Overheard at Booth 2: Deacon Sermon Notes

2025-0615

Colossenses 3:17-41

Agape

Ephesians 5

Dulos

1 Corinth 7:21

Eph 5:28

Rom 13 - submit to government authorities

1 John 4:19

Submission looks like respect and leadership looks like love.

 

 

Overheard at Booth 2: The Evening After the Death of Pope Francis

The Evening After the Death of Pope Francis

my wife and I were making love,
our bodies warm in the decades
of knowing and touching,
our breathing soft, slow, and quickening -
her hand, relaxed and curled and tightening again

pulling me into rigidity,

when suddenly she said,
"Did the Pope die of old age or do you think Vance had something to do with it?"

And I replied,
"At this particular moment, I really don't care."

And we laughed and we laughed
and then we got down to bidness.

 

Overheard at Booth 2: Notes from my Interview with Artichokie

Notes:

 

He didn't look like I had expected him to look.  Yes, I know he has a passing resemblance to Jackie Earle Haley, and that the actor has already been approached for a biopic loosely based on the killings committed by Arthur James Choake, and I had also reviewed all the recordings of the trial, seen every picture taken of him online, and still, he was a surprise.  

He is, in his own way, I suppose you would say, charming.  Not the sort of thing you'd expect from a man who is on Oklahoma's Death Row for the brutal murder of 13 people ... and possibly 34 others.  He had a smile that didn't seem one meant to impress or disarm, but one that genuinely seemed to be happy to have someone to talk to.  

I have talked with others who have interviewed serial killers and other murderers, who tell me that often these people want to talk, but always want to control the conversation.  Even though they have been rightfully convicted of their crimes, they always know details that no one else knows, and they hold on to that knowledge because it gives them a sense of power.  At the same time, they want you to know that they have this, because they know that the public (you/me/all of us) want to know their hidden secrets, however mundane.

While Choake, who also goes by the nickname Artichokie, definitely has that (I mean, he has only hinted at the additional 34 but has not given any concrete evidence) but he also seemed to genuinely want to talk to me.   He said he'd heard my podcast "Deacon" (I don't know how he'd heard it, being on Oklahoma's Death Row, and I don't want to ask any deeper because frankly I don't want him to have that access stopped).  Apparently that's why he wanted to do an interview with me.

...

Of course, I'm not going to jump right in to the murders (although I probably could have, because he's already well-known for liking to talk about the ones he's already been found guilty of). Having that as the first round of questions just seemed kind of vulgar, and part of my reason for being here is because we are told by God to visit those in prison, and that's what I was doing here.  So, was visiting Artichokie in a way, selfish of me?  I suppose it might be.  But then, aren't we all selfish in a way?  Such as the way that he won't talk about the 34 plus murders that we know he's probably committed?

But I started off with, of all things, current events.  The big one for March of 2025.

"So, what do you think of Trump and Musk and Making America Great Again?"

To be honest, the instant it left my lips, I thought it sounded stupid.  But it was too late.  It was out there.

He said, "Revelation 13 seems like a good possibility."

I quickly thought over that.  I didn't have my phone with me.  That had been left at the front desk.  All I had was a paper and pen.  He wouldn't even see me with a recorder, he said, on this meeting.

So I fought back through memory.  "The woman and the dragon?"

"Close," he said.  "That's Chapter 12.   I'm talking about the Beast and the Dragon.   They are both now in control of America."

"That's weird.  For some reason I wouldn't have thought you'd call Trump the Beast."

"Why wouldn't you think that?"

 "Well, I mean ... you're a Christian."

 "I don't follow false prophets.  And being a true Christian means you know how to spot the AntiChrist."

"So," I said, because I honestly hadn't thought of this before, "are you a Democrat or a Republican?"

"Son," he said, "that's like asking me if I'm a Moabite or an Ammonite.  Both are enemies of the People of God and both were born of the sin of incest."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overheard at Booth 2: Cutting Costs

How is he getting away with all this?

Because in America, we have been taught to bow to the rich.

 

 

 

https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-power-tested-accomplished-last-week-cut-costs-2035106 

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/federal-workers-confront-mass-confusion-musks-deadline-list-119113319?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

 https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-power-tested-accomplished-last-week-cut-costs-2035106 

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/g-s1-48571/trump-administration-order-400-million-worth-of-armored-teslas

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/24/nx-s1-5305269/tesla-state-department-elon-musk-trump?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

 

Overheard at Booth 2: John Steinbeck "Tortilla Flat"

John Steinbeck Tortilla Flat

Overheard at Booth 2: Emily/Jacob

 https://texasscorecard.com/investigations/how-one-school-district-disobeyed-a-mother-encouraged-a-trans-delusion/

Overheard at Booth 2: Darker Than Now

"Current events, man, world's on fire and it doesn't look like it's gonna get any better."

"Just look at current events like I do, like a giant comedy routine"

"Yeah but nothing's funny!"

"It is if you don't give a shit how it all turns out."

"That's pretty dark, dude."

"No darker than current events."

"Fair point."

 

Overheard at Booth 2: How Andrew Tate Stole my Wife

Wife: Saw this video by Andrew Tate

Husband: Oh not THAT guy!

W: This one made a lot of sense.  His girlfriend was saying how much she liked how he took charge and made all the decisions, so that she didn't have to think.

H: What the hell?

W: She was saying that as a woman, we work, we decide things on our own, we have so many responsibilities, that when we are with a strong man, we can just relax, and he'll take care of all the decisions, so we can rest and just "be"

H: Sounds like she's an adult when she's not around him and a playtoy when she's with him.

W: Well, I want to be able to relax, so I need you to be more assertive.

H: How?

W: I want you to be more of a leader, more of a MAN, make the decisions.

H: OK, fine!  Stop watching shit from Andrew Tate.  How's THAT for a decision?

W: You can't tell me what to watch.

H: You just SAID I could!

W: Yeah, well, I didn't mean it like that.

 

Overheard at Booth 2: Three Lamentations

Three Lamentations

 
Lamentation 1
 

She found no rest
in her soul -
for the Lord had not 
lengthened the bones
of her son
to grow in the stature 
of men
 
 
 

Lamentation 2
 

She cried alone throughout
the city,
for all her children
were gone, and
none of them did
seek the Lord
 
 
 

Lamentation 3
 

She called nightly 
to the Lord
in desperation,
but the Lord 
did not answer.
 

 

 
other notes:
Lucas 9:23-24
Almoural Castle

 

Overheard at Booth 2: Various Writing Prompts

Various Writing Prompts

2023-0306
#erotica280 1103 Invention

They say necessity
is the mother of invention.

Lady,
I need your love,
I need your lust,
I need your body,
I need your warmth,
I need your touch,
I need

you.

So …

invent me.


2023-0306
#horrorprompt 1022 Intuition

Mother’s Intution:
She knew he was bad seed,
from the moment that rancid
sperm
popped her greedy egg.

She saw those dark eyes
on his first cry,
and with his first steps,
knew he’d grow one day
into a monster.

Can’t let that happen,
she thought,
as she filled water
in the tub
for his bath.

[posted]

Mother’s Intuition:
she knew he was bad seed
when that rancid sperm
popped her greedy egg.

Those dark eyes with his
first cry -
& his first steps,
'one day he’ll grow
into a monster'
she thought,

as she filled water
in the tub
for his bath.


2023-0306
#horrorprompt 1021 Sanguine

“god why are you always so messy?”

“can’t help it, I LOVE TO EAT”

“but you waste so much.  I don’t always want to be licking my dinner off the walls!”

“what can I say?  I’m positively SANGUINE about blood.”

“you might be stretching that word out of context”


2023-0306
#Storyin12 2023-0306 Fluster

All her flustered days
became blustery pages
of many well-loved
bodice-ripper novels.


2023-0306
#haikuhorrorprompt 590 She Screamed

She screamed in silence,
the ocean pulling her deep
into dismal dark.

Overheard at Booth 2: Have Humans Been Cloned

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/ethics-of-human-cloning-scientific-progress-2020-7

 

Overheard at Booth 2: Lucky and Otis Discuss Sinema

Otis Redwing: Read an article that Dems are still pissed at Sinema for ditching the party and declaring Independent.  But it seems to me that he's only saying that both parties have things that she likes.

Lucky Moran: Don't know why they were so shocked.  I mean, they always knew she swings both ways.

Otis: Oh, you are SO cancelled for that.

Lucky: Dude, I was cancelled back in the 90s.

Overheard at Booth 2: Sister-in-Law in the Guest Room

So my sister-in-law was staying with us for a few days last week, and after she left I asked my wife how she liked the guest room, was it comfortable enough.  Wife tells me that she really liked it, but occasionally it got too hot at night.

And now I know that the response of, "That's because SHE was sleeping there" was probably NOT the smartest thing to say.

Overheard at Booth 2: Guidelines for Modern Critique of Art

Because we currently live in a culture in which constructive criticism is seen as negative criticism, there are now certainly guidelines to follow when dealing with someone's creative work.

1) Never offer any unsolicited criticism.  Ever.

2) If they ask you for criticism, ask them first what kind of criticism they are looking for.

    (NOTE: most people these days want nothing but praise.  Anything less than OH MIGAWD THAT IS THE MOST FANTASTIC CREATION EVER IN THE HISTORY OF ALL HUMAN ART will be viewed as negative criticism)

3) If they ask for HONEST criticism, speak ONLY of the positive aspects of the art.  No matter how banal.

4) Then, when you are done with that excruciating exercise, go have yourself a drink and read something by Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker, and imagine yourself as their contemporary, at a time when honest criticism was viewed as true and honest and pure, because tearing apart someone else's art showed that at least you CARED enough about it to shred it. 

Overheard at Booth 2: Molly, A Limerick

Molly

 

Molly, divorced, mother of three,
Used to work at the glass factory
She broke her back,
Got hooked on smack,
And that's how the cartels get rich, you see.

Molly, divorciada, madre de tres,
Trabajaba en una fábrica de vidrio, una vez
Se rompió su espalda
A las drogas engachada,
Por eso, enriquesen los cartelas, tu ves.

2022-0107

Written during the morning, just upon awaking. The Spanish translation may need a little work, but the English says exactly what I wish to say.  This, to me, connects the Mexican drug cartels with the primary source of their income: drugs.  Specifically, Fentanyl is one of the primary sources of income for the Sinaloa cartel, which exploded with violent reprisals against the Mexican government's capture of Ovidio Guzmán, son of El Chapo Guzmán, who has been running the cartel since his dad has been in US Federal prison for the past few years.

The limerick also touches on the reasons for the demand for illegal drugs: a culture in which the family unit is destroyed (divorced, line 1) and the lack of adequate family planning (mother of three), combined with the lack of (or insecurity of) manufacturing jobs (USED to work, line 2).  Such jobs were, in the middle of last century, well-paying jobs which could support a family of three.  However, these days, they are subject to economic "hiccups" and often are the source of immediate layoffs, not only during the COVID years, but whenever owners decide that cheaper labor can be had overseas.

Lines 3 and 4 (the couplet) speak directly to the over-prescribing of opioid medication by doctors who were either misled by or paid off by Big Pharma.   Big Pharma and various large chain Drug Stores have been found guilty over the past few years of deliberately pushing opioid medications, knowing full well that they were addictive.   Millions of Americans like the fictional Molly in this limerick, once they were unable to get prescription medication from their doctors, were unable to function adequately for normal basic daily tasks withOUT these pain-blockers, and have since turned to illegal drugs, such as Fentanyl.  

NOTE: I know that "smack" is the slang term for Heroin (also an opioid), but I do not know if it also can be used specifically as a term for Fentanyl.  I use it here in this poem to mean ALL opioid medications.

And thus, the last line demonstrates the most basic tenets of Economics: where there is a demand, there will be a supply.   

In short, while we Americans can smugly look at Mexico as a "failed state," we truly should look at what society we have created that has caused the conditions that allow the cartels to gain such wealth, power, and arms.

Nothing is ever made in a vacuum.  We are all interconnected.  And as such, we all bear some culpability for the violence that broke out this week in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.  

And Molly, as much as a victim as she may be, also bears part of the blame.

However, she probably won't ever know that.  She'll just take another pill to ease the pain, while she lets her kids play on her cell phone so they'll be quiet for awhile.

Overheard at Booth 2: Deuteronomy 7:6-7

Deuteronomy clearly speaks out against the Jewish people being somehow "special" in and of themselves:




6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.




In fact, God chose Israel because they were the fewest - the weakest - the most insignificant - of all people groups of the time. His grace upon Israel was to show GOD's awesome might, NOT theirs.

With Christ, that grace has been expanded to include ALL believers, all those who accept Christ as the Triune God - Lord and Savior - Galatians 3:28 "There is no Jew nor Greek"

We are now all one in Christ. Saved by HIS grace ... and not by ourselves.

This is why we must be supremely humble.

This is also why we must deny the tendency toward Nationalism.

Overheard at Booth 2: Serving in the Church

C: Why did you tell Becky we're back.

M: I didn't.

C: How did she know, then?

M: I don't know how she knows.  She's the pastor's wife, maybe she's got some sort of special Holy Spirit tracking device or something.

C: Don't give people dates of our trips.  We just got back and I just want to decompress and I need to clean my car and go get groceries this weekend and Kaci's just moved into her new apartment and she wants us to come see it and I need to get the stuff to continue renovating the kitchen and Becky's wanting me to help set up for the church's 5th anniversary.

M: Just tell her you can't.

C: I can't do that!  Don't you know how that'll LOOK?!  That's why I told you not to tell them when we were getting back from vacation.

M: Again ... I didn't tell them,

C: Well, if you'd just told them we'd be gone until October, I wouldn't have to be roped into this thing at church.

...

Later that morning, when M opened up the daily Bible devotional on his phone, the verse of the day:

"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?  Then said I, 'Here am I; send me.'"  - Isaiah 6:8

Overheard at Booth 2: Bunratty Castle

 

 

Bunratty Castle

http://www.megalithicireland.com/Bunratty%20Castle,%20Clare.html

 

Overheard at Booth 2: The Big Year (2011)

The Big Year (2011)

We found this movie highly enjoyable, even though I knew that there would be some criticism from the aficionados of the activity.  The devotion that they portray to these adherents definitely makes them seem like a group of people who would nitpick the smallest inconsistency.   I've linked some other reviews that confirmed that feeling.

But beyond that, this is a beautiful movie about birding, about obsession, and ultimately, about friendship.  Also, it's a movie about integrity (don't see much of those).  Two devotees of the sport (sure, let's call it a sport), one who is risking losing his low-paying job (Jack Black) and a corporate CEO who is risking losing control of his company (Steve Martin), embark on the Big Year - to see as many different bird species as possible, in order to overtake the record of the man who has already lost everything to this sport (Owen Wilson).

This movie is hilarious, funny, sweet, and tender, and seriously ... we need more movies like this.

 

 

https://www.audubon.org/news/the-big-year-according-birders

https://www.chocolatetofino.com/2012/05/30/the-big-year-in-tofino-a-film-guide/#:~:text=While%20The%20Big%20Year%20had,as%20Alaska%2C%20California%20and%20Maine.

Overheard at Booth 2: Storyin12 - Episodes

#Storyin12 Episodes

 

She lived life like a television series,
with a  cliffhanger every episode.
 
 
 

 

 

MR
2021-1224