So today I got an email from HuffPo notifying me that they’d published my Time To Get Your Clark Kent On? So I went to look at it — and there I saw, in the little Twitter box HuffPo has right above the comments to any blog post, that @candicewilkins5 had tweeted:
Loved hearing @realrobbell quote one of my faves @johnshore in last Sunday’s @marshillorg sermon …Woot woot! 🙂
“Top-notch tweet, Candice!” thought I.
So … yeah. If you go here on the Mars Hill site, you’ll see how you can listen to Rob’s July 3 sermon. About 80% into that sermon, he says, “There’s a brilliant writer named John Shore … “, and then he quotes … um … well, this, from my post Is Hell Real? What Are We, Six?:
If while wandering around the inside of an art museum I come across a door that’s solidly locked shut, what do I do? Well, if I’m emotionally immature, I might wrestle with the door’s handle, or maybe fall to the floor and try to peer beneath it. I might throw a tantrum because I can’t get into that locked room. I might squat beside the door, fold my arms, and determinedly try to imagine everything inside the room. There are all kinds of ways I might waste my time outside that door.
But if mature, I will simply assume that those in charge of the museum know what they’re doing, and for whatever reason don’t want people going in that room. And that would be good enough for me. So I would turn away from the door, forget about the room, and go back out into the museum, where all that wonderful art was waiting to enlighten and inspire me.
Then Rob tells everyone to “give it up for John Shore!” And they do because they have to because he’s the boss of them.
No, but everyone’s real nice.
Man, I should join that church! Who knows how long I could stay there before they kicked me out? Probably months.
Anyway, thanks to Rob Bell (author, in case you just beamed in from Mars Jupiter, of mondo-bestselling Christian game-changer Love Wins) for his kindness toward my work. (And thanks to Candice Wilkins for alerting me to that kindness; I swear, if it wasn’t for my cyber-friends, I’d have no idea at all about anything that goes on anywhere, ever.) Rob’s also called me “awesome,” and “a brother from another mother,” but whatever. It’s not like I keep track of these things.
Mr. Bell: if you happen to read this, I just want you to know that one day, when I get rich and famous, I’ll totally forget that you ever did anything for me at all.
Hey, man: life’s a You Know What. And then you die.
And what happens to anyone after that? God only knows.
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