Monday, August 20, 2018

August 20 – “Great White”


Another packed house at Seaside yesterday.  I think Chris said she counted 78.  The American Heritage Girls group that was staying in the retreat center joined us for worship.  Good group of kids.  And another guy was taking a picture of the Visual Verse.  Something about sending it to his friend, a Harvard professor who wanted to see it.  Hate to think I’m getting graded on those things now.

Last night we went for supper to the home of a young couple who has been coming to Seaside over the last year or so.  Great fresh fish supper.  It was his first time cooking fish.  He had it seasoned and topped with lemon slices.  It even looked good.  He just wasn’t sure how to tell when it was done.  Between Chris and me, we coached him through it, though, and the meal was delicious.  They had a boatload of questions about my favorite topic – the church in general and how Seaside began.  The discussion also morphed into numerous other rabbit-chasings as well.  We even dealt with ghosts and demons and spiritual warfare.  I really enjoyed the evening.

Now I have to back up a bit to the afternoon.  Before the Astros game came on and before Kel and Christina and their kiddos came over to hang and pick up the truck for Kel to use again, I somehow managed to stumble across yet another classic movie.  It was called Sharknado 3.  I only got to see maybe five minutes of it, though.  Doesn’t mean I didn’t pick up the plot line rather quickly.  Tornadoes all over the earth were full of sharks, and as the tornado touched down, the sharks would feed on people.  Sometimes explosions worked.  In one scene reminiscent of a classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail interchange, a guy was trying to make it to “The Red Button” that would blow up the ship, but destroy the tornado.  He had an injured leg, so he was crawling across the deck of the ship.  A shark fell from the sky and bit off his other leg.  He kept crawling.  Another shark fell and bit off an arm.  He kept crawling.  Just as he reached for the button with his only remaining appendage, another shark relieved him of that one as well.  Not to be deterred, he inched himself a few centimeters ahead and managed to punch the button with his nose.  Boom.  Mission accomplished.  OK, that was apparently the first hour and twenty-five minutes of the movie.  They part I got to see was the ending, so Spoiler Alert, y’all …

To stop the shark-laden tornadoes, the space shuttle was launched with a special laser attachment.  They shot that laser from space, and it dissipated all the earthly tornadoes.  Yeah.  But suddenly sharks were flying up into space.  They started getting into the shuttle.  One of them, a particularly tough-skinned great white, swallowed a pregnant lady astronaut (She wasn’t showing yet, but they did mention the upcoming event.  See, one of the other astronaut’s was the baby’s grandfather, and he gave the unborn child a gift of airman’s wings so he could always fly.  Sniff.  Sniff.  Sob.  That was right before he sacrificed himself so he could be a hero to his son).  Her husband just happened to be on the flight as well, so he jumped into the Great White’s mouth to rescue her.  But alas, the shuttle had not been designed to take the force of hundreds of sharks pounding against it.  The best line of the movie came when one of eth astronauts asked another, “How can sharks be alive in space?”  And the classic answer: “How can they be alive in a tornado?”  Indeed. 

So … not to worry.  The guy and his wife went through re-entry into the atmosphere inside the Great White.  Once clear and back inside breathable space, he punched a hole in the side of the now thoroughly irradiated shark and deployed the parachute he just happened to have with him.  Good ol’ Great White plopped down on the shore of a random tropical island amidst a hail of other sharks of all species.  The man crawled out through Great White’s mouth.  After walking around aimlessly on the beach, avoiding the shower of sharks around him, he remembers something.  He races back to the original Great White, and hears a sound.  Could it be?  It is.  The blade of a chain saw pokes a hole in the fish’s side.  And what should squeeze its way out?  Not what you’d expect, I bet.  No.  See, a lot has happened inside that shark’s belly on the way down from space.  Not only had the lady found a random operable chain saw and used it to cut a hole, she had come to full term and delivered the baby.  It was the baby she pushed through the hole first.  Looked just like the shark was giving birth to a human baby.  Her husband managed to free her as well, though.  There she was, fully clothed and just as slim and trim as she had been when she first entered the shark, albeit covered in blood.  But wait.  Suddenly, who should run up from behind the trees?  It was there other two children who just happened to on the same random island where mom and dad fell from the sky.  What an incredibly happy ending.  And as they all planned to live happily ever after there on the tropical island paradise, a huge hunk of the space shuttle came hurtling out of the sky.  Fell right on top of the wife and squished her like a bug.  Now the movie ended.  Wow.  Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?

Psalms 92:12 says, “The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed in majesty and is armed with strength.”

Father, thank you for our new Seaside friends.  Help them to be happy and successful in their quest for community.  Amen.

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