Cardinal Meadows. "A Journey of faith in a new place."

"If I didn’t come up with something, they might just decide to take their pay in blood and busted ribs, mine." Duet. 24:15 Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Most of the trash in the house was now the trash in the back of the Dex’s and Twit’s large dump truck. With a decent rest break and the energy provided by Spooner’s Spaghetti-Os and curry chicken concoction, we were ready to finish clearing the trash from the inside of the house. Spooner directed us to make long cuts with the pocket knife across the ruined carpeting, cutting it into sections, and to leave any garbage smaller than a cigarette pack on the carpet along with the dirt and little nasties. As we rolled up the first section of carpet, Dex slid the flat edged shovel under the carpet pad, pealing it off the floor. There was a layer of dust covering the under-layment, so I looked closer. It didn’t have the look of a plywood floor. I asked the guys to hold up.

"Apparently this crowd, hadn’t been into “Green Consciousness as much as they were into Unconsciousness” Lev 22:6 The soul which hath touched any such ,shall be unclean until even, and shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water. Spooner had surprised me with a work crew and dump truck. He and the boys were sorting trash outside and had sent me into the house to do the same. Unclean? In the biblical sense? The inside of the house was clearly an abomination. I’d already spent four years in exile. I wouldn’t be risking another four by deliberately breaking a peculiar Levitical law. Just in case, I made a promise to God that I wouldn’t be eating again, until I’d thoroughly washed my hands. The thought of having Spooner and the other two within ear shot relieved some of my trepidation about venturing into the house. At the store, Cindy had said that after the old woman who lived in this place died, that people had broken in and used it for a party house. It m

"Just so you know? I looked in the house while you were gone and saw some stuff that looked like poop. ” Ezra 6:11 .... and his house shall be made a refuse heap on account of this. Returning to the house I noticed three men standing next to a large dump truck parked in the driveway. Spooner and two guys a little younger than me looked up from their work. “Whats all this?” “Dude, where’ve you been? So, where do you want to start?” I was completely shocked, unprepared for whatever Spooner had in mind. “Hey man this is Dex and Twit. Boys...this is Lenny, the dude I was tellin’ you about.” Dex, the more muscular of the two, extended his clenched hand for a “fist bump” and Twit didn’t say a word. His eyes focused on his phone, he continued punching in a text message with lightening speed. “Yo, Twit, say howdy to my neighbor Lenny.” Twit looked up for a second then back down to his phone where he punched in a few more words, closed his phone and secured it into his back pocket. “H

"She offered me a cup of coffee and then most importantly eased my embarrassment by “taking me off the weirdo list”. Lev 19:15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty, but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour. The throbbing headache from caffeine withdrawal subsided after a cup of coffee from the little trading post. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the house and drove down a few side roads to get a feel for the place. I was impressed at the nicely manicured apple and pear orchards that grew along the way and wanted to see more. After taking several zigzagging dirt roads, I’d gotten myself turned around and I wasn’t quite sure where I was. I’d passed a young girl that looked to be about eight or nine years old who was walking a horse. She'd waved at me as I passed. The road dead-ended. Turning around, some time later I came upon the girl a second time. She seemed too y

“OOOOH free coffee, aren’t we special. Hey, Cindy, who’s this guy anyway? Your new boyfriend? ” Gen 28:16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not. Dimples of light floated above my head. The light dew clinging to the ground and the cool dampness hanging in the air urged me deeper into my sleeping bag where I slept for at least another hour. I felt whole. I couldn’t remember ever sleeping so well. I was used to tossing and turning through most nights. I don’t think I’d budged an inch. I’d told God that if I could finally sleep through an entire night that I would stay another day. Instead of dragging out of bed like usual, it felt good to get up. I rolled up my sleeping bag and tarpaulin and put them in my hatchback. I remember mornings like this when I was a kid staying at my grandparents farm in upstate PA. Those were the best summers of my life. Grandpa and I started early, feeding and watering the animals, doing chores and

"They replicated a large set of women’s breasts, emblazoned with the words “Shake it, Don’t break it” Gen 19:3 And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast. At Spooner’s insistence we took his pickup. We could have walked to his house in the time it took him to clear the front seat of the what-nots that he called “road treasure”. I now understood why Spooner had a blind eye to the trash piled up around the outside of my….(I couldn’t bring myself to say it yet.) We weaved around and through piles, buckets and barrels full of “stuff”. Stuff being the more polite, of a near same- sounding word. We traipsed up heavy wood steps towards his front door. The edges of the steps carried an assortment of clay pots, coffee cans and other open mouth oddities, each of which contained dead or near dead plants. Following him through the front door, the warm aroma of chicken cooking in curry invited us towards the kitchen. To g