better off dead

As always, I'm fascinated by all of the biblical prophets. And I'm by far not a biblical scholar. Very far from it. Maybe studying these prophets would give me motivation to become a scholar.

Naw.

Last night I got out of the shower and for some reason I thought I heard the word "Nahum" in my head. "Nahum? What the hell's that? Is that a bible guy?"

More than that, I discovered. He's a whole old testament bible book. Actually, a whole three small chapters.

So I looked up Nahum. I had to actually look up the page number in the table of contents. I don't think I've ever used the table of contents before.

Anxiously, I read it thinking the CEO had told me something when I got out of the shower. And maybe this something would solve all the mysteries in my life.

Nahum didn't solve jack.

But Nahum precedes the book of Habakkuk, which I never would have read had I not stumbled upon it. And Habakkuk had something in the CEO's reply to his second rant (chpt 2) that was good for me to read.

Something about this revelation in my life that I seek will come at the appointed time. And although it lingers...wait for it.

"Wait". There's that word again.

But my main point here: I love reading the words of and writings about prophets because they're nuts. I mean, they're freaks. These are the kind of people I love hanging out with in real life. Especially people who are not religious in any way, but their life somehow demonstrates a story that the CEO is trying to tell me.

I always wonder how people related to these biblical prophets back in their day. I'm sure few took them seriously. But they had to be viewed as freaks by the rest of society.

And somehow their words and/or story was recorded and passed down to us over 2000 years later. And these words were probably incomplete and/or exaggerated in some areas. And there's now 5000 translations, etc.

And yet today...we read them (Isaiah, Micah) like it's something sacred. But I'm sure their friends and acquaintances at the time thought they were freaks that needed a good Texas ass kicking.

Back in the late 90's I worked as a sheet music salesman in a local mom-n-pop instrument shop. I'll never forget in late 1997 when John Denver died, how insanely popular his music suddenly became. The day he died people started calling me to see if I had this song or that song by John Denver. The few sheets we had in the library were instantly cleared out. Within a few days there was not a damned John Denver printed song in the country. All of his music was back ordered through the publisher. So the publisher rushed out some high dollar greatest hits music book that sold like hot cakes during christmas.

But just a few weeks earlier nobody gave a crap about John Denver.

My dear late friend Willy Klink was like a prophet. He became a follower of The Way while living in his drug den apartment across from the church that the izzy group once operated from. We use to have studies in The Book at his apartment with beer cans, hidden drug paraphernalia, playboy mags, and cigarette ashes all over.

One day I asked Willy about this huge burn spot in the carpet. "Ohhhh," in that classic West TX drawl, "That was the night Roger hit the candle on the floor".

"Roger?"

"Yup. You know, the guy who walks around in that Howdy-Doody looking shirt?"

"...You mean...CRAZY Roger?!? The guy that talks to himself non-stop? You had him here?!?"

"Yup. Well...it was cold out that night."

Willy never let go of his drug habit and it killed him a year later. He's been dead five years this month.

But he's the only one I know that had the heart to invite Roger in, which seemed stupid at the time.

But now it seems sacred.