Flatliner: January 2001

Monday, January 01, 2001

About

Flatliner started as a codename; a sort of a nickname. A joke of sorts.

My pseudo-pseudonym based on a movie of questionable greatness and that movie's greatest character. One Mr. Billy Mahoney; the child tormentor in the red hooded sweatshirt.

I had a red hooded sweatshirt.

I took both names, but only the name of the movie stuck.

Flatliners, of course, is based on the premise of med students killing and reviving each other. Each returned from the experience with death with a tormentor or tormentors - something or someone from their past requiring resolution or redemption.

The idea of redemption and rebirth sound good to me.

But the reality sounds even better. Jesus offers us rebirth and redemption both.

Without the fear of those pesky ghosts in red hooded sweatshirts.

Hebrews 12

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned." The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with fear."

But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.