I last posted about the Kony 2012 movement. It's been a little while, enough time to let me cool off so I can talk about this, so I thought I'd post something a little more personal than just Invisible Children propaganda.
When I posted about making Kony famous, my girlfriend was staying with my family in Florida for Spring Break. Jordan is, and always will be, a pro at seeing when I'm talking out of my butt. Only my mother surpasses Jordan's abilities, and that's only because she knows I am always talking out of my butt, but I digress.
As I was sitting on the couch, fuming and spitting fire about Kony's continued existence and how I wish he was dead, Jordan gently laid her hand on my arm and said, "Alan? Look at me." I hate when she does this. When she does this, I know I am about to find out that I am wrong. I hate finding out I'm wrong. So I didn't look at her, but instead kept glaring furiously at the information I was reading about the latest Kony activities. "Alan? Look. At. Me." Jordan has this super power where she puts periods after every word in a sentence and it makes my tummy sink and I know I'm in trouble. So I groaned and reluctantly looked her in the eyes and I remember she looked so sad. "Jesus would want you to love Joseph Kony," she said.
I knew immediately that she was right, but I was damned if I was going to admit it. So instead I said something snide and went back to looking at my computer screen. Jordan is so patient. But also very forceful, sometimes. She grabbed my face and spun my head to look at her again. "You need to love him. Jesus loves him." I knew there was no getting out of it. So I sighed and I laid my head on her shoulder and I mumbled things like "You're right," and "I'll try." I didn't mean any of it, though. I knew in my heart that if I was locked in a room with Joseph Kony and a pistol, it wouldn't take two seconds for me to make a decision. Heck, I wouldn't need a pistol. Give me a rusty spoon and I'd have my satisfaction. But a seed had been planted. It wasn't long before I'd be changing my tune.
It was Jordan's Facebook status that really did it. It wasn't anything new, just a repetition of what she'd said to me earlier. She posted, "Jesus loves Joseph Kony." I was smart enough to keep from posting anything in response. I'm sure I would have said something horrible and cruel and Jordan would have gotten her feelings so hurt... I'm just glad I kept myself from doing it. But anyway! I didn't need to post anything because someone else did first. A friend posted "That's right. He died for his sins," or something like that to which another friend responded, "Not necessarily."
Not necessarily? When I read that, something inside of me snapped. Of course Jesus died for his sins! He died for all sin everywhere at all times! His sacrifice defeated Satan completely! This is one of the most fundemental beliefs Christians share as a group! And that's when it hit me. Everything I was feeling right then was God speaking into my heart through my own faith. Jesus did die for Joseph Kony. Jesus does love him. Kony is just as capable of redemption as any one of us. His crimes against humanity are no more grevious in the eyes of God than my own crimes against heaven. These are things I knew in my heart to be true, but for the past few days I'd been ignoring that in favor of nursing what I felt was a righteous fury against Kony.
Now, as it turns out, the person who commented "Not necessarily," is a Covenant student who was learning about Calvinism and TULIP. TULIP is an acronym that represents the five basic beliefs of Calvinist christianity. The L in TULIP stands for "Limited Atonement."
"Limited atonement": Also called "particular redemption" or "definite atonement", this doctrine asserts that Jesus's substitutionary atonement was definite and certain in its purpose and in what it accomplished. This implies that only the sins of the elect were atoned for by Jesus's death. Calvinists do not believe, however, that the atonement is limited in its value or power, but rather that the atonement is limited in the sense that it is designed for some and not all. Hence, Calvinists hold that the atonement is sufficient for all and efficient for the elect.[10] The doctrine is driven by the Calvinistic concept of the sovereignty of God in salvation and their understanding of the nature of the atonement. -- Wikipedia.
It's complicated, but as simply as I can put it, Limited Atonement doesn't mean that some sins can't be forgiven, no sin is too bad to be forgiven, just that not everyone goes to heaven. Any person who chooses to trust in Jesus for salvation is forgiven, but because God is all knowing and outside of time, he already knows everyone who will choose to do this and he decided which ones would choose to do this. (The concept of an all powerful God and human free-will working together is extremely strange and some would say impossible. It's better to just accept it.) These people are called "the elect". Or that's the way I understand it. Joseph Kony may not be one of the elect, is what this person was saying.
As for me, I believe that Jesus died for all sins, even the sins of those who are not part of the elect. His sacrifice wiped the record clean for every human soul. Whether or not someone accepts this as truth determines if they do or do not recieve atonement.
Imagine if you will you're at the grocery store and a very rich man has come in and paid for all the groceries being bought that day so no one has to pay out of their own pocket. You go to the register and the cashier says, "Your groceries are paid for, you can go." You thank the cashier and take your free groceries and go. Someone else, though, is told the same thing but chooses not to accept the free groceries and is then forced to pay for them on their own. It's the closest metaphor I can think of. Jesus paid enough for everyone to accept the gift of atonement and redemption, but some choose not to and therefore are not the elect. This is why I disagree when someone says Jesus may not have died for a certain person's sin. He died for everyone, even Joseph Kony, and if Kony chooses to accept the free gift of grace he will be forgiven.
So now I can say honestly that, while I still have trouble loving Joseph Kony, I believe that if there was a person on this earth who could change everything by welcoming Jesus into his heart and proclaiming his love to the world, it would be the number one international criminal according to the UN. That's Kony, in case you're unfamiliar with him. Admittedly, he would have to suffer earthly punishments for his earthly actions, such as prison and execution, but his sins would be forgiven just as easily as my own have been forgiven. I really appreciate Jordan straightening that out in my mind. I most certainly would not want to shoot Kony in the face any more. He still needs to be brought to justice, though, and if that means execution then so be it. God's will be done, as it always is.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Making Kony Famous
Six years ago I first heard about Invisible Children. My youth pastor, an enormous man we called Papa Hiers, showed a video late one night at a church lock-in inside what was once a residential house our church had converted into the ultimate highschool hangout. It was a video about what was going on in Africa, in Uganda, and what the troubles in that area were like for the children. I heard Jacob's famous sob for the first time that night.
Jacob is a boy who befriended the young American teens who had traveled to Africa to see for themselves what was happening there. In one scene, he confides with this young group of idealistic Americans that he would rather be dead than continue to live in the every day horror of Ugandan childhood. He had seen his own brother chopped to bits with a machete. When he thinks of dying, and getting to see his brother again, he finally breaks down and is unable to continue speaking. The camera keeps rolling. The next few seconds of that film contain the most heartbreaking sounds I have ever heard. Jacob's grief is so intense, I remember vividly the first time I witnessed it on a flat screen TV sunk into the wall of an old house full of beanbag chairs and teenagers. I sobbed right along with him. That film changed me for life.
I have followed the events of Jacob's world as closely as I can for the past six years. Twice I have written extensive research papers on the topic of the Lord's Resistance Army, headed by the monster Joseph Kony. I have studied their tactics, their philosophy, and their brutality. Every single time I remember what my research revealed to me, I and brought to the verge of tears. Even now, I am having to stop myself from crying.
Kony and his lieutenants are as pure a force for evil as exists in the world today. They regularly attack, kill, maim, rape, cannibalize, and kidnap the people of their own homeland, forcing the daughters to be sex slaves and the sons to wield automatic weapons and machetes to destroy their own families. God help you if you are a homely girl, because those are the ones Kony uses for "murder practice," an act where he forces young boys to kill the girls with machetes to better prepare them for war. His soldiers are forced to ingest narcotics, forced to become addicted, so that they cannot run away without suffering from withdrawal. Every night, thousands upon thousands of children flee the countryside and retreat to the streets of whatever large city is nearby. Here the LRA is not a threat and will not be able to capture them. They huddle together in abandoned houses or public parks, hoping the police will not force them back out of the city where they are in danger of being captured. Teenage boys and girls, maturing for the first times in their lives, confused and scared, sleeping in the same place every night, often begin to experiment with their sexuality in dangerous ways. Contraception is a luxury none of them can afford or even know about. STIs and AIDS run rampant through the young population, as well as dangerous pregnancies that usually end in the death of the child, the mother, or both.
When Kony has used all his resources, he "surrenders" and demands aid. Once that aid has been rendered, in the form of clothing, food, and medical supplies, he sells the goods on the black market and purchases more armaments to keep his child army going. He has done this over, and over, and over again so that there appears to be no end in sight. The governements of Africa have proven ineffective at stopping him either because they lack the resources or because government officials find Kony to be a useful weapon against neighboring, rival governments and so choose to allow him to remain uncaptured. I have seen photos, read eye-witness accounts, and reviewed psychological evaluations that have torn me apart from the inside precisely because I knew that, while I wanted nothing more than to help these children, there was nothing I could feasibly do. All I could manage was to tell people and to share my righteous hate of everything Joseph Kony stands for and everything he is.
I am eternally grateful for the dedication the Invisible Children organization has shown these past six years. Because of them there are US troops in Uganda right now, advising the African military how best to capture Joseph Kony. Because of their use of social media, specifically Facebook, they showed the White House that we would not remain content with a man like Kony still on the loose anywhere in the world. The power of our combined voices was enough for the American government to sanction the deployment of our own soldiers to foreign soil to stop evil, true evil, in its tracks. Kony has been forced to change his tactics. We have him on the run. Invisible Children managed it with a Facebook page and the culmination of thousands of tiny donations from teens and young adults. We can't stop now.
The mission now is to make Joseph Kony famous. We've got to make sure his name is known across the nation so his evil will cause the American people to stand in protest of his very existence. Our government has the ability to stop this monster forever. All the White House needs is the people who give it power to demand that he be stopped. Invisible Children's successes up to this point prove that this is possible.
So for all you nay-sayers out there; I have a message. Your denial of your own power to affect change is merely a self defense mechanism so you don't have to feel bad about not doing anything. I know because I am like that every. Single. Day. But look! See the proof! See what has already been done. See how far we have already come. Stop your incessant pessimism, your pathetic attempts to crush us with poisonous words and derision. Stop fighting against the idea that we all have the power to do something! Embrace the principles that this country was founded on and use the great American weapon: Your voice! Make Joseph Kony famous and stop the madness of the Lord's Resistance Army. Join the movement right now, this instant. You don't have to buy a t-shirt or a bunch of posters and some bracelets. You don't have to make donations. Just believe! Believe that this is possible and spread the knowledge that Kony exists! It is always the right time to be a part of something bigger than yourself.
Make Kony famous in 2012!
Kony 2012 Youtube Video
Kony 2012 Facebook Page
Jacob is a boy who befriended the young American teens who had traveled to Africa to see for themselves what was happening there. In one scene, he confides with this young group of idealistic Americans that he would rather be dead than continue to live in the every day horror of Ugandan childhood. He had seen his own brother chopped to bits with a machete. When he thinks of dying, and getting to see his brother again, he finally breaks down and is unable to continue speaking. The camera keeps rolling. The next few seconds of that film contain the most heartbreaking sounds I have ever heard. Jacob's grief is so intense, I remember vividly the first time I witnessed it on a flat screen TV sunk into the wall of an old house full of beanbag chairs and teenagers. I sobbed right along with him. That film changed me for life.
I have followed the events of Jacob's world as closely as I can for the past six years. Twice I have written extensive research papers on the topic of the Lord's Resistance Army, headed by the monster Joseph Kony. I have studied their tactics, their philosophy, and their brutality. Every single time I remember what my research revealed to me, I and brought to the verge of tears. Even now, I am having to stop myself from crying.
Kony and his lieutenants are as pure a force for evil as exists in the world today. They regularly attack, kill, maim, rape, cannibalize, and kidnap the people of their own homeland, forcing the daughters to be sex slaves and the sons to wield automatic weapons and machetes to destroy their own families. God help you if you are a homely girl, because those are the ones Kony uses for "murder practice," an act where he forces young boys to kill the girls with machetes to better prepare them for war. His soldiers are forced to ingest narcotics, forced to become addicted, so that they cannot run away without suffering from withdrawal. Every night, thousands upon thousands of children flee the countryside and retreat to the streets of whatever large city is nearby. Here the LRA is not a threat and will not be able to capture them. They huddle together in abandoned houses or public parks, hoping the police will not force them back out of the city where they are in danger of being captured. Teenage boys and girls, maturing for the first times in their lives, confused and scared, sleeping in the same place every night, often begin to experiment with their sexuality in dangerous ways. Contraception is a luxury none of them can afford or even know about. STIs and AIDS run rampant through the young population, as well as dangerous pregnancies that usually end in the death of the child, the mother, or both.
When Kony has used all his resources, he "surrenders" and demands aid. Once that aid has been rendered, in the form of clothing, food, and medical supplies, he sells the goods on the black market and purchases more armaments to keep his child army going. He has done this over, and over, and over again so that there appears to be no end in sight. The governements of Africa have proven ineffective at stopping him either because they lack the resources or because government officials find Kony to be a useful weapon against neighboring, rival governments and so choose to allow him to remain uncaptured. I have seen photos, read eye-witness accounts, and reviewed psychological evaluations that have torn me apart from the inside precisely because I knew that, while I wanted nothing more than to help these children, there was nothing I could feasibly do. All I could manage was to tell people and to share my righteous hate of everything Joseph Kony stands for and everything he is.
I am eternally grateful for the dedication the Invisible Children organization has shown these past six years. Because of them there are US troops in Uganda right now, advising the African military how best to capture Joseph Kony. Because of their use of social media, specifically Facebook, they showed the White House that we would not remain content with a man like Kony still on the loose anywhere in the world. The power of our combined voices was enough for the American government to sanction the deployment of our own soldiers to foreign soil to stop evil, true evil, in its tracks. Kony has been forced to change his tactics. We have him on the run. Invisible Children managed it with a Facebook page and the culmination of thousands of tiny donations from teens and young adults. We can't stop now.
The mission now is to make Joseph Kony famous. We've got to make sure his name is known across the nation so his evil will cause the American people to stand in protest of his very existence. Our government has the ability to stop this monster forever. All the White House needs is the people who give it power to demand that he be stopped. Invisible Children's successes up to this point prove that this is possible.
So for all you nay-sayers out there; I have a message. Your denial of your own power to affect change is merely a self defense mechanism so you don't have to feel bad about not doing anything. I know because I am like that every. Single. Day. But look! See the proof! See what has already been done. See how far we have already come. Stop your incessant pessimism, your pathetic attempts to crush us with poisonous words and derision. Stop fighting against the idea that we all have the power to do something! Embrace the principles that this country was founded on and use the great American weapon: Your voice! Make Joseph Kony famous and stop the madness of the Lord's Resistance Army. Join the movement right now, this instant. You don't have to buy a t-shirt or a bunch of posters and some bracelets. You don't have to make donations. Just believe! Believe that this is possible and spread the knowledge that Kony exists! It is always the right time to be a part of something bigger than yourself.
Make Kony famous in 2012!
Kony 2012 Youtube Video
Kony 2012 Facebook Page
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The moral is: There is no moral.
Went to bed with a wicked headache last night.
Poor Jack had to deal with me being a whiney-butt the whole time. He usually sleeps with the TV on and the volume about average, but I've been forcing him to nearly mute it every night since I've been home. I usually let him leave it on but last night I was in such a mess I made him turn it off immediately. And then I tried to sleep.
Never in my life have I had so much trouble trying to fall asleep. I was exhausted, but my head felt like it was clamped in a vice and every possible sensory input was like being hit in the face with a hammer. Because the kitten can never make up her mind about where she wants to be in the house, we have to leave our door cracked or else she'll scratch on it until someone opens it for her. Also, we leave the light in the kitchen on in case someone has to get up for a drink of water. With the door cracked, the light from the kitchen shines directly in my face. Normally it isn't bright enough to be an issue, but last night it caused me excruciating agony. I tried an ice-pack over my forehead, but all that did was make my eyes feel like they were freezing which made the headache worse. Finally I surrendered and went to the kitchen to do what I never do.
I took medicine.
I hate swallowing pills. Especially when a headache is making me sick. I managed to get two acetaminophen tablets down without vomiting and went back to bed. For maybe another ten minutes my head was a raging belfry packed with insane ringing, and then the headache subsided enough for me to sleep.
That's when the nightmare came.
Gah what a twisted dream. It was vivid, which is not unusual for me, but this time it was also believable which made it infinitely worse. My family was at some kind of Walmart super store or something and we were shopping for groceries. We must have been in North Carolina because I knew we were on vacation. While we're shopping this old man, possibly homeless, in a wheel chair begins to follow my little brother around, asking him questions. I'm not too worked up at this point, so I just keep moving, making sure to keep an eye on Jack. The kid is 17 so he can handle himself. It's not like he's a prime subject for abduction or anything. Still, I keep an eye on him. Anyway, the old guy just keep pushing his wheel chair around the store, bumping into us over and over while we're shopping and he's always asking Jack questions about what we're shopping for and where we're from. Jack doesn't answer anything at all about where we're from. That's important.
Anyway, we check out and we're headed out of the store when I remember, I almost forgot to buy shoe laces. This part of the dream is creepily realistic because my sneakers really do need new shoe laces. So Dad sends Jack and I back in the store to go grab some shoe laces really quick and then come out to meet him at the car. The shoe laces are all the way in the back and while we're headed there, through the electronics section, the old guy in the wheel chair tries to ask Jack another question, but this time he grabs Jack's arm to stop him from walking away. That's when I lose it. I pull Jack away from the old guy and I shout at him to leave us alone, hoping to cow him into going away. I specifically remember my voice being almost like a weapon against him. While everything else being said in the dream was kinda muted and I really only understood because I was making up the dialogue myself, when I shouted it was clear and loud and almost sharp.
The old guy kinda backs off and Jack and I leg it to the back of the store. I start looking through the laces, trying to find a pair that will match my shoes and not be too short when all of a sudden the pack of laces I'm holding gets caught on something. I turn to my left to look and see what it is and it's the old guy in the wheel chair again. He's very close to me and he's got one end of the shoe lace in his fist. He tells me he wants to talk to me and he looks completely insane. I don't think to let go of the shoe lace. Instead I kick him as hard as I can which, it turns out, is not hard at all. For some reason I can't move fast enough to deliver a solid kick. It's like moving through water. So I shout again. This time it's a scream, really. I swear at him and call for help. My voice is even more powerful this time, echoing through the whole store. A few people show up and they pull the old man in his chair away from me but they don't really know what to think. It's just an old man in a wheel-chair, after all. How could he be hurting anyone? I try to explain it to them when from out of an aisle next to me come the Posey kids. All of them. Matt, Caleb, Sarah and Rachel.
Now, I have a huge amount of respect and love for these kids. They do all kinds of work with homeless ministries in St Augustine and they're so full of love for people who are down on their luck. Matt and Caleb even have friends on St George Street that are homeless and they'll strike up friendly conversations with them when we're walking past. It's great. But this time, I was horrified at how nice they started being to the old guy in the wheel chair.
Matt and Caleb try and talk to him but I pull them away as fast as I can. I'm trying to warn them about him when Rachel suddenly gets down on one knee and starts talking to the guy, her hand on his shoulder. I'm freaking out now. Rachel is the same age as my little brother and she's an amazing vocalist and is so full of the love of God that the idea of anything harming her or putting her in danger sets my teeth on edge. I push past Matt and Caleb, who still don't see anything dangerous in what's going on, and I grab Rachel by the shoulder to pull her away from the old man. He sees what I'm doing and that's when I realize he's got my knife.
I have a bright orange pocket knife that I carry sometimes in case I need a sharp edge. It's only maybe two and a half inches long, but that's really bigger than I need. Still, I keep it because it's useful. Well this homeless guy has it now. He must have picked it out of my pocket when he was holding the other end of the shoe lace or something. He flips it open and tries to slash at Rachel's throat. I pull her sideways so he ends up only giving her a cut across her upper arm. Matt and Caleb run to their sister, who is only bleeding a little bit, but I'm completely focused on the wheel-chair guy. He stands up and I see that the chair is just a sham so people will think less of him and won't think he's a threat. He comes at me with the knife and we grapple for a second and then I drop him like a ton of bricks. I don't know how I do it, I just knock the guy on his butt. The whole moving-through-water effect is gone. Then, in a fit of anger, I stomp on one of his feet until I've broken it. I guess I wanted him to be crippled in actuality. The knife in on the floor, still open, but he can't reach it because he can't walk now which, in dream logic, means he can't crawl either. Somehow his nose got broken too. So he's kinda just lying in a little pool of his own nose-blood, next to his wheel chair, and Jack and I start heading for the exit. I'm ready to start crying at this point.
Then the guy starts talking and Jack and I stop. I can't understand him too well because his nose is broken, but after a second I see he's holding my wallet. He must have picked that out of my pocket while we were fighting. He's reading my address out loud, city and state and everything. Then he looks at me and smiles his crazy smile and asks if everyone in my family is an organ donor. He asked the quesiton in such a malicious way I knew immediately that he was threatening all of us. So I pick up the knife off the ground and I jump on him, ready to thrust it into his eye. I raise the knife...
..and I wake up.
I have killed the monsters in my dreams before, but I'm never happy about it so I'm glad I woke up before I killed this guy. It was just so real. I still remember details, like how when I was walking through the electronics department toward the back of the store, I saw a box for the StarCraft battle chest on the shelf to my right. Also, there were iPhone accessories to my left. The shoe laces were grey and red, like the shoe laces on my big hiking boots that I don't wear any more. Caleb was wearing that beanie he always wears and Rachel was wearing a plain white t-shirt. Matt had on a red flannel shirt. The wheel chair was blue vinyl and chromed steel, just like the chair my grandfather used before he died. The crazy guy was wearing a big, baggy grey jacket like the one hanging in my closet. His foot sounded like a stick breaking when I stomped on it. Also, oddly, although the knife actually cut Rachel, there was no blood on it when I picked it up to stab the guy. I even remember the face of the cashier girl who checked our family out before I went back for the shoe laces. She had brown eyes and hair and a cute nose. She was maybe 18 years old. Her hair was in a pony tail with a red hair tie. She wore a green vest.
Sometimes I can pull a sort of meaning out of the dreams I have, like "Don't eat so many donuts" or "Run serpentine when being chased by a rabid dog" but this time I've got nothing. "Stab crazy old wheel-chair guys in the face before they do it to you first"? I don't think that's a valid moral. I guess "Don't go to sleep with a bad headache" might apply, but that's pretty weak. I've got nothing honestly. I just hope I never have that dream again.
Poor Jack had to deal with me being a whiney-butt the whole time. He usually sleeps with the TV on and the volume about average, but I've been forcing him to nearly mute it every night since I've been home. I usually let him leave it on but last night I was in such a mess I made him turn it off immediately. And then I tried to sleep.
Never in my life have I had so much trouble trying to fall asleep. I was exhausted, but my head felt like it was clamped in a vice and every possible sensory input was like being hit in the face with a hammer. Because the kitten can never make up her mind about where she wants to be in the house, we have to leave our door cracked or else she'll scratch on it until someone opens it for her. Also, we leave the light in the kitchen on in case someone has to get up for a drink of water. With the door cracked, the light from the kitchen shines directly in my face. Normally it isn't bright enough to be an issue, but last night it caused me excruciating agony. I tried an ice-pack over my forehead, but all that did was make my eyes feel like they were freezing which made the headache worse. Finally I surrendered and went to the kitchen to do what I never do.
I took medicine.
I hate swallowing pills. Especially when a headache is making me sick. I managed to get two acetaminophen tablets down without vomiting and went back to bed. For maybe another ten minutes my head was a raging belfry packed with insane ringing, and then the headache subsided enough for me to sleep.
That's when the nightmare came.
Gah what a twisted dream. It was vivid, which is not unusual for me, but this time it was also believable which made it infinitely worse. My family was at some kind of Walmart super store or something and we were shopping for groceries. We must have been in North Carolina because I knew we were on vacation. While we're shopping this old man, possibly homeless, in a wheel chair begins to follow my little brother around, asking him questions. I'm not too worked up at this point, so I just keep moving, making sure to keep an eye on Jack. The kid is 17 so he can handle himself. It's not like he's a prime subject for abduction or anything. Still, I keep an eye on him. Anyway, the old guy just keep pushing his wheel chair around the store, bumping into us over and over while we're shopping and he's always asking Jack questions about what we're shopping for and where we're from. Jack doesn't answer anything at all about where we're from. That's important.
Anyway, we check out and we're headed out of the store when I remember, I almost forgot to buy shoe laces. This part of the dream is creepily realistic because my sneakers really do need new shoe laces. So Dad sends Jack and I back in the store to go grab some shoe laces really quick and then come out to meet him at the car. The shoe laces are all the way in the back and while we're headed there, through the electronics section, the old guy in the wheel chair tries to ask Jack another question, but this time he grabs Jack's arm to stop him from walking away. That's when I lose it. I pull Jack away from the old guy and I shout at him to leave us alone, hoping to cow him into going away. I specifically remember my voice being almost like a weapon against him. While everything else being said in the dream was kinda muted and I really only understood because I was making up the dialogue myself, when I shouted it was clear and loud and almost sharp.
The old guy kinda backs off and Jack and I leg it to the back of the store. I start looking through the laces, trying to find a pair that will match my shoes and not be too short when all of a sudden the pack of laces I'm holding gets caught on something. I turn to my left to look and see what it is and it's the old guy in the wheel chair again. He's very close to me and he's got one end of the shoe lace in his fist. He tells me he wants to talk to me and he looks completely insane. I don't think to let go of the shoe lace. Instead I kick him as hard as I can which, it turns out, is not hard at all. For some reason I can't move fast enough to deliver a solid kick. It's like moving through water. So I shout again. This time it's a scream, really. I swear at him and call for help. My voice is even more powerful this time, echoing through the whole store. A few people show up and they pull the old man in his chair away from me but they don't really know what to think. It's just an old man in a wheel-chair, after all. How could he be hurting anyone? I try to explain it to them when from out of an aisle next to me come the Posey kids. All of them. Matt, Caleb, Sarah and Rachel.
Now, I have a huge amount of respect and love for these kids. They do all kinds of work with homeless ministries in St Augustine and they're so full of love for people who are down on their luck. Matt and Caleb even have friends on St George Street that are homeless and they'll strike up friendly conversations with them when we're walking past. It's great. But this time, I was horrified at how nice they started being to the old guy in the wheel chair.
Matt and Caleb try and talk to him but I pull them away as fast as I can. I'm trying to warn them about him when Rachel suddenly gets down on one knee and starts talking to the guy, her hand on his shoulder. I'm freaking out now. Rachel is the same age as my little brother and she's an amazing vocalist and is so full of the love of God that the idea of anything harming her or putting her in danger sets my teeth on edge. I push past Matt and Caleb, who still don't see anything dangerous in what's going on, and I grab Rachel by the shoulder to pull her away from the old man. He sees what I'm doing and that's when I realize he's got my knife.
I have a bright orange pocket knife that I carry sometimes in case I need a sharp edge. It's only maybe two and a half inches long, but that's really bigger than I need. Still, I keep it because it's useful. Well this homeless guy has it now. He must have picked it out of my pocket when he was holding the other end of the shoe lace or something. He flips it open and tries to slash at Rachel's throat. I pull her sideways so he ends up only giving her a cut across her upper arm. Matt and Caleb run to their sister, who is only bleeding a little bit, but I'm completely focused on the wheel-chair guy. He stands up and I see that the chair is just a sham so people will think less of him and won't think he's a threat. He comes at me with the knife and we grapple for a second and then I drop him like a ton of bricks. I don't know how I do it, I just knock the guy on his butt. The whole moving-through-water effect is gone. Then, in a fit of anger, I stomp on one of his feet until I've broken it. I guess I wanted him to be crippled in actuality. The knife in on the floor, still open, but he can't reach it because he can't walk now which, in dream logic, means he can't crawl either. Somehow his nose got broken too. So he's kinda just lying in a little pool of his own nose-blood, next to his wheel chair, and Jack and I start heading for the exit. I'm ready to start crying at this point.
Then the guy starts talking and Jack and I stop. I can't understand him too well because his nose is broken, but after a second I see he's holding my wallet. He must have picked that out of my pocket while we were fighting. He's reading my address out loud, city and state and everything. Then he looks at me and smiles his crazy smile and asks if everyone in my family is an organ donor. He asked the quesiton in such a malicious way I knew immediately that he was threatening all of us. So I pick up the knife off the ground and I jump on him, ready to thrust it into his eye. I raise the knife...
..and I wake up.
I have killed the monsters in my dreams before, but I'm never happy about it so I'm glad I woke up before I killed this guy. It was just so real. I still remember details, like how when I was walking through the electronics department toward the back of the store, I saw a box for the StarCraft battle chest on the shelf to my right. Also, there were iPhone accessories to my left. The shoe laces were grey and red, like the shoe laces on my big hiking boots that I don't wear any more. Caleb was wearing that beanie he always wears and Rachel was wearing a plain white t-shirt. Matt had on a red flannel shirt. The wheel chair was blue vinyl and chromed steel, just like the chair my grandfather used before he died. The crazy guy was wearing a big, baggy grey jacket like the one hanging in my closet. His foot sounded like a stick breaking when I stomped on it. Also, oddly, although the knife actually cut Rachel, there was no blood on it when I picked it up to stab the guy. I even remember the face of the cashier girl who checked our family out before I went back for the shoe laces. She had brown eyes and hair and a cute nose. She was maybe 18 years old. Her hair was in a pony tail with a red hair tie. She wore a green vest.
Sometimes I can pull a sort of meaning out of the dreams I have, like "Don't eat so many donuts" or "Run serpentine when being chased by a rabid dog" but this time I've got nothing. "Stab crazy old wheel-chair guys in the face before they do it to you first"? I don't think that's a valid moral. I guess "Don't go to sleep with a bad headache" might apply, but that's pretty weak. I've got nothing honestly. I just hope I never have that dream again.
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