If you didn’t see the protest, parts make me laugh, parts make me cry.

To say that Westboro Baptist is not a “seeker-friendly” church is an understatement, based simply on their church’s URL. I guess they even have a picket line spreadsheet.

You don’t pick on a large group of nerds.

Vizzini would add that to his simple truths, like not engaging in a land war in Asia. Throughout their younger years the nerds may have been singled out for what they liked/believed.

Even when I was just out of college and waited in line for Episode II, I got spit on and someone yelled, “Get a job, you freaks.” Little did they know I was teaching Juniors in high school at the time and apprenticing another wave of nerddom. Currently, the students in my library don’t know what to make of me. The sports kids can talk to me about football and basketball and if Shaq is done or not. But then I can jump into another conversation about why I’d rather be Wash than Mal.

But when you go to a convention, a gathering where the law of averages says there will be more than a few sarcastic people, you gotta expect a counter-protest.

Maybe publicity is what Fred Phelps, leader of Westboro, is seeking. Temporary glory.

For me to start pointing fingers walks dangerously close to that same self-righteousness, though. I’ll share what God has been challenging me on this summer: life in his Spirit versus Adam-descendant flesh.

Galatians 5 makes a distinction, that you live either in the Spirit or in the flesh. It’s not a merging. Each action, each choice, each thought, is either one or the other.

Here’s how you can tell if you’re living in flesh:

• sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery
• idolatry and witchcraft
• hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy
• drunkenness, orgies, and the like

Life in the Spirit looks like:

• love
• joy
• peace
• patience
• kindness
• goodness
• faithfulness
• gentleness
• self-control

This fruit (not fruits) of the Spirit is the sign that God’s Spirit lives in you. You know what song was in my head this morning? One from these guys. I hang out with kids all day.

So before you choose to make a sign professionally instead of feeding some hungry kids, see if your actions line up with one side or the other. Unfortunately, Westboro calls their pickets Love Crusades. In the current novel I’m writing, I’m looking at making each character believable, including the antagonist. Everyone is pursuing their own wants and no one thinks that they’re truly doing the wrong thing.

Everyone’s a hero in their own mind.

Semi-related posts:

1. Turing Test
2. Turing Test – Part II
3. Metanoia
4. Big day
5. Dungeons and Dragons Online