Pensée du jour

... you know, I go to Church a lot. Twice today, and then again tomorrow for Sunday Mass.

Doesn't mean anything. I can't say: 'Lord, Lord! I went to Mass a lot.'

Because you know who else does?

Satan.

At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, and when the devils cried out 'You are the son of the Living God!' ... what did Jesus say to them?

'Yeah, that's right'? or 'Hey, thanks!'

No, he rebuked them into silence, cast them into swine who then thereupon flew over a cliff's edge.

There's not one thing I can do to save myself. I can't show my attendance record. I can't ...

You know what kills me? People who say, 'Well, if X isn't in Heaven, then I want no part of it.' Saga said that. She said if I weren't in Heaven, they couldn't drag her into it.

You know what Heaven is? I do, it's right there in the Bible. It's Mass, 24/7 (in Eternity) (so the '24/7' is a very sorry joke), it's Angels and Powers falling on their faces, burning with Love, and all they can cry out is 'Holy, Holy, Holy!'

Okay. Really. Who would ever pick that?

And Hell? The path of righteousness is above, the path to hell is the path that Rocks! People today would line up to be able to get into Hell.

Hello?

And the thing is, people sold their souls to get money, power, food, luxury, ... Wales. Nowadays, the Devil doesn't need to do a thing. He doesn't need to lift a finger. People have sold out on themselves already, and they get not 'nothing' in return, what they get in return is misery and despair.

All you have to do is look at the faces on the metro, every single vacant, hopeless face, plugged into their google reader or their iPod/Pad/Phone to verify this.

Or do what I do. Look into the mirror.

My one consolation? God is good.

And that stupid movie with whats-her-name and the dumb jock. God makes a special appearance in prison and the guy's like, in a panic, crying out: 'I'm about to lose my soul! And what can I do?'

And God, patiently, explains, 'It's not your soul.'

It's not my soul. It's God's. So I hope to God that God will take it back to Himself in the end.

Useless ... and bleah!

Happy Easter, everyone!

So, Fr. P. on Black Thursday (I'm Catholic, just go with my terms, okay?) heard my confession: you know, where I admitted I hadn't been going to confession in two months and I had been receiving Holy Communion all that time to show everybody that everything was fine with me, ...

... when really it wasn't.

I mean, sure, I kept to my Lenten observance, giving up what I could handle to give up: drinking, ...

... But wasn't I supposed to be closer to God, doing this Lenten stuff?

I wasn't.

I was simply annoyed that I couldn't drink, so I cussed more and masturbated, ... well, more of the same, 'cause I don't think it's humanly possible to masturbate more than me ('more than me'? or 'more than I do'? I think 'more than I do' is ... 'more' correct ... geddit? 'more correct'? *sigh* you don't get it)

At this point Fr. P. interrupted me and asked me how many times I masturbated? 'Was it once a day?'

I had to stop myself from screaming with laughter at that.

And after I had (politely) corrected him, he told me that my will had been corrupted by this bad habit (that feels so good) and that I needed to get on a regular confession schedule, so that when I fell, my confessor could restore me to grace and I could again worthily receive the sacraments.

See? Nothing judgmental there, just mercy and forgiveness and a plan to get things right.

Why can't I be like that?

Anyway, Easter Sunday rolls around, and my pretty nieces in their pretty pink and peach dresses (killer!) sang in the choir, and Fr. P. steps up to the lecturn and welcomes everybody and says this Mass is ...

... 'useless.'

He said all you teenage girls coming to Mass to prove to your parents that, yep, you still go to Mass, Mom and Dad, so leave me alone, okay?

(He didn't look directly at me when he said this ... but there were three killer teens in their form-fitted jeans and oh-so-snug turtlenecks with super-model pouty lips that I wanted to savage because of their crossed-arm 'tude they carried with them into the church ...)

(... there's something here about motes and beams[1] that I may be missing here ...)

And Father went on and on about how 'useless' Jesus' sacrifice was and how 'useless' the Mass was, and how 'useless' love is and ...

It was around this point I wanted to punch Father in the face if he were going to say the word 'useless' again without coming round to the point on Easter Sunday with a standing-room-only-filled-to-capacity church.

Anger issues much, `phfina?

No, why do you ask? *blink-blink*

And his point, that he eventually got to after saying 'useless' three more times (no, I didn't punch him in the face three times ... I didn't even punch him in the face once ... barely ... I was so proud of my self-control as I sat fuming in my pew) (with my pretty white dress on ... you should've seen me. 'Killer!' But then, if you saw me, you'd grab me away to the bathroom in the back of the church that smells like camomile lotion and done naughty non-Easter things to me, and I would've missed the homily, see?)

:p

Where was I? Oh, yeah: 'useless.'

And Fr. P.'s point was this: Jesus' sacrifice was useless, and the Mass was useless, and human love is useless, because ...

Because Jesus, in sacrificing himself, wasn't using us. We, in celebrating the Mass, don't use Him. Perfected human love, selfless love, the love where the grandfather gets grandmother's meds and a glass of water for her, without asking nor being asked, just because he loves her and knows (I was almost crying there), is not using.

'Useful', something being 'used,' is to be consumed. You love hamburgers, Fr. P. said, and a cow has to die. But God loves us, we love God and each other, and we don't consume each other, not in perfect love.

How different perfect love is from ... well, anything of this Earth, at any time: in Jesus' time, and now, where the sexual revolution hasn't liberated women, it's only liberated sexual predators, so now they can use woman as a receptacle to rub against and to piss in, justifying their self-gratification because now there's no fruit of their consummation: there's no longer any need for it.

Wanna debate that? Look at the poverty line. Look at where, and who the poverty line has hit hardest, with the 'no-fault' divorce that allows men to walk away from their word, their commitment to their families, leaving the wife, and children, in poverty, so now you take oral contraception, the pill, so you don't get pregnant, so a guy can fuck you then leave you that same night, leaving the emotional turmoil, the wreck, that used to be you, behind, and that's okay now, because you're supposed to 'man' up and not have all those womanly attachments, like love for another person who consummated his 'love' for you, but, no, not really, because you're just a cum-dump now, and that's okay.

Yeah, that's what human love has been corrupted to nowadays.

But Fr. P. concluded, when you discover Jesus, you discover the death and resurrection, and when you discover that, you discover everything good in this life.

It's Easter Monday. Lent is over. Back to being the old `phfina. Scared little me working on a window ledge, because they don't have a desk for me and three other of my coworkers.

'Useless.' It's a theme I've thought about a lot, as a writer, how authoresses write their characters to use each other: Edward rapes Bella and then forces her to have an abortion, but Bella's a cunt for crying about it. Edward and Bella have sex and Edward leaves Bella, and Bella has to pick up the pieces of her life with her daughter that looks just like Rosalie and Edward comes back when Bella's thirty, but everything's okay, because Bella didn't kill herself so Edward can ... well, pick up where he left off, with a daughter with a lot of anger issues about an absent father. But, like I said, it's all good.

Or, Bella is in college and meets the real Vampire Edward, who like killing women because they're weaker and scream so beautifully as he kills them, but he falls for Bella, because she's Mary Sue, see? And, since the sex is top-notch, and Bella is a sensitive, caring soul (like I said, Mary Sue), and they quote Sartre to each other, then it's one of those 10,000+ reviewed stories, see, because it's not about the sex, nor the murders, it's about getting it and getting with it because this is Sartre so it's cool and trendy and in.

Look who's talking, `phfina.

I write some sex scenes that are top-notch, and quote Ayn Rand, and dwell on the meanifullessness of it all, how we are all just consumers, users, ... but ...

But, so I'm just like everybody else, just another user ...

The Mass? Useless?

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know.

I do know one thing. I do know one thing.

Useless? Me.

Sitting here, on my window ledge, correcting my spreadsheet, again, because somebody else got in there and overwrote a formula with a number they hand-entered and now everything's fucked up, but who cares? Nobody, ... nobody but nobody me.

If I killed myself, today, right now, the only thing that would matter is that some people would have to clean up the mess I made on the floor, because my boss? He came by at exactly 9:30 am to make sure everything was 'okay' (trans: that I had my ass in my chair on the window ledge) and that's all he knows about me and my job. That's how much I matter.

Now I have to go to a 10:00 am meeting, to prove that they are cutting a paycheck to somebody who's occupying space at least 8 hours a day, consuming oxygen.

Maybe I'll drink some liquid oxygen, for all that it matters, for all that they care.

And Jesus died and rose again for this, God's one mistake.

"And on that day it would've been better that he be not born."

I don't even rate that verse, that's what a waste I am. Instead of carrying forward the family name, I was born with a little slit. An unwanted pregnancy, an unwanted child, now just a cog in the wheel on a window ledge.

I might as well jump.

... setting: much later in the day, at home, in bed, under covers, shivering and sweating.

Well, you pray to God for a reason to live, and He gives you one. My niece got the stomach flu on Easter, and now I have it, too. Had some orange juice and got really queasy! *sigh* So now I have to get better before I slump into the black pit of despair, 'cause that's how I roll. Can't have my mom asking the coroner after I've slit my wrists ('down, not across'), did I have clean panties, and if not, why not.

Can't have that.

---

[1] "Wherefore thou correctest thy brother, that he hast a mote in his eye, when thou seest not the beam in thine own, ... blah-blah-blah, and stuff" (Queen `phfina's neuf translation of King James' vieiux one)

The L-word

No, not that word. This word: Lent.

'What should I give up for Lent?' I wonder.

Went to Ash Wednesday Mass today: "Remember thou are dust and to dust thou shalt return" the priest intoned as he brushed my hair aside and smudged ashes on my forehead.

I felt them there, all day. Like they were burned into me.

So what should I give up? Liquor, Liqueur or ... lick her?

The thing is, you're supposed to give up something you desire (yes: check), but it's not supposed to be something sinful you are giving up. You see: you're just not supposed to be doing sinful things, ever.

And when I say 'you,' of course I mean 'I.'

So, giving up the booze? Well, that's fait accompli, anyway: I finished off the vodka ... after I finished off the St. Germaine, after I finished off the Scotch after I ...

Well, you get the picture.

... just before Lent.

No temptation, no sin.

You all must think I'm a lush, but really, I only drink a very little. This body of mine can only take a very little before I can't feel my cheeks and then everything goes all sepia-toned.

Um ... did that last statement convince you?

I don't get drunk-drunk (as I continue to dig my own grave here, why not go on?), I just get 'slightly'-drunk, so that's okay, right?

Anyway, I won't be getting drunk during Lent. No alcohol left, and I don't have this month's rent, due tomorrow (well, today), so no money to buy more. Nor food. Nor gas, but I can walk to work, anyway.

It's okay: Dad sent a check, and it should clear RSN.

And how many months has Dad bailed me out? And how many more will he have to?

One option to ease that burden.

So I could give up another L-word for Lent, instead of Liquor and Liqueur, and that is: Life.

But the thing here is, boy, `phfina, haven't you given up on life already. You can't give up on something you already gave up on.

The prayer goes: "God, don't let me die until I'm dead."

That prayer has 'me' written all over it. "God, ..."

I can't even finish it without crying. Trying again: "God, please, tonight."

Every night I pray that, and every morning I wake, disappointed. Once again, God said 'no.' And I can't even ask 'why?' I mean, seriously: "God, in your infinite wisdom, why me?" That's a non sequitur and a half.

Giving up on life. Ha.

You know I read the newspapers sometimes. Those book reviews. One was by a Balkans girl born in 1985 that is now an international best seller, writing about the 'Tiger's Wife' ... writing about herself, that she remembers from being 12 years old. And she put that into a book and is now the toast of the town. And there was another one, that now I can't even remember, I just know that they all, all those book reviews, point at me and say: 'Aha, aha! Look at them, doing something with their lives. Really reaching people. And look at you in your pity party.'

I don't envy them their success. No, I'm glad for them. It's just another nail in my coffin though, seeing people do things with their lives, and me ...

I look at college 'kids' (oh, `phfina, you're so old!) and feel ...

... I feel betrayed, ... by their youth. I'm young, but I'm old, old, old, because I have no future, except continuing to be a burden on society, ... and on my family. But the college kids, they are young, but when they look out of their eyes, they look forward, with hope, and optimism and determination, and ...

And life.

I'm afraid to go back to college to teach, ... not that I'm going to, but do you remember that movie with Anton Yelchin? Where he shows up, first day of public school, and one of his classmates tells him where the teacher's lounge is? I would have the opposite problem. I show up at the teacher's lounge, and they would say, 'oh, are you lost, little freshman? You'll be late for your class, where's your schedule?'

I look like a little girl, and that's what I'm taken as sometimes, so everything I say is 'aw, that's so cute, isn't she precious?'

Empty. Meaningless. Worthless, because who listens to a 12-year-old.

Not that I look 12, all that much, anymore. But my id ... it's like the look on their face is 'this is obviously a fake.'

Fuck.

Maybe you should give up the L-word 'language,' `phfina, eh?

I mean, I could blend right back into college, except for the fact that they have hope and a future, and I don't.

The other, obvious, thing I should give up is that L-word: l.e.s.b.i.a.n.

I should just give that up, you know. I mean, I was thinking of the convent, you know. Really. When I was younger.

Much younger.

And then it all went to shit.

Mary shows up. My dad leaves. I turn out to be ... same-gender directed.

And then ...

And then it gets weird, 'cause like, okay. There must be something wrong with me.

(Heh. That's a 'no dur' one)

'Cause like, okay, I mean, why is it that the wind blows and I'm like ...

I mean ...

I mean I see a girl, and all I want to do is fvck her. I mean, if she is beautiful, and what woman isn't, in her own way, as she hopes, and struggles, and preens and tries and ... hopes. And physical intimacy?

I seriously thought something was wrong with me, 'cause just a touch, just a touch of tenderness, and I'm like: ready. As in the switch is thrown and I'm going and you can come, too, and I will be more than happy to help you, for as long and as often as it takes.

'Frigid'? What's that? My whole body is an erogenous zone, and, and for the girl, ... if she thinks she was frigid, well ...

Well, I have the, erhm, patience and, um, perseverance, and the pent-up passion to ... help a girl who thought she couldn't ... well, you know.

So, me, going to a convent?

And nuns scare me. I mean, really. Look at them. I look at them a few times a week when I go to Mass. They are ...

... they are God's soldiers, and short and plump or long and lean, they have that iron-will determination to get you to Heaven, even despite yourself. If I went to a convent, they would straighten the hell out of me in two shakes.

So I could give up being 'a lesbian' I suppose, for all of, oh, two seconds, given the ... heightened, um, responsiveness and sensitivity of my body and my ever (over-)active imagination. I could give up my appointments with that 'young man' 'Master Bates.' I could.

40 days and 40 nights.

Hm.

BOOM! (sound effect of `phfina exploding)

Again, there's these codes, and my activities and preferences aren't exactly cricket ... or (hahaha) kosher.

So giving that up, not to get me to the nunnery, so married off to a strong stalwart of a man? Having babies and being a productive and contributing member of society, instead of a burden.

Could I be happy, being that? A good little wifey and mom?

I've seen that happen, and I've seen ... well, the girl very happy in her new role, her new life.

But she was already a happy person to begin with: kind, caring, loving. Just joyful.

But me ...

I suppose you have to be happy already to become happy.

Or something.

Wah-wah-wah, poor `phfina.

You know (and yes: I do know), the L-word I should really give up?

Laziness.

I should get off of my sad little wallowing ass and pick up my pen again, and write from my heart. And dare. And breathe. And live. And hope.

Brave words. Brave words, so determinedly said, brave girl. So, go ahead. The doors right there. Open it, and step through. I dare you. And so, so many are hoping and praying that you do. Stop lying. Stop lying in that bed, wallowing. Stop lying to yourself, shutting out the world, telling yourself it'll be okay if it all just goes away.

Yes, that's what I should do, huh?

Yeah.

40 days. Today was the first day.

You know, Mary dared. She did. She said 'yes,' in the face of entire loss: shame to her family and Joseph, and, if he were a righteous man by the standards of the time (that time being: today), she would be stoned to death.

I ... in Mass today I didn't see Mary, but I imagined the final battle. Do you know Michael was just a lowly archangel? And, I think, anyway, the reason God picked him to cast out Lucifer, the Light Bearer, an angel so great he was right next to God?

The reason?

Because all the other angels were like, 'I'm not worthy to the task God asks of me.' So they all stood around, looking toward God, and Michael raised his hand and said, ' ...' well, what could he say? I don't know, but maybe just stepping forward like that, a lowly archangel in the face of the Cherubim and Seraphim singled him out to do that task.

So I thought, for the final call, when Satan is finally defeated, the same quandary will arise. But this time, Mary's there, and she see this and roll her eyes and stamp her foot, and say, 'Oh, please!' and scold everybody with her thirty years of being a mother gives her and tell Satan, 'Okay, enough's enough, out you go,' and throw him out the door by his ear, and that will be that.

No huge pomp and ceremony. Just a mom, cleaning house, all of 14 years old when she held Jesus in her arms, or 44 years old when she let him go.

No big deal. But to God, nothing can be a big deal, because He's the biggest deal around.

No big deal, `phfina, just pick yourself up and go. By the ear and throw yourself and your scared little lazy ass out that door into the world. And live.

No big deal.

Well, we'll see.

Credo in unum Deum

... the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirt,
born of the Virgin Mary ...

I believe it all, folks. I bought the bridge. I took the bait: hook, line, and sinker. I'm a cradle Catholic who hasn't gone sour, no, I've drunk the Kool Aide and said, 'yummy, please, sir, may I have more?' clunk!

'Why?' you ask incredulously. You know I'm smart, so why would I so docilely drink the Kool Aide?

Okay.

So.

This post isn't going to do anybody any good. Not you, and not me. In fact, you can use this in court to invalidate any testimony I give. If I were to see somebody murder somebody, everything I say to convict the killer would be thrown out, simply by citing this post.

Yup, I'm certifiable, as you shall see.

AND, on top of that, you won't get anything out of it. At all.

So, why am I writing my own doom?

'cause you asked. 'cause I love you. And I know that it's pointless. And I know you'll say, 'well, that was random,' and walk away, shaking your head at silly little `phfina, not convinced of anything, so I failed in my evangelization, and that's another strike against me, so this post will also reserve a special place in hell for me, 'cause I failed to move your heart where I could have been a better person and done better but no, I'm just me, speaking what I see, as always, and what does it do, nothing, and you say, ...

well, anyway.

I believe in God.

You do, too. Or you should. And I can give you all the reasons in the world. There are a lot of them. Especially in today's world, so filled with despair, that whole countries have given up and do drugs, so that creates a whole market place where basically Latin America is being destroyed from within by drug production.

Drugs not your thing? Well, then, there's sex, right? So now you have the Old World creating a new tourism, and look what it's doing to people. "Oh, I'll go have sex with this person" who's not a person any more, but a 'flesh light' that you dump your despair on and it not only affects her (or him) but it affects all the people around you who destroy this person or who allow this destruction to go on.

And why? It's just a rephrase of 'my heart is restless until it rests in Thee.' And since there's no more God, no more Thee, for ... well, anyone, right? Who really believes in God, hook, line and sinker, except us gullible ones, us insane ones, us radical terrorists or whatever? And look at all the damage we've done, us God-believers, so let's let rationality rule, just like Stalin, 'cause we can do better when God is taken out of Humanism.

... 60 million deaths later ...

And, oh, I'm one to speak (God, am I on a tear here!), `phfina, 'restlessness, it art thou!'

Well, yeah. Pick up a stone, and accuse me of a sin, including sadness, and despair, and hopelessness, and infidelity, meaning everything there, like not keeping my word, like I'm not supposed to have been drinking that Scotch, eh, `phfina, and why were you?

So, yeah, cast your stone, and say, smugly: 'Aha, aha! She believes in God, but look at her, therefor there is no God.'

That all works up until the last part. And you know it, 'cause as an atheist you have to be smart, and brave, and you have to be unflinching in your gaze, except where you're so fvcking blind.

Then there's the Augustine wager. There's everything to lose not believing God, and everything to gain to believe in Him.

Then there's the Aquinas proof, that no atheist I've debated with has been able to refute.

Yeah, there's PhD's in sbux, physicists even, and do you think I fear their intellect? HA! I ate my professors for breakfast! 'What She Said' may or may not have been based on actual experience (well, actually, the little exchange between Bella and her prof happened in another story, but anyway).

So I could get all intellectual on you and prove to you God exists, and anyway, the alternative is despair and we are reaping those fruits around the world this very moment, and the cost to ... our children, this despair ... you want your children to pay the price of following Ayn Rand and Objectivism? ... or you despair and won't even have children because this world has gone to sh!t, so you'd rather swim in the cesspool and die alone then do this very simple, complete, thing, and believe, and hope.

Don't you dare look at me, please. I'm getting to my confession, okay?

But God, well, I suppose you can go the intellectual route — many have — but I think, from my experience, it boils down to your choice. You can choose just to give up whatever you're holding onto and do an honest inquiry, not a fake inquiry, but an honest inquiry, and go from what is there to what that means. 'There is no God, only my choices. And I choose to live my life my way.' Why? 'Because I choose that.' Why? 'Because it's the best for me in the world.' What's best? What makes something better or worse?

Hm. 'Good' is an old English word derived from the root word ... wait for it: 'God.' There is no 'best' without God. Try it and see.

Or hold onto your hate and fear, and refuse to follow the line of inquiry, and live and die knowing ... what? That you're right?

If there is a right, then there is a wrong. Uh, oh! Right and wrong ... hm. (Follow the inquiry.)

Like I say, it's a matter of Faith, so what I say does nothing, and adds nothing. It only makes me a big walking target for both sides: '`phfina, you so screwed it up, the argument, and you pissed them off! Double strike against you, biatch!'

To summarize so far: believe in God. There are solid arguments for the case, and believing, not despairing, is a pragmatic good on the world, in countries, for people and families. (You want your daughter or son, niece or nephew, to be a sex slave or drug addict?)

All the above side-steps the real question.

That is, to me.

'Why do you believe in God, `phfina?'

Being who I am, is the subtext, right?

I'm a smart girl, right? I see things. Right? And I make choices.

Right?

And those choices I make ...

... yet I still choose to believe in God.

Why?

All of the above. And I've done some experimentation, you know.

(Oh, really! Shocking!)

Thanks for that, Ms. Muse.

So, you may see me as a gullible, naïve little thing, and, yes, I am, but I've seen some alternatives.

And I've seen some things.

And believing in God just makes sense. Really. It does.

And ...

My confession

So. Here it is.

Okay, just get it over with.

So, I was like, ... 12? And we lived a block from church, so I would walk to daily Mass before I walked to school, see? And so one morning I was walking along to Mass and ...

Well, remember Alice's vision in Christmas Surprises? How the whole world tilted on its side?

So, yeah.

And then ... I wasn't anywhere anymore.

God, I'm crying.

And then. I saw Mary, and she was like, bigger than the whole world, bigger than the whole universe. And I was nothing. I wasn't even an ant that she didn't notice that she crushed under her foot, because an ant would be too big to the absolute nothing that I was.

And then she turned her gaze to me.

And I disintegrated.

And ...

And that was it.

And I was looking up, and there were a crowd of adults around me, and I realized I was on the sidewalk, and they were asking me if I was okay.

And I ran. I ran to school. I got there early.

And I tried to pretend everything was okay. That I was okay.

But.

But I couldn't hold it together. Not for long. I kept waiting for Mary to show up again, and what would happen, and I didn't know.

And one day, the teacher asked a question. And I knew I knew the answer to it ... I had studied all night, just trying, just trying to be a good girl and get good grades, and maybe daddy would love me and come back if I were a good girl and didn't have any bad thoughts and did well in school.

And I couldn't speak. And I couldn't breathe.

So I started screaming.

And I saw them, the EMTs, come, and they took me, that is the body screaming on the floor of the evacuated school room, I saw them take me away.

And I spent a long, long time in the hospital, 'getting better.'

And there were psychologists, when there weren't psychiatrists, and panels.

And one time they asked me, 'Do you hear voices in your head?' and they looked and waited, patiently.

And well, Mary actually didn't say anything to me, and ... but I did hear a voice then, and it was my voice, eh, Ms. Muse, and she said, 'be very, very careful.'

So, I said, firmly, with conviction, 'no,' as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.

Besides, Mary wasn't a voice in my head, she was outside my head. She was outside the universe.

Rosalie isn't a voice in my head, she just visits me in my bed, sometimes.

I don't hear voices in my head.

Do I have to go to confession now?

So, anyway, six months later, I was back in school, and I was treated...

Oh, I was treated like ...

I was treated like nothing happened, but everything was different, because you know that false sincerity where 'everything's okay' but don't upset her, 'cause she could just lose it and ...

And, well, me insisting that I not be called by my first first name anymore, but by my second first name didn't help any.

And that was so hard for Dad, ... he kept wanting to call me 'Mary' and ... but that name now ... would Mary show up when her name is called, ... I just kept trying not to freak out ... so I kept demanding my name is 'Melissa' now and that's what I should be called, and he tried, oh, he tried, but he looked lost around me when he visited, and I realized ...

I realized, I'm the one who pushed him out of the house. My older sisters share, you know? and I guess Dad really freaks out around girls around puberty, you know, when a girl gets ... you know more ...

God, writing this post during my period IS NOT HELPING!

... and then with me changing my name on him like that and who is he talking to and oh, I'm a queer now, too?

And, so, why would Mary come to me, when just around the bend, Dad leaves, so we're a broken family, then I get packed away to the loony bin and then I'm a flaming homo, a fag, a dyke b!tch that ...

That'd be a good one to bring up to my Bishop. 'Oh, I saw Mary, and she didn't say anything, and look at who she picked to reveal herself to and why?'

The Bishop would have the secretary on the phone in a heartbeat, and not to the Vatican, nosirree!

And what's the point anyway?

God, this Scotch is so good! It's just like velvety smooth, you know?

But I digress.

I believed in God before I saw Mary? Yes. I believed in God afterward? Yes. Did seeing Mary make me more fervent a believer?

Nah, I think I got scared sh!tless and hid, and am still hiding.

I mean, really, I should've gone to the Bishop in CT, and martyred myself. Really. 'I saw Mary.' 'You're seeing things, you're not stable.' 'Doesn't matter, I saw Mary.' And they would have locked me away forever. I should have martyred myself.

And I didn't.

I wimped out, and hid, cowardly, and there's only one reward for people who turn away from martyrdom, and it doesn't matter what age I was, 'cause a three year old boy just a few weeks ago went up to those Muslim terrorists killing those Catholics, and said, 'Enough, enough,' and they shot him, and now that little boy is in Heaven, because he was ...

Because he followed God to the very end, and when I saw Mary, I ran, and I'm still running, and I will run, with all my might into a knife or away from you or away from Mary or away from anyone and anything, because ...

because if I don't I'll have to look at the reflection of me in your eyes, be you Mary, or be you a mirror or be you a person I've betrayed because I've loved you and reached out in hope and weakness but then I show up and I do what I do.

There are the Elect. Augustine did what he did, then, but he was Elect, so he turned his whole life around, and went to Heaven.

The Elect go to Heaven, no matter what, cause it's in God's Plan, and God knows everything.

So, if there are the Elect, then are there the Damned? The ones who, no matter what they do, are destined for a final doom?

Yes. I know. I've seen her.

'And still you believe in God, `phfina?'

Yes. Satan, Lucifer, he doesn't have to work at believing in God. God is like so there for him, it's like asking you to disbelieve in air or gravity. 'Oh, doi-doi-duh, I'll disbelieve in gravity now and just walk off this skyscraper.'

Yeah, say that. And you so know you're gonna splat anyway.

Look, I saw Mary, and this wasn't a vision, this wasn't some delusion. This was real. Mary is real, and she's more real than me. She's so more real than me, that me, confronting her, face to face, I went away.

And that's just Mary. I didn't get the pleasure of meeting Jesus or God the Father or the Holy Ghost, I just met the little 14 year old girl who an angel visited and said 'Hail, full of Grace' to.

Mary was conceived without original sin, and she never sinned. You know what sin does? I do. It binds you. Mary is unbound.

I'm not a theologian, okay? I don't speak for the Church. In fact, this post will probably get me excommunicated.

And I say this to you. I believe in God.

And I say this to you.

I've felt God, and his angels. God has actually picked me up, by the scruff of my neck, and has kept me alive ...

... up to today, so far.

"The fool in his heart says, 'There is no God.'"

'There is no God' ... if that were true, I would have been dead now, several times. Several times.

And not always by my own hand, or the knife in it, but that truck. I felt ...

Look, there was no way it could have stopped, okay? On that slick road? As fast as it was going? That big truck? There was no way.

And it stopped so close to me I could feel the radiator breathing its heat on me.

That's it.

Great proselytization, `phfina: 'you should believe in God 'cause it's good [weakest argument in the world] and I saw Mary [proving I'm insane, so nothing I say, by definition, has any weight, meaning, or pull] ...'

... and it's a great comfort to me, that God is there, and that He ... well, even though He made just one mistake, that's a really good track record, and He even still loves me, although I have no idea why, but sometimes I just cry out 'God, God, please make it stop,' and it doesn't stop, but God is still there, and somehow I'm still there, and I know He carried me through that ... well, few hours where I couldn't even see although my eyes were open and I couldn't even breathe through my desperate gasps.

Yay.

And is this, all this, any of this, why I believe in God?

I dunno. I guess ... I believe in God 'cause I believe in God.

And I pray. I pray for me and I pray for you. All the time.

I love you.