This is an excerpt from Chapter four of my new book “Listen Carefully”:

Text of Chapter 1.4

“When Diligent Study doesn’t Satisfy”

Hearing God Book

My golf partner was late. And I was surly. The two go together.

This was in the days when cell phones were as long as your forearm, which was okay because only businessmen had them in their big cars, big enough to store such things. But it meant I couldn’t find out where he was and no one was home at his house. I hung closely to my car, for this neighborhood was tenuous at best.

It was full of very religious people.

I had visited there before and my buddy had pointed out many of the properties with their huge signs plastered with Scripture. Most of them went to the same church and many were related. I wanted to ask if any of the couples were first cousins with each other or perhaps closer relatives than that, but I kept my unsanctified comments to myself. This was a rural enclave in an ever-developing urban area and generally the neighborhood was peaceful and law-abiding. No one would think of mowing their lawns on a Sunday and wild parties on the weekend were only mentioned in prayer requests for people who lived closer to “town”.

In short, it was a religious, bible-loving ghetto.

The next door neighbor was a kingpin in the Bible sign mafia. He had a Bible Sign lab going in his garage and he churned out kilos of the material to be handed out for free to anyone who wanted his product. On his lawn he displayed his samples, hundreds of signs in bright neon shades, announcing various evangelistic and moralistic verses from the Bible. There must have been 200 of them at least. My first thought was “how do they mow their lawn?” At almost the exact moment I was thinking that, he came out of his shed with the lawn mower. Now I found myself gravitating over his way.

“How do you mow your lawn with all those signs” I started.

He looked me up and down as if assessing a junkie or a newbie (or a colossal idiot). “I pull them all out and stack them up before starting the mower”.

“Can I help?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Glen’s golf partner” I proudly stated

“Golf!” he spat out. I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like how he might describe Evolution or Woody Allen movies. There was no love lost between him and golf, so I went back to my original question. Continue reading “Excerpt from Chapter Four of my New Book” →