President David Palmer

You might be interested to know that I am now friends with this man. For those of you who don't know, he was President Palmer on the T.V. drama 24, as well as being a movie star.

Friends, you say? Well, that might be a bit of a stretch, but we could be on our way. Yesterday, on a dinner break from work, I popped into a convienence store in Pasadena. All of a sudden, as I was paying for my coffee, I heard a deep, resonant voice behind me, which I recognized immediately. I turned around to confront President Palmer who looked exactly as he does on t.v., except that he was wearing sunglasses. I had a strange out-of-body experience at this moment. Most likely it was because I was tired and stressed, but nonetheless, I wasn't sure if I had metaphysically appeared on an episode of 24 or not. My head started swirling and I took a step backward before I said to myself firmly, "Get yourself together, Mel".

I collected my coffee and then went to sit at a table by the door. President Palmer began to walk out the door, and briefly looked at me. I gave him a big smile and nodded slightly at him. He returned the smile(not quite as big) and gave me a head nod of his own.

My interpretation of this non-verbal exchange? I was saying to him, "I know who you are, I admire your acting, and I wish you were really president, but I'm not going to make a big deal of your stardom." I believe he was saying back to me: "Thank you for your acknowledgement...I know that you know who I am...let's just keep it between us, shall we?"

Of course, he could have also been thinking, "Woman with goofy grin is staring at me...give her cursory smile and nod, and quickly leave."

I prefer my version, of course.

Amazing bit of historical trivia!

This following prophetic word regarding Africa is extremely poignant in light of the explosion of Christianity there in the last decade. As Christianity in the Western nations(American, Canada, Europe) has been gradually receding, this shift has compelled many to call Africa the new center of Christianity. This was a lecture given by African Wilmot Blyden in 1880.

"Africa may yet prove to be the spiritual conservatory of the world....so it may be, when the civilized nations, in consequence of their wonderful material development, have had their spiritual perceptions darkened and their spiritual susceptibilities blunted through the agency of a capturing and absorbing materialism, it may be, that they may have to resort to Africa to recover some of the simple elements of faith; for the promise of that land is that 'she shall stetch forth her hands unto God'(Psalm 68:31)".

Let me just reiterate that this lecture was given in 1880! What depth of insight this man had regarding the potential eroding capabilities of materialism!

Just another day in Seminary

I spent an hour today trying to convince a man that I was not going to be his wife, and in fact had no interest in dating him, and furthermore, did not believe that God was telling me anything to the contrary. "An hour?", you ask, "that's a long time to turn down a proposal!" Well, although the conversation was tiresome, it was just ludicrous enough to keep me from walking away. The arguments that he was using to convince me to give him a chance were borderline ridiculous.

Now, you might be saying to yourself: "This was it, Mel! This was your big chance to tie the knot! What were you thinking?" Well, before you get too judgemental, this was only my fourth conversation with him, so things really felt a bit rushed to me. He felt perfectly comfortable with rapidly moving ahead with the relationship considering we were both believers as well as being male and female respectively, but I felt there must be some other criteria. He did not share this point of view and expressed agitation at my continued statement of "I don't know you, you don't know me".

"You know my name, you know I live close to here, and you know I am a believer!" he retorted.

"As the Latin American proverb says: One sparrow does not make spring!" I quoted back.

Okay, so I didn't really say that back, but maybe I would have if I could think that fast on my feet.