Hammock Revelations To Loathsome Little Replicas

Some of you may not be aware of the reality that my wife and children, in a bizarre "Christmas/Father's Day/Birthday/Valentine's Day/Anniversary 2004-2005" gift combination, gave me a hammock. I have discovered that this is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

What I mean is that it's become an escape for me. Away from noise and people (except invited guests, and then only family members and beyond that only one at a time--unless you count Lloyd the dog, making maximum occupancy 3) to the degree that you can get away from noise in the Burbs. There are planes heading to DFW and every now and again the back-door neighbor yells at his kids and dogs bark, but it's relatively quiet.

And I need escapes a great deal because I'm in the "people business." Recalibration is a much needed thing. The only way that my hammock experience could be better would be to follow it up with a "gazebo hot-tub" experience, but I'd imagine such a purchase would ensure that I didn't get to open another actual present until sometime around 2014.

At any rate, last night my youngest daughter was the hammock guest. We've been reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis out loud together lately and since the weather was nice, we read in the hammock.

Sometimes God reveals Himself to me in stark ways. Here's how He did it last night, through the words of demon-leader Screwtape to his apprentice nephew Wormwood:

"One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propoganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself--creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in; He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself; the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct."

Brilliant. God spoke to us. That's my take on it, anyway.

And two "loathsome little replicas" hanging out in a hammock spending 10 minutes talking about our lives and how they are "qualitatively like His own" might be the most effective ministry I was a part of all day. And I'm quite sure that the ministry from "the Enemy" to me was much needed and appreciated.