Wounded by "Careless words."

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“Careless words.”

Once upon a time two men whom I hardly knew from a church came knocking at my door saying, “We want to help you.”

Contrary to my nature and past experiences I lowered my guard and made myself vulnerable and transparent in a child like manner.

After their “brutal” visit was over I remember trying to write what had just happened and my hands were numbed and trembling so bad that I could not write though I had in front of me my most valuable collection of ten Mount Blank and Waterman “gold tip” pens gifts of my friends gathered in the space of thirty years of writing them letters to these friends with a estimated value of about four thousand dollars.

I believed I have been severely bullied without grace and mercy and robbed out of hand writing, because ever since then I have stopped writing letters by pen. I also believed that in that brutal confrontation of careless words with “these angels of light?” I had a stroke that later surfaced on the partial paralyzes of my left side of the body only four months ago.

Another time, after the Sun set down in the horizon, two men knocked at my door, this time my instincts did not allowed me to open the door and just answer through the window and saw two complete strangers. One was holding a writing pod in his hand and the other had a small bag in his hands.

They said to be in the neighborhood and that they work for Comcast and came to check out my equipment if everything was all right.
I asked through the window, “Why did you not call me announcing your visit?” They said, “We do not have your phone number.”

Their answer did not fit in the puzzle of my mind, because one of the first things that the cable company has for sure in their record is your phone number as they are also my Internet providers.

I said to them to, “Give me a minute I will make a call”.
While I was making a call to Comcast who said not to have sent anyone to my address and that this is after hours I caught one of those men trying to peek inside the house through the blinds.

By then the counsel of my instincts kicked off in “overdrive” so I called Corporate Comcast in Philadelphia. They corroborate with local office and the computer that no one was sent to my house from their company. Instead they told me to call the police and the men walked away on foot with no vehicle on site to take their license plate near that made me think that a third individual must have been waiting around the corner up the small hill.

When the police came. They were gone and before I was able to go out the police drove away and did not even stop to ask me anything.
A friend of a Bible study group who is a judge counseled me to talk to the chief sheriff friend who said, “these men were studying you.”

In the light of psalm 127, I miss my boys to stand with me at my door in the presence of my enemies. I have my quiver full of arrows but none in my hands at he door.

The why of this letter?
As pilgrims in progress we all are human beings first and learning to live and die and striving for eternal life. As we approach the promised land we have the need to learn how old age is eminent and crossing the Jordan is unavoidable and it is seasoned with danger and sickness that requires of us to share notes of our own experience on how arrival looks like.

Let not old age find you unprepared and weak in the Lord.
Watch for careless words or “careless whispers.”
Even the fish dies by the mouth. Watch your mouth and only let the good treasures stored up in your heart for the common good of the body come from your heart. Careless words can hurt and hurt bad.
Your Stroke strickened wounded brother “by careless words.”

Gerry Gutierrez.

PS. Suggested passage for your reading today is Matt. 12: 25-37.

25Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

29“Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.

30“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.32Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

33“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 35A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.37For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Photos are of my workshop, pens, notebooks, bibles & a 44 Magnum.