To borrow today's post from Pastor Crippen's "Unholy Charade" blog - the difference between "Fred" and Dirk.

Fred is an "upstanding christian" - ya know, all Scripture-ese ... when it suits him.  But look out - and if you value your puppy, don't let the little critter wander onto Fred's perfectly sculpted yard.  Why?  Ask your other neighbor, whose gray cat was found obviously having been brutalized.  Oh wait a sec... don't,  the old guy is still rather broke up about it.  There's no proof, of course ... but anyone can add 2 and 2.  

Then there's Dirk, who lives a two or three houses down the road.  He's a rough character, who rides an annoyingly loud motorcycle.  His house and yard could, eh ... use some work - but when you can barely make the mortgage, because of ... whatever.  

Fred is also on the home-owner's board - and various other orgs - when you have money, you have time to hob-nob ... and stick your nose into other men's matters.  Funny though, Fred keeps his distance from Dirk - go figure.

Yep, Dirk has a temper - used to drink over at the CreekView, but they won't serve him anymore; as for the other place ... meh, too yuppie.  Frankly Dirk isn't quite sure why, but boozing and bar-fights have, over the past years, lost their thrill; perhaps an age thing?  Oh wait a sec, Dirk isn't even 40 - in fact, a few years shy.    

But he does recall one particular day - because it was snowing outside - stopping off for a few after work.  Just sitting at the bar, minding his own business.  Nearby, these two other guys were taking about something - nothing major, nothing monumental.  Wasn't even the tone of their voices that grated on Dirk's nerves.  It was the JCs and the GDs, every third word.  Dirk didn't finish his beer, but left enough to cover it and a  (generous - because his gramma had always said ...) tip, then walked out.

He thought about his Gram from time to time.  Of course, she had passed on years ago.   As a boy, Dirk had stayed with her - actually, more often than not; his parents, well they had issues.  More often than not, she took him to church - a real one, where the Word was actually preached ... about the Lord who had alot of mercy.  But, the same Lord also hated sin, and cast unrepentant sinners into an eternal firery hell - that stunk, bad!  

Needful to say, our flawed hero didn't want to go there.  Talk about a tough kid coming to terms!  And yeah, there was change.  Dirk, though still short-tempered, wasn't quite the terror to the other boys to which he had formerly been.

Though not much of a Bible reader, here and there, over the years, he did peruse his KJB.  If you were to ask him his favorite part, he'd probably tell you about Jephthah (Judges 11). And no, unlike Fred, who's about like a walking Bible encyclopedia, Dirk might know somewhere about which book - maybe.  But, although our hero is short on articulating, there's Scriptures which, from to time, seem to pop up out of thin air.  More than once, but don't ask him to explain ... it's just that, more than a time or two, these pearls somehow kept him from getting himself in some real dutch.

In short, it doesn't take the Mott's apple guy, with his horticultural degree to determine the probability of for-real fruit (of repentance) growing (though slow) in Dirk's heart.  

Not so, with Fred - that guy looks all nicely nicely.  But he's vicious - just ask his family ... no wait, you may not want to know.  And they probably wouldn't (know how to) tell you.