Busted! You always hope that your sins will fly under the radar. But you cannot hide forever. Yesterday I laughed out loud when I found a reference to my recent blog about Mel Gibson at anti-itch meditation. Blogger Jeff Weddle posted an excerpt from my blog and had this summation.

The guy is great with words (even though he puts an apostrophe in a possessive ‘its’) and makes excellent points.

While I appreciate the kind words about my writing his comments exposed a raw nerve. I can hide it no longer. I am tired of trying to hide my shame. I was apparently sick the day they covered punctuation. Yes, I admit it.
  
Deep breath.

I am a terrible punctuator. Okay…are you happy?

My weakness is exposed for the entire world to see with the daily blog. I have an editor to clean up after my punctuation mess when I write a book. So I am praying for God to raise up a punctuation proofer to email me and gently correct my punctuation sin after each post. There…I feel better that you know. And it is comforting to know that Jesus loves me despite my egregious use of possessive ‘its’. 

I am not sure what this means but, after praying for a punctuation accountibility partner, the name Jeff appeared on a burnt piece of toast this morning.  By the way, Jeff Weddle offers an email book at his site called “Deer Pants for the Water”. Looks interesting. 

Send an e-mail to jcweddle1 at juno.com for your copy.

Today I am announcing an immediate opening for the “Bad Christian Punctuation Laureate”. And just so you know, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So you’ll have that goin’ for you, which is nice. (Note to Legalistic Cyber Hall Monitors…that is a paraphrase from a  very funny movie. Yes, I also watch movies. That throwaway line does not reflect my actual beliefs about death). Applications for this prestigious punctuation post are now being processed at dave@daveburchett.com.

While I am cleansing my soul with confessions I might as well reveal another one. I am terrified of snakes. I can thank my earthly father for that one. Just the sight of a snake on television made him break out in a cold sweat and he passed that trait lovingly along to me. So I can assure you that I will not be viewing the new movie, Snakes on a Plane.  Plus good friend Kevin raised a very important question. “Shouldn’t it be Snakes IN a Plane?” Snakes ON a plane would just go flying off during take-off and ascent making for some very surprised homeowners in the flight path.

“Honey, it’s raining snakes.”
“You are going to the Betty Ford Center now!”

Since snakes are getting their fifteen minutes there have been a number of related articles about these creatures. The Week magazine had an excerpt from an article published at LiveScience. Anthropologist Lynne Isbell proposes that humans developed into intelligent, observant creatures with color vision and depth perception for one main reason – to avoid snakes. Her radical new theory purports that the development of primates was driven by an evolutionary arms race with snakes. In order to detect snakes at close distance, Isbell proposes that early primates developed better vision and bigger brains. And then, not to be outdone, about 60 million years ago the snakes met and decided to develop a new weapon, venom. Okay, that is not exactly how she said it but I like the mental picture of the snakes meeting down at the lodge and plotting their next move.
“The snakes upped the ante,” says Isbell, “and then the primates had to respond by developing even better vision.”
So my question is simple. As primates developed language, tools, reality television, and culture what were the snakes doing to counter? Did they jointly decide this evolutionary arms race was “just too hard?” Did they think that venom was their last ditch evolutionary effort? Are they resting for a few million years until some reptile comes up with a plan? (Insert politician joke here) Are they plotting something that will be unveiled in just another million years or so? (Note to both evolution and ID camps…this was just good natured fun. Step slowly away from the send button and turn off the ALL-CAPS!!! I already know I am an idiot. But thanks for caring)

Cornell evolutionary biologist Harry Greene told LiveScience that this theory could explain why the fear of snakes (ophidiphobia) is so deeply imbedded in humans. Or it could be that snakes are just creepy.

A quick rummage through Scripture found thirty-five verses referencing snakes. A disturbing reference was made by Jesus when He addressed the hypocritical tendencies of the Pharisees.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the Scriptures. So practice and obey whatever they say to you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush you with impossible religious demands and never lift a finger to help ease the burden.  Matthew 23: 1–4

During the chapter Jesus called them hypocrites, blind guides, and clean on the exterior but filthy inside. Later Jesus made the snake reference.

Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?

The anger of Jesus was directed at men who claimed to be lovers of God but did not live that way. And that hits a little too close to home. That concludes today’s confessions while I slither away for some self-reflection.