained indeed,
Loved by a fellow servant.
I'm so glad we had our dance
While your strength remained;
Your sweet hands could knit romance
From the yarn of pain.

Maidens who are wise, as mentioned by Christ,
Will watch for the groom with oil for their lights.
And my love as well, through uneasy nights,
Is waiting for her King.
I can see the haze of pain in her gaze;
She needs help to walk; she totters and sways.
But almighty love has numbered her days,
And soon her soul takes wing.

Lady Janalee, your faith in me
Inspired me to be worthy.
Would that God on high would say just why
He called you home so early!
But it was your setting free,
Never your defeat.
Henceforth, there'll be fruit to see
From your grain of wheat.

Now the other side is home to my bride;
From there, ever since the day she arrived,
She can, when she likes, behold him who tried
To lighten her hard load.
On a mountain fair, with breeze in her hair,
She waits for the day when I'll be up there.
For now, Janalee can still offer prayer
To help me on the road.

Lady Janalee, eternity
Has been made even richer
Since your childlike heart became a part
Of Paradise's picture.
Taste and see that God is true,
Till I find you there;
Those green eyes will prove it's you,
Under dark brown hair.


(c) Joseph Richard Ravitts

God Has Taken ANOTHER Loved One Away From Me

This morning (Wednesday, 30 April) at about 10:25 a.m. Rocky Mountain Time, Janalee Ravitts, born Janalee Green, was launched up to Heaven from an emergency room in Aurora, Colorado. The cause of death was a massive heart attack, for which no warning signs of any sort had been detectable. In fact, only two days before, she had had a doctor's appointment in which her vital signs looked good. None of us knows when God will summon us to meet Him. But I do know that my Jan, like my Mary before her, went there clothed in the righteousness of her Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The biggest apparent problem Jan had been facing in her last earthly weeks had been her worsening mobility. The chronic headaches which had plagued her since well before I married her were at least somewhat under control, as she regularly took no less than six prescription medications in this connection. (Maybe those very medications were exhausting her heart, though I have no evidence that this was so.) In the area of sensory impairment arising from her brain injury in the car crash in 2001--in fact, EXACTLY seven years ago yesterday--she had been enjoying some "breakthroughs" of being able to taste and smell things. But her ability to walk was dramatically worsening, making her feel embarrassed to be seen outdoors. And she was losing enthusiasm for life; her appetite was less, and she was not so often eager to have me read books to her, though on her last afternoon she did have me read some to her (from Janette Oke's Christian novel "A Quiet Strength") in the bedroom where she lay.

Part of the walking problem was in her mind. Poor Jan had fallen down several times over the last two months, and a fear of falling was practically paralyzing her. I enrolled her for physical therapy--ironically, at Spalding Rehabilitation Hospital, where my Mary had once been an employee!--and I was experimenting with what was the best way I could hold her up walking. A side-by-side "promenade" stance was working best, as long as she had any strength left; but in the last few days, the only way she could move appreciably forward on her feet was while actually held in my arms, face to face, with me retreating before her. This was more and more turning into outright carrying her.

Yesterday, she said her legs were hurting--which at first I logically supposed was muscle cramping from the vigorous therapy of Monday afternon. But the real trouble was that, for reasons that were never determined, her left leg had swollen up hideously. I had her lie with the leg elevated, and called her physician to get the soonest possible appointment to examine it.

This morning was when she was supposed to be seen about the swelling. It gives me some little comfort to be able to say that, when Jan opened her eyes in bed this morning, she saw me right there beside her and smiled. After breakfast (cooked by me as usual), Jan said she wanted to brush her teeth. So I wheeled her in her wheelchair (bought only a matter of weeks ago) as far as our bedroom door, where I had to lift her out. As I was "embrace-walking" her toward the bathroom, Jan said to me, "I'm sorry I'm such a pain." I replied, "I'm sorry you are, too." Based on our many past conversations, she knew that I was not saying this to suggest that she was at all to blame for her disabilities. I went on: "But you can't help it. And I'll never stop loving you, because you're my sweetheart. A mobility-challenged sweetheart, but still my sweetheart." This pleased her.

I thank God that I did say this to her; because not long afterward I was nagging her on to make an effort to keep her feet under her, as I took her out of the wheelchair at our front door and tried to help her to the van, intending then to bring the wheelchair along. In our last two-way conversation on Earth, Jan said little else but "I can't!" As we reached the van, she could no longer keep her feet under her at all. I tried to place a lawn chair for her to rest on...but she was already sagging down like a wet sandbag...and then her eyes rolled back.

She did not die instantly, though. She coughingly breathed for a little while, not responding to anything I said. So I dialed 911 on my cellphone, then tried to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while awaiting the ambulance and paramedics. Saying that she was "agonal," they worked furiously over her on the driveway, then loaded her into the ambulance, in which I rode with them to the hospital.

A chaplain named David Reeves waited with me in a "quiet room." Then Doctor Robert Howe came in and told me that Jan's heart was totally non-functional, despite everything they could do. As soon as they gave up the CPR, she would die. But on the basis of his extensive medical experience, he assured me that Jan would be able to hear me if I came and spoke to her at once. I therefore went to where she lay, bristling with medical hardware, and said approximately these words:

"Jan, sweetheart, it's Joe. I hope you know I've tried to do what was best for you. I wish I could have done more. I'm sorry if I failed you in anything, but you know I love you. If there's anything you would have wanted to say to me, just remember it while you're waiting in Heaven; and you can say it to me when we're together again, in the place where there is no jealousy or pain." (The reference to jealousy was because Jan had sometimes been jealous of her predecessor Mary.) "I promise you I'll try to help comfort your family. Pray for us up there." Shortly after I said this, Jan was hearing another voice saying, "Welcome to Heaven, My dear child."

Doctor Howe was later to explain the evidence which proved people on the edge of death could still hear speech. Thus he promised he was not making it up when he insisted that Jan had heard my loving farewell. And he added that, veterans of life and death though he and his staff were, my words had moved them all to tears. (Perhaps this was a very early start in fruit being borne by Jan's grain of wheat fallen into the earth.)

Because I experienced chest pains after Jan passed away, they detained me at the hospital for EKG's, blood-enzyme work and X-rays. This was the first medical attention of any kind I had received since I retired from the Navy. Stuck at the hospital, but having with me both my cellphone and Jan's, I made many calls, mostly to Jan's family members. My cousin Wayne afterwards drove me home from the hospital--as I struggled with realizing that I would have to stop calling it "our" house. Then I was mobbed by sympathetic neighbors for a time, before I could commence my first session of talking to Jan in Heaven while seated in a lawn chair. As with Mary, I make no stupid attempts to conjure a REPLY by self-delusion. And yet..you never know.

Twice during my writing of this, I have felt certain I could hear Jan's voice calling me, as so often she would call me away from the computer when she needed something. So each of those times, though I didn't think it was actually Jan speaking, I went up to the bedroom and spoke to Jan for awhile. The days to come will be chaotic; but I will speak to Jan again.

I often used to fear that Jan, in her vulnerability, might end up dying a long and miserable death in some disaster. But she has been spared from that; her departure was quick and sudden. I wish that she were still here. But I remember how she used to say she wished she were normal; and now, she's BETTER than normal. I also wish I had a recording of her singing in her sweetly childlike voice; but when I see her in Heaven, I'll ask her to sing in that voice for me before she goes back to her angelic voice.

Sharing A Lesson In How Logic Works

I wrote this up for the benefit of a young
person whom I'd been helping with schoolwork.

=======================================

Did anyone ever teach you what a syllogism is? It is the basic pattern that all logic HAS TO follow. It is used by all intelligent minds all the time, whether or not they know it's CALLED a syllogism.

It consists of three parts:

1) A Major (or "First") Premise, presenting some truth which is assumed to be true and reliable.

2) A Minor (or "Second") Premise, providing some fact connected with the Major Premise.

3) A Conclusion, reached by putting the Premises together. Note that if a syllogism is done right, but one or both of the premises are false, the conclusion will also be false--and yet still be logical!

Here is an example of a syllogism which is both factually true and properly logical:

Major Premise: All insects are invertebrates.

Minor Premise: All butterflies are insects.

Conclusion: All butterflies are invertebrates.

Here is an example in which the logic moves correctly, but there is a mistake about facts:

Major Premise: All Africans have green hair.

Minor Premise: Robert is an African.

Conclusion: Robert has green hair.

And now for a syllogism in which both premises are factually true, but the conclusion is illogical because the premises did not do a good enough job of defining the situation:

First Premise: Some women are psychologists.

Second Premise: Some psychologists are men.

Conclusion: Some women are men.

Syllogisms, like drugs and guns, can be used for good or evil. Far too many men in history have lived their lives based on the following syllogism, which IS LOGICAL, but whose premises are lies:

Major Premise: A superior being has a right to enslave an inferior being.

Minor Premise: Women, by being women, are automatically inferior to men.

Conclusion: Men have a right to enslave women.

We need more men, and women, to follow THIS syllogism instead, one whose premises are true statements and whose conclusion is perfectly logical:

Major Premise: Jesus Christ deserves to have His example followed.

Minor Premise: Jesus Christ routinely practiced kindness and generosity.

Conclusion: We should routinely practice kindness and generosity.

Draining Away Hope Is Worse Than Drinking Blood

17 April 2008:

The Sci-Fi Cable Channel has long been misnamed. It seems
always to have had more horror and occult programming
than science fiction. So how optimistic should we be that
a movie selected for showing on the Sci-Fi Channel, when
it uses a paraphrase of Hebrews 2:14-15, is actually
acknowledging the promise that Jesus Christ can set us
free from the fear of death? Oh, I guess about as
optimistic as we should be about the killer Jason
really staying dead at the end of one of the
"Friday the 13th" movies.

To check on this, let's drop in on two supporting
characters in the Clive Barker horror movie "The
Plague," which I just saw tonight on Sci-Fi. This
movie is maybe the five or six hundredth "Everybody's
turning into zombies" movie. The two men we're
looking at are hiding out from the zombies inside
a deserted church. Not that they expected any help
from God, or have been given any cause by the writer
to expect help; the pastor of the church was caught
outside by the zombies a few scenes earlier--and
the writer made a heavy-handed point of having the
pastor die an especially cowardly death, screaming
and blubbering more than most of the victims did.

One of the men inside the church has rummaged around
to see if there's anything to eat. When he finds
something, the other man asks, "What have you got?"
The first man says, "Body of Christ--want some?" Ha
ha, wink wink, nudge nudge, those Christians were
sure stupid to trust God, weren't they? Indeed, not
only explicit faith in God, but all the virtues which
naturally accompany faith--love, loyalty, courage,
kindness--are made into doormats for the zombies to
wipe their shuffling feet on. Most of the movie
simply consists of the still-human characters being
picked off one after another, like bugs being eaten
by a long-tongued frog, with all of their efforts
to save themselves OR save others accomplishing
NOTHING except to prolong the agony.

Now you know how much of a legitimate interpretation
of Hebrews 2:14-15 to expect in a Clive Barker movie.
In a feeble attempt to elevate the story a few inches
above "ordinary" hack-em-up films, the hero is made
to ponder a "profound" message which is a revision--
or evisceration--of the Scripture passage. Anything
about Jesus is removed (kind of the way Jesus was
removed from the "Touched By An Angel" series,
come to think of it), and the message is that
somehow fear will be overcome by "offering one's
soul" to the zombies. I'd be more inclined to
suspect that it's Clive Barker who has offered
his soul to the wrong purchaser; but anyway, in
the movie, the hero giving himself up to the
zombies looks like it sort of appeases them--
leaves them apparently in charge of the world,
small detail, but sort of appeases them. As an
inspiring, uplifting conclusion, this does not
rise very far above "Night of the Living Dead."

It seems to me that a story like this--and it is
SO very much NOT unique in today's popular culture
--invites the audience to come away with any one
of several attitudes, all of them as hostile to
Christian belief as the writer himself manifestly
is. Some viewers will come away feeling at ease
that there won't be any zombies coming in the
windows after bedtime --not because they believe
in God, but because they don't really believe
in anything outside their familiar mundane life.
Others will come away consciously or subconsciously
thinking, "Death itself, without needing monsters,
will take all of us eventually, just as those
characters in the movie were taken; so let's
party and fornicate while we can." Still others
will come away not so much thinking about the
zombies, as thinking about God having done
absolutely nothing to help the doomed human
characters--thus feeling, in C.S. Lewis' phrase,
"angry at God for not existing." And (while I
never did hold with the claims that seeing some
bloodshed on a TV or movie screen automatically
fills the viewer with an eager lust to kill
people in reality) a few moonbats in the
audience will doubtless fantasize about BEING
zombies or other undead sorts themselves.

What all these options have in common, of course,
is that all of them are calculated to exclude
from consideration any hope of benevolent
intervention, in this life or any other, by
a personal and righteous Creator.

Hell has been imagined as having a sign at its
entrance which reads "ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO
ENTER HERE." With so much existential despair
being touted as entertainment, a sign might be
displayed right on Earth, saying "THE ABANDONMENT
OF HOPE IS ENTERING HERE." Merely depicting lots
of people getting violently killed is nothing
compared to transmitting a message that their
lives counted for nothing anyway. "Braveheart"
had many scenes of bloody killing, but ITS ending
was uplifting and filled with hope.

I recently chatted with a buddy of mine named
Tim Stoffel about another offering on the Sci-Fi
Channel: their new and extremely revisionist
version of "Battlestar Galactica." I would never
have thought I could nostalgically miss the heavily
piled-on Mormon propaganda of the original
"Galactica" series, till I saw the new version.

The old series at least allowed us to believe that
love and courage were not a pitiful joke, that good
could win against evil. The new series yanks this
belief away from us even as it takes rayguns away
from the heroes and leaves them with only bullet-
guns. In this new series, everybody spends each
episode stumbling around, getting lost, panicking,
doubting, quarrelling, complaining, giving up,
deserting friends, losing their purpose--anything
BUT winning against evil. And even the identity
of the evil to be fought gets blurred, as the
Cylons (and this is actually the biggest change)
have been redefined: no longer of non-human
origin as in the old series, but having been
created by the human race itself. This is almost
certainly a scarcely-even-disguised restating
of the fashionable far-left falsehood that
"America has no right to be against Muslim
terrorists, because it was America and its evil
oil companies that CREATED the terrorist groups."
If you can't get people to give up entirely all
hope that it is possible to beat the bad guys,
then try to convince them that they don't DESERVE
to be able to beat them. ("LEXX," a past series
on the Sci-Fi Channel, spent its final season
pounding away at similar America-bashing.)

I could go on exploring the sales pitches of despair.
For instance, Joss Whedon with his good-guy-vampire
series "Angel," ending by killing off almost ALL the
good guys including the title character, while making
a point of telling us that their deaths do NOT achieve
any lasting gain for the side of good. (Note that my
objection is not to having a self-restrained vampire
be the good guy, but to saying then that his efforts
to help innocent people accomplish so little.) More
importantly, though, I have to ask myself: who gains,
and what DO they gain, from promoting so much pessimism?

Conscious motives of the writers and producers of
despair stories (maybe a better term nowadays than
"horror stories") are probably as diverse as those
assorted possible reactions to the Clive Barker movie.
I don't think that the directors all get together in
a secret hideout and lay plans together to destroy
faith, hope and love. I am, however, quite certain
that no one making movies and shows like these is
particularly trying to PROMOTE faith, hope and love.
And in the shadows behind them, or maybe the shadows
among them, there definitely is a presence which
wants to extinguish light and strangle hope...at
least, to eliminate the REAL hope of humanity.

People just cannot function without some kind of
hope. So an evil power which denies our hope in
Christ is not likely to stop with a mere denial.
Rather, it will surely get around to OFFERING what
it CALLS hope--only, a hope not founded in Christian
truth, or even in healthy pre-Christian ideals. We
will be increasingly urged to join the People's
Collective, or to embrace Mother Gaia, or to walk
around every maze we can find, or to stand in front
of mirrors worshipping ourselves. Any false hope
will do, as long as people DON'T remember the true
hope. Best of all, from the evil power's viewpoint,
would be our supposing it does some good to offer
our souls to the zombies.

I can feel now, quite forcefully, what C.S. Lewis
was feeling when he said that writing "The Screwtape
Letters," useful though that book has been to many
Christians, made him feel he was in a world filled
with "dust and grit, thirst and itch." I feel
somewhat the same after finishing the above
paragraphs; I do not at all regret writing them,
but the problem I was compelled to describe has
left a bad taste. So I won't let the crushers of
hope have the last word. Instead, I'll remind you
of what the last of the original Apostles tells
us in First John 1:5: "This is the message we have
heard from Him and declare to you: God is light,
and in Him there is no darkness at all."

Those are words to turn to for hope, when liars
and fools try to make us think it's darkness that
is all-powerful.


P.O.1 Joseph Richard Ravitts, U.S.N. Ret.

Ut fidem praestem in difficultate!