Episode 327 - Magic Carpet Ride

Someone inscribed a book to me once, and wrote, "To Paul, In hope of transformation." (I didn't feel insulted, but rather moved.) This podcast is about sudden transformation. We are sometimes taught that change is gradual. I don't believe it, at least not in most cases. Transformation takes place when the vice (i.e., grip) of conflicting forces in our lives, both outwardly and inwardly, becomes so great that we simply have to make a decision. There is a memorable illustration of this in the Jacques Demy movie Bay of Angels (1963), in which the gambling-addict heroine, played by Jeanne Moreau, is forced at the end to decide between the heroin of risk and the fact-on-the-ground of a man's one-way love for her. The groundwork for change, especially inside a person, may well be gradual, but the moment itself is sudden -- what Paula White calls "your Suddenly". I agree with Pastor Paula. This is especially important in the light of death. Two deaths recently hit us hard. Neither of the deceased was ready. Death came, as Christ said it often does, "like a thief in the night". Don't be like Scrooge! Or rather, don't be like Scrooge before Marley came to him. Marley opened the December night's window and showed his old friend the haunting vision of thousands upon thousands of individuals who had died weighed down and unready. They were outside in the cold ether, over-individuated shadows flitting uncomprehendingly through the ether.Please don't end up like those shadows. (Many people do.) Things can change right now. It's called a "mustard seed" (of faith), and I've never known it to fail. Think, I don't know, think ... "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf. LUV U, and God Bless Us Everyone !