Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

Bart Clarkson came into my office at the scheduled appointment time, but he was highly agitated.

Before I could welcome him and offer him a visitor’s chair, he said, in a heated tone of voice, “Well, Mrs. Pink Lady, you have done your worst.  You have done what you set out to do.  You have driven a wedge between Tamara and me.  I am now finally ahead of schedule on all the remaining projects, and I have people working for me who are working on those projects.  I can finally spend time with Tamara, and she just told me that she had accepted Jesus and that as she grows in faith, she felt having a relationship with me would be disruptive to her Christian growth.  I owe that all to you, Mrs. Pink Lady.  You separated us.  You invited us to attend church.  You invited us to Vespers services every night.  Heavens to Murgatroyd, but Tamara has joined a Bible study.  I attended the Stinker Sunday school class last Sunday and I did not feel welcome. You knew that would happen and that her becoming a Christian would end our relationship.  What do you have to say for yourself?”

I smiled, “Since you are making this very formal, Mr. Clarkson, when someone comes to faith, it is nothing that we puny humans do.  Yes, we can talk about God, but God has to convict the listener of their sins, the listener has to be contrite of heart and accept Jesus, repenting of their sins once God enters them.  Other than Tamara becoming willing to accept Jesus, it is all the work of God.”

Bart spat, “That’s just religious garbage!”

I smiled, but it was getting harder to do, “You were offered the same thing, Mr. Clarkson.”

Bart shouted, “I have been busy finishing the work of twelve people, mostly by myself and when I got help, I had the added task of teaching them how to do the work.  I could not spend time at Vespers every night!  Come on!  Get real!”

I smiled, even chuckling a bit, “Mr. Clarkson, Vespers takes about fifteen minutes.  There is prayer, there is a five-minute sermonette, and there is a song or hymn.  It would take you longer walking from your apartment to the conference center and back.  We started in the volleyball arena, but it got too crowded.”

Before Bart could reply, Missy stepped into the room.  She closed the door behind her, and she leaned against the wall.  She always had the same type of pose when she came in.  It looked like she was disinterested in what was going on, but if Bart made a threatening move toward me, she would either taser him or wrestle him to the floor before he knew what happened.  My Daddy, Ash, has watched her on the exercise room wrestling mat teaching her techniques to the other security guards.  My Daddy used to kill people for the crime boss, but now, pardoned by the governor, he says that Missy and her crew are not to be messed with.  Missy can go from casually leaning on the wall to having the assailant immobilized before you even notice that there was a threat.  Missy smiled at me and winked – just another day at the office, but we had not had someone this angry in a long time.

Bart asked, nudging his head toward Missy, “Is this necessary?  I thought this was a private conversation.”

Missy said, “It’s my job to have a team that takes care of everybody at Lily the Pink.  Mommie Pinkie has a computer system that alerts me if she says certain words in a certain manner.  So, I never hear the conversation, just a signal that she is uncomfortable with the conversation.  But in this case, I was in the hallway, and I heard you yelling, and the room is semi-soundproof so she can have those confidential discussions with folks.  So, you, Mr. Clarkson, are one angry person to yell that loud.  I have a question for you.  Where do you live?”

Bart said, “You know where.  On the third floor of the main apartment building.”

Missy asked, “Do you pay rent?”

Bart said, “No.  Mrs. Pink Lady said I did not have to do that while I was paying for a mortgage on a house that I do not know if I can emotionally return to.”

Missy asked, “And whether you have taken advantage of it or not, do you get any free meals?”

Bart said, “You know too much to just be a security chief!  I work late and I am never here at the evening meal, but I do a sausage biscuit on the way to work.”

Missy smiled, “Security chiefs are not like a mall cop.  I have to know things, Mr. Clarkson.  And I will stay here until Mommie Pinkie asks me to leave or I am confident that you can talk civilly. Mommie Pinkie does not usually raise her voice, and she does not like people to do so in her presence.  Take a few deep breaths and have a civil conversation and then I can decide if I should leave.  And if you try anything funny, I am lightning fast and I do not fight fair.  You’ll be on the floor, in a lot of pain, begging for your Mommy.  Got it?”

Bart only nodded.

I asked, “Where were we?”

Missy shrugged, “Don’t look at me.  I just responded to the anger.”

I snickered, “Yes, you have no excuse, Mr. Clarkson.  I did not poison Tamara against you.  She saw the clear path to overcoming the trauma by giving it up to Jesus.  A lot of people at this company have done the same thing.  Right, Missy?”

Missy smiled, “Yes, ma’am.  I was one of the ones that saw the light before we were emancipated.  And we didn’t start the Vespers until afterwards, right when we all needed something.”

Bart muttered, “I will go to the Vespers, but I don’t know if it will do any good.  I quit going to church in my early teens, and all the science points to the Bible not having anything right.”

Missy raised her eyebrows, but I was minimally ready for it.

I asked, “Mr. Clarkson, where is your proof?  You are a scientist.  There must be proof.  You must rely on the scientific method.”

Bart became defensive, “The Big Bang Theory is proven.  Rocks require millions of years to form.  And there could have never been a global flood.”

I snickered, “But again, I ask.  Where is your proof?”

Bart shrugged, “There are a lot of textbooks that state that.”

I shrugged, “But what if I said that for your millions of year theory, is that it was postulated by James Hutton in the 1700s.  He was a farmer and a naturalist.  He was no scientist.  He simply looked at the dirt in his fields and assumed that rocks must form from heat and pressure.  Then, much later, Charles Lyell, a lawyer, stated that he wanted to free science from the trap of the Bible, some words like that, and he wrote a book that has been quoted by other books.  Then those books quoted by others.  There is your proof on millions of years.  Yet, they have proof that under the right conditions, fossils can be created in less than 100 years.  But what about the Big Bang Theory, a theory, not a proven fact.  No one was there to observe it.  Everything came into existence all at once, from nothing.  But what of the conservation of mass and energy?”

Bart mumbled, “You sound like you have had some education in science.”

I chuckled, “No, I had a class for non-engineers taught by a delightful white-haired man at T.R.U.S.T.  He was so much different from the stereotype of an engineer that I fell in love with him, as a teacher that is.  I paid close attention to everything he taught.  And I have been watching videos from a television show called Origins.”

Bart huffed, “You can’t trust what a television show says.”

I smiled, “But you trust a text, which quoted a text, which quoted a text, all the way back to a text that stated a theory that was never proven.  Evolution could have never happened the way Darwin states, and most people’s ideas of modern evolutionary proof could be explained better by DNA mutations and adaptations.  Here.”  I handed him a jump drive.  “That is a series of links to videos to use the Grand Canyon to show how millions of years does not work and a global flood does, videos to refute Darwin’s theories, a video about finding soft tissue in dinosaur bones, and some delightful videos about our solar system.  For instance, how can water be so dominant on our planet when the theories that emerge from your Big Bang do not account for this planet having any water at all?  The videos also ask why Pluto is so hot.  As one of those videos says, ask the doubter where their proof lies rather than arguing with them.  You are an engineer.  You know the science.  Watch the videos before you claim that you have proof.”

Bart asked, “But if God is holy, how can He break a natural law?  Would that not tarnish His holiness?”

I smiled, “My, my, I have another Thomas Jefferson on my hands that cuts the miracles out of the Bible.  There is physical law which God can overcome by forces that we could never understand.  And there is moral law which is the only thing God cannot do.  He cannot violate moral law by His very nature as Holy God.”

Bart stared at the drive for a bit.

I continued, “Bart, let’s drop the Mrs. Pink Lady and Mr. Clarkson routine.  I did not poison your relationship with Tamara.  God revealed himself to her and she found that rock, that foundation from which she could build a healed, post-trauma world.  I think she still likes you, but you refused to go to Vespers and Bible studies and until last Sunday you avoided Stinker’s Sunday school class. This is causing her to question you are a good fit in that post-trauma world.  I have the links on those videos marked as for the content.  The two on Noah’s flood are excellent arguments.  The series on the Miracles of Creation are enticing.  The genetics episodes are powerful arguments that say that I might be closer in DNA to Jochebed than I am to you.  And the ones on the solar system are interesting.  And do you have a DvD player?”  He shook his head. “Then, I’ll have Missy bring you up a player to your apartment.  Here is a DvD about how we were fearfully and wonderfully made.  It talks about what is involved in making a baby.  There is great complexity in tiny things, and too many have to happen for life to form simply by chance.”

Missy said, “I have some things to do.  I’ll send Julia up with the DvD player.”

Bart left with his homework assignments in hand.  He was calm, but troubled.

When Julia reached the third floor with the DvD player, Bart was knocking on Tamara’s door.

“Tamara, can I sit next to you at Vespers tonight?”

From the other side of the closed door, Tamara answered, “Are you really coming to Vespers?”

Bart said, “I am going to try.  No, I will be there.  I have some homework from Mommie Pinkie to work on, but I can take out time for Vespers.”

Tamara’s reply was, “Sure, but let’s not hold hands.  I like taking notes.”

Bart had a puzzled look on his face as he turned to see Julia standing there.

Julia handed him the player and said, “It’s a Mommie Pinkie thing.  She wants everyone to actively listen.  The message is only five minutes, but if they can get one thought, they should write it down to make it more impactful.  I just work here.  I was not one of the original ladies, but I like hanging around for Vespers before I go home.”

I got an e-mail a few days later from Bart.  He apologized for being rude and aggressive.  The videos were compelling, and he had subscribed to get notifications of new videos in the series.  And he said he was rearranging his priorities so that nothing interrupted Vespers as long as he was in town, and the same went for going to church.  He even changed his mind about Stinker’s Sunday school class.

I smiled, and a couple of tears formed.  God was in the process of working another of His miracles.  Eric Metaxas and C.S. Lewis agree in their books with the title of Miracles.  One of the greatest miracles of all is for a person in rebellion to lay down their arms and accept Jesus.  Bart was not there yet, and it may not have fully sunk in with Tamara, but I felt another of those miracles about to happen.

Credits

“Heavens to Murgatroyd” was an expression said by Snagglepuss on an old Hanna-Barbara Cartoon.  It is a variant of “Heavens to Betsy” which is a variant of “for Heaven’s Sake.”  The older expressions have no clear origin.  “Heaven” has been part of expressions of that nature since the 1500s.

The videos are all from Origins, a television show on Cornerstone Television Network.  If you go to their Youtube channel, you may want to search for the Ray Heiple episodes, since he is the latest host for the show, and a lot of science discoveries in the past 20-40 years are highlighted.  The guests are usually PhD scientists and engineers.  Rev. Heiple is a PCA pastor in the Pittsburgh, PA area.

But in watching this television show often, many of the scientists say to not try to argue.  Do like Mommie Pinkie did, ask, “Where is your proof?”  Most only parrot what they have heard and there is a lot of quoting one text which quotes another text, and the original was an unproven theory.

And as for the white-haired professor, that was a lot of fun, one of my chemical engineering professors taught an engineering class for non-engineers.  He made it fun, completely blowing the minds of the students who thought engineers were stuffy and boring.  Then again, he was my favorite engineering professor, maybe because he understood our age group, having children that were 3-4 years younger than me.  He was far from “out of touch.”