Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him. As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was left lying on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it. Some people who passed by saw the body lying there, with the lion standing beside the body, and they went and reported it in the city where the old prophet lived.
When the prophet who had brought him back from his journey heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who defied the word of the Lord. The Lord has given him over to the lion, which has mauled him and killed him, as the word of the Lord had warned him.”

• 1 Kings 13:23-26

When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over all Israel, they went up in full force to search for him, but David heard about it and went out to meet them. Now the Philistines had come and raided the Valley of Rephaim; so David inquired of God: “Shall I go and attack the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hands?”
The Lord answered him, “Go, I will deliver them into your hands.”

• 1 Chronicles 14:8-10

As for the Scriptures, God spoke to the prophet and gave him strict instructions to not eat or drink while in the northern tribes’ territory, but he disobeyed.  In the second Scripture, the Philistines heard a rumor and mustered an army to attack king David.  King David heard what the Philistines were doing, and he asked God if God would support him in defending himself.  The point is that we hear things all the time, but before we act upon them, we need to make sure what we heard is what we really heard, and then, go to God in prayer to figure out what to do about it.

Note: Before we get started, I never had an “eavesdropping license.”  Eavesdropping gets you in trouble more than any other result, so I do not recommend doing it.  But when the loud mouths at the next table in the restaurant, probably fortified with Mexican Beer and tequila – thus you know what type of restaurant – eavesdropping is unavoidable, unless you are my wife and she did not hear anything other than the ringing in her ears.  And I am selecting the “Humor” tag for this post, but if I heard correctly, this is far from funny.

But on the subject of eavesdropping, a license in that spying specialty is much less deadly than the James Bond license to kill.

But as I heard this business lunch unfold, I heard some strange things.  Okay, I think I heard some strange things and if anyone can guess what I really heard, please add your suggestions in the comments.

The biggest loudmouth made two of these three “statements.”  He was obviously the boss since when they divided the tasks that needed completion by Friday, he had excuses why he could do none of them.

The “boss” may have said, for that is what I heard, “We occasionally use ground Christians.”

After a bite of the enchilada had trouble going down my throat, someone else added, “We only use them for their prayers.”

Okay, with those two statements, it seemed my hearing was not totally gone, since they sounded like these statements might relate to each other.

Then the “boss” said, “Yeah, one of them came by the other day and started his spiel, and I slammed the door in his face.”

While these three could all be true statements, I feel that we have not gone THAT far… yet.  But for the rest of my meal, which consisted of chicken enchiladas in a green sauce and sour cream, I was thinking about the movie, Soylent Green.

If you are unfamiliar with the movie, a modern review of the movie calls it one of the first movies about “Climate Change.”  That is pure modern-day brainwashing with revisionist history involved.  The 1973 movie, based on a 1966 novel, was dystopian Sci-Fi.  It proposed a year-long drought and heat wave, not related to global warming, but is not such outlandish Sci-Fi today.  The world’s crops died, waters became polluted, etc.  And the Soylent Corporation mysteriously had food that was sold to the masses; the favorite of their food was Soylent Green.  Now with the stage set, enter Charlton Heston as a detective investigating the murder of an executive.  When he starts to make progress, the governor closes his case, but the detective investigates off the books, sneaking into the Soylent factory.  His next statement includes the classic quote, “Soylent Green is made out of people!!!!”  And Heston says other things about someone has to do something about it.

No matter how much I thought of the movie while eating, I kept enjoying my chicken enchiladas in a green sauce.

I told my wife what I heard on the way home, and I told her that the conversation then drifted to the 9/11 attacks and where they were at the time.  As I surveyed the table, maybe one or two at the table was out of diapers during the 9/11 attacks, but not by much.

My wife suggested that when the towers collapsed, those poor people who died became part of the powder, dust and soot in the air.  Maybe that was where his “ground Christians” came from.  But that was even more far-fetched and far more disgusting.

Afterwards, back at the lunch meeting, everyone volunteered to resolve one issue of the project after another, except the “boss” who was conveniently in meetings for the rest of the week, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.  They got up to leave unfortunately as we paid our bill, with me holding the door for my wife and the “boss” pushing by her to exit the restaurant.  One of the underlings said, “Thank you” but brushed past my wife, who was staggering while using a cane.

So, if anyone has a clue what these people actually said, I am all ears, as if my ears really work anymore.  Make it a typed comment.  My eyes still work … sort of.

But if I heard correctly, I would avoid the green sauce at the Mexican restaurant.  …  Just in case.

Regardless, I am surrendering my eavesdropping license, willingly.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.