A reader asked me, out of the blue, "Do you believe in ghosts?"
Here is my answer:
What an interesting question!
No. I don't. Credo in unum deum (which is an entry in my blog ;)
I don't believe in ghosts, nor werewolves, nor vampires, nor ... anything, really.
Can you believe that?
I believe we're given what we're given, and we make what we can with what we have.
I was given words, and a wild, wild, WILD (smexy) imagination, and I write my words down, and some people like reading them, and it makes their day, and that makes me SO happy.
Do you believe in ghosts? Do you have a story to tell? A ghost story? Is it scary? terrifying? or is it sad? or sweet? Nobody will know your story, or laugh or cry or EEP! until you write it down and share it. I think you have a really good ghost story. Tell it?
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Weak
"Dark Paradise" sung by Lana Del Rey
— `phfina commentary:
Okay, you know what Jesus did?
Well, okay: 'said.'
Jesus said a lot of things, but, for the most part, he spoke in metaphor.
Why?
Because words aren't the thing. The thing is the thing, and words describe the thing, but aren't the thing at all.
But the thing is (geddit: 'the "thing" is'? geddit?), people forget that. They start thinking of the words, instead of the thing, and forget that the words are not the thing, the thing is the thing, and in forgetting, confuse words for the thing itself, so they only have words, and, get this: forget the thing, itself, entirely and in fact, now, we live in a world, in a universe, where the only relevant thing is the language that describe things, and we don't care about things anymore, we care about the words around them.
For example. Remember that time when ...
Yup, you're crying already, when she broke your heart, so badly, but she broke your heart. She is not now breaking your heart. Your heart, now, is free to love, or free to laugh, or free to cry.
But no, you bind your heart with those memories, which are descriptions, words, of something that happened in the past and will never happen again, unless you recreate it, and you always do, because all you have is words, memory, and that's all we are, spreaders of memes now, we, ourselves sell our hearts, souls, bodies to memes, so that ideas survive us and what's important, the idea, or this moment, that you're living, right now?
It's the idea, the word, the logos, the meme, that's important, because you're not living anymore, you're just an automaton drifting through the fog.
So.
With me?
So, Jesus was always saying, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like ..." is like whatever, doesn't matter, because Jesus was taking just one aspect of the thing, Heaven, and saying, the faith of a mustard seed could move a mountain, and everybody stood around and said, 'yeah, sure, whatever, sounds good.' but never, ever, got it, because if they got it, they could move a mountain with a mustard seed of faith, but they didn't, Jesus did, because he had that Faith, and that Faith wasn't words, it was the thing, itself, because He directly experienced what the Kingdom of Heaven was, but all He could do for us was explain, in metaphor and parable what it was like, and then show people, you have 5 loaves and 2 fish and there's 5000 men, let's eat, and they all did, and they still crucified Him because they still never got it, even as they had the fish burps from eating their fill from 5 loaves and 2 fish and they still didn't get it.
And you still don't get it.
Some people get it. Because they have that faith, that ... whatever, whatever they set out to do, and they do it, and a man walked on the surface of the Moon and mountains have been leveled or tunneled through, and the desert has been made an oasis (that city in Kuwait, right?) (or Salmon Fishing in Yemen, right?) and people set up their homes in the middle of, or under, for that matter, the oceans, and you still don't get that these men and women are just like you but they believed they could do it, and you don't.
So, I have words.
That's what I have.
But I know that, see. So I'm going to say something.
I am weak.
That's the thing.
So now I'll use metaphor.
Here's the metaphor.
See that little girl? Her weapons were these: a sniper rifle and a needler.
What are these weapons? A sniper rifle, in the third round, will get you this: the first shot, an Elite will say, "Did a mosquito just bite me?" The second shot, the Elite will say: "You touch me again with that, I will kill you." The third shot, in the head, kills him.
Three shots to kill an Elite. Oh, don't miss: a sniper rifle's clip only has 4 shots.
There are 24 Elites in one wave in the third round.
The needler? Skirmishers laugh at it. It requires a full clip to take out an enemy, or if shielded (like an Elite), to take out just their shields.
And the covies are good dodgers. So you miss. A lot.
Those are my weapons. Weak weapons for a weak girl.
Here were the weapons for the other two players: rockets, and fuel rods. These launch shells so destructive they can take out 8, 9, 10 enemies with one shot. BOOM! They are dead and problem solved.
Strong weapons for strong boys.
Here's the thing. I have weak weapons so I have to work for each and every kill.
They had strong weapons, so they could just aim in a general area and laugh at the destruction they wrought. No skill necessary.
But if you live by the rockets ... you die by the rockets. You shell an Elite, who, because you are lazy, avoids a direct hit. You've just made him mad. He's coming after you.
So okay, your next shell doesn't miss, but guess what? An Elite, charging you, firing at you all the way, takes a shell in the chest, right next to you, who dies in the blast?
He does, yes, but so do you.
Over, and over, and over again.
I was down by 10,000 points that game against those rocket boys, but I had weak weapons, so I ran when I was shot at, and I never died.
Guess who won that game?
Those boys, they were strong, and they rested on their strength and confidence, and, in resting, fell to it.
Pride precedeth the fall.
But I am weak. I know I am weak. I acknowledge it. Freely. I am aware of what my abilities are: I suck at this game, this game called Halo, this game called life, but I use what I have: sniper and needler in Halo, and words in life, and I use them well, and in conflict, where strong people fall, to their own strength, over, and over, and over again, I walk away from fights, triumphant. Right. Victorious.
Whereas other people walk away, angry, selfish, bitter, self-delusionally, wondering: "What the hell just happened? Did that little cunt just walk all over me? I have more skilz than her, I'm a boy, I have the better sex than her. I have more money than her. I have ... all of that. How did she come out on top? How did I look like a fool who didn't know what he was saying in that meeting?"
I am weak. I acknowledge it. I embrace it, and my weakness is my strength.
Other people?
They are strong. Or they want to be. But they are afraid that maybe they aren't.
Actually they are strong, but you can't be strong if you hide things from others or yourself. You can't be strong if you don't know that you are weak.
So somebody lashes out at me, and hurts me, badly, because, yes, I allow it, and yes, they are strong, strong enough to see my weakness, and to bear down into it. Hard.
Like Traci. Like those girls on ffn who looked for understanding, but then found what they really wanted: somebody else to hurt. Me. Because if they can hurt somebody like me, so gifted in her words, as they are not, then that makes their hurting okay, because they hurt somebody else more, so they are now better than me.
But they aren't. But you aren't. You aren't better. You are hurting. And, in hurting, you've hurt somebody else, carefully, thoughtfully, sinisterly, deliberately hurt a delicate, fragile creature: me.
And now you have that deal with. Because now, hurting, you've corrupted yourself, and you see that. You see: 'wow, she sure is a sensitive cunt! All I said was ...' All you said was the exact words that you knew would hurt me, and what happened was that I didn't shrug or laugh it off, I lashed back, or I cried, or I went on a drinking binge, or I slit my wrists.
And you participated in helping me hurt myself, with your words.
So, you can deny that, as people are so good at doing: "I didn't mean that!" "I was only joking!" or "Man up, for God's sake and stop being such a whiny bitch!"
('Man' up?)
Or you can acknowledge that.
How do you acknowledge that?
"I'm sorry"?
No.
"I'm sorry." means all of the above, sugar-coated in sincerity.
Why?
Because "I'm sorry" demands an "It's okay" and in "It's okay" means every mean, little, belittling thing you said is now "okay" somehow because you said "I'm sorry" and you got your "It's okay."
You acknowledge that by acknowledging that. "Holy shit, I was a fucking bitch just then! I meant to hurt you, and I did. Oh, my God! I'm really like that."
And you know what? You're really like that.
Let me say that again: you are really like that.
You, your machinery, kicked into high gear, when you are hurting, and it said, let's hurt somebody really badly, right now, and you snap out those hurtful words, and you hurt somebody. And there are girls, and boys, in high school, right now, killing themselves because there are boys and girls, just like you that, when hurting, hurt others.
That's who you are.
You know why?
Because that's who you choose to be.
And not: "Oh, I choose to be a hurtful person."
No, like this: "I'm strong. I have to be strong. I can't hurt. I'm not allowed to hurt. I'm not weak. If I'm weak, then that means that all these bad things that I allowed to happen to me are because I chose to be weak, and not see them coming, and seeing them coming, not take steps to stop them from happening. Every time I start that fight with my sister she cries and I cry, but no, I start that fight, and now she's dead, or in the hospital with a stomach pump, but I chose to ignore my weakness, because I'm strong and have to be right, even at the expense of my sister's/friend's/classmate's/coworker's life, because it's either them or it's me, and I'm strong, so it's them."
Or: "I've seen my step-father looking at me. And I know, in the pit of my stomach, what that means, but no, mom left home for groceries, and I didn't insist on going, I didn't tell her I think daddy's going to rape me to her, so she left, happy as a clam, and as aware as one, and daddy raped me, and now I have that scar for my life, that I could have stopped. I could have, but now I'm going to scar mom for the rest of her life and every man I ever see for being daddy in my bedroom, and every woman in my life for not stopping what I could have if I had been honest with myself and got help before I needed it, too late."
My dad didn't rape me. But there are Dads raping their daughters, right now. And people just let it happen, because if they don't ...
Then they'd have to admit that something's wrong with him. SHOCKER! But worse, for them: they'd have to admit something is wrong in themselves for picking a man they now know something is not quite right with, but rather than listen to their heart, they do what is safe, they are careful, and turn a blind eye to the thing that hurts them and others, because we can't make waves, can we?
Here's something for you. Examine your histories. Who were the people written in the books? The people who played it safe and got by? Or the people who made waves?
Now.
Now you have a choice. You can get by, and, thereby hurt yourself, more and more and more, playing it safe, and hurt others, and in fact: everyone in your life that you encounter in big ways and in big (for those of you 'confused' about my last declaration, there is no small hurts, you fucking assholes).
Or you can acknowledge who you are being, right now, and right this instant. And choose. And choose to be that, AND make a difference.
"I am weak, and I won that game of firefight."
"I am black, and I have a dream."
"I am Desi, and I am Mahatma."
"I am a woman, and I am God's wire."
I am not MLKjr, Ghandi, nor Mother Teresa.
I am me.
And what can I do? And what can be done, that I am in the world.
Doesn't matter.
What matters, for you, right now, is that you are you, and what can be effected, what can be accomplished in the world because you now choose to be you, instead of using what you believe or what happened to you or what you have been telling yourself that you are, but really whispering deep down in your very core that you're really nothing and shit, ... no: what can you do, what can be done, and done, because you are you, now that you choose to be you, you in your strengths and in your weaknesses.
I am weak.
I acknowledge that.
And none can touch me. None can hurt me.
I am weak.
And I think, and I breathe, and I live, as no one else in this world can, nor ever will.
You? You are so full of your own shit, ... newsflash: just like me, and everybody else in the world, ... the one difference, the one difference between the wave-makers, the doers of this world, and the cannon fodder, the one difference between those two categories of people is that the former, acknowledge them as themselves and, with that, move the world, and the latter say, 'nothing's wrong! nothing's wrong!' and swim in their own shit, and eat it, too, every day, and serve it to whomever they can get to buy it, and call it 'Organic Mango Smoothie' and give you shit for not liking the shit they're serving.
You choose your side, every second. You choose the later by default. It's call the survival mode. But, newsflash: it's just as easy to join the winners' club. You know how I know? A genius and the common man? The mensa and the densa? The difference between the two is 1% more effort of brain power.
Is one percent all that hard? Is one percent effort worth it for you to rise out of the cesspool?
Here's one percent, for me, for you it'll be the same, even as you say it's different, but it's not, because I say so, and I'm writing this entry, so shut the fuck up with your opinion:
Give yourself a good, hard, honest look in the mirror, and acknowledge exactly who you are, and exactly who you aren't.
A child of God, who, with the faith of a mustard see, can say to the mountain, "go," and it will cast itself into the sea.
Have a nice day.
— `phfina commentary:
Okay, you know what Jesus did?
Well, okay: 'said.'
Jesus said a lot of things, but, for the most part, he spoke in metaphor.
Why?
Because words aren't the thing. The thing is the thing, and words describe the thing, but aren't the thing at all.
But the thing is (geddit: 'the "thing" is'? geddit?), people forget that. They start thinking of the words, instead of the thing, and forget that the words are not the thing, the thing is the thing, and in forgetting, confuse words for the thing itself, so they only have words, and, get this: forget the thing, itself, entirely and in fact, now, we live in a world, in a universe, where the only relevant thing is the language that describe things, and we don't care about things anymore, we care about the words around them.
For example. Remember that time when ...
Yup, you're crying already, when she broke your heart, so badly, but she broke your heart. She is not now breaking your heart. Your heart, now, is free to love, or free to laugh, or free to cry.
But no, you bind your heart with those memories, which are descriptions, words, of something that happened in the past and will never happen again, unless you recreate it, and you always do, because all you have is words, memory, and that's all we are, spreaders of memes now, we, ourselves sell our hearts, souls, bodies to memes, so that ideas survive us and what's important, the idea, or this moment, that you're living, right now?
It's the idea, the word, the logos, the meme, that's important, because you're not living anymore, you're just an automaton drifting through the fog.
So.
With me?
So, Jesus was always saying, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like ..." is like whatever, doesn't matter, because Jesus was taking just one aspect of the thing, Heaven, and saying, the faith of a mustard seed could move a mountain, and everybody stood around and said, 'yeah, sure, whatever, sounds good.' but never, ever, got it, because if they got it, they could move a mountain with a mustard seed of faith, but they didn't, Jesus did, because he had that Faith, and that Faith wasn't words, it was the thing, itself, because He directly experienced what the Kingdom of Heaven was, but all He could do for us was explain, in metaphor and parable what it was like, and then show people, you have 5 loaves and 2 fish and there's 5000 men, let's eat, and they all did, and they still crucified Him because they still never got it, even as they had the fish burps from eating their fill from 5 loaves and 2 fish and they still didn't get it.
And you still don't get it.
Some people get it. Because they have that faith, that ... whatever, whatever they set out to do, and they do it, and a man walked on the surface of the Moon and mountains have been leveled or tunneled through, and the desert has been made an oasis (that city in Kuwait, right?) (or Salmon Fishing in Yemen, right?) and people set up their homes in the middle of, or under, for that matter, the oceans, and you still don't get that these men and women are just like you but they believed they could do it, and you don't.
So, I have words.
That's what I have.
But I know that, see. So I'm going to say something.
I am weak.
That's the thing.
So now I'll use metaphor.
Here's the metaphor.
See that little girl? Her weapons were these: a sniper rifle and a needler.
What are these weapons? A sniper rifle, in the third round, will get you this: the first shot, an Elite will say, "Did a mosquito just bite me?" The second shot, the Elite will say: "You touch me again with that, I will kill you." The third shot, in the head, kills him.
Three shots to kill an Elite. Oh, don't miss: a sniper rifle's clip only has 4 shots.
There are 24 Elites in one wave in the third round.
The needler? Skirmishers laugh at it. It requires a full clip to take out an enemy, or if shielded (like an Elite), to take out just their shields.
And the covies are good dodgers. So you miss. A lot.
Those are my weapons. Weak weapons for a weak girl.
Here were the weapons for the other two players: rockets, and fuel rods. These launch shells so destructive they can take out 8, 9, 10 enemies with one shot. BOOM! They are dead and problem solved.
Strong weapons for strong boys.
Here's the thing. I have weak weapons so I have to work for each and every kill.
They had strong weapons, so they could just aim in a general area and laugh at the destruction they wrought. No skill necessary.
But if you live by the rockets ... you die by the rockets. You shell an Elite, who, because you are lazy, avoids a direct hit. You've just made him mad. He's coming after you.
So okay, your next shell doesn't miss, but guess what? An Elite, charging you, firing at you all the way, takes a shell in the chest, right next to you, who dies in the blast?
He does, yes, but so do you.
Over, and over, and over again.
I was down by 10,000 points that game against those rocket boys, but I had weak weapons, so I ran when I was shot at, and I never died.
Guess who won that game?
Those boys, they were strong, and they rested on their strength and confidence, and, in resting, fell to it.
Pride precedeth the fall.
But I am weak. I know I am weak. I acknowledge it. Freely. I am aware of what my abilities are: I suck at this game, this game called Halo, this game called life, but I use what I have: sniper and needler in Halo, and words in life, and I use them well, and in conflict, where strong people fall, to their own strength, over, and over, and over again, I walk away from fights, triumphant. Right. Victorious.
Whereas other people walk away, angry, selfish, bitter, self-delusionally, wondering: "What the hell just happened? Did that little cunt just walk all over me? I have more skilz than her, I'm a boy, I have the better sex than her. I have more money than her. I have ... all of that. How did she come out on top? How did I look like a fool who didn't know what he was saying in that meeting?"
I am weak. I acknowledge it. I embrace it, and my weakness is my strength.
Other people?
They are strong. Or they want to be. But they are afraid that maybe they aren't.
Actually they are strong, but you can't be strong if you hide things from others or yourself. You can't be strong if you don't know that you are weak.
So somebody lashes out at me, and hurts me, badly, because, yes, I allow it, and yes, they are strong, strong enough to see my weakness, and to bear down into it. Hard.
Like Traci. Like those girls on ffn who looked for understanding, but then found what they really wanted: somebody else to hurt. Me. Because if they can hurt somebody like me, so gifted in her words, as they are not, then that makes their hurting okay, because they hurt somebody else more, so they are now better than me.
But they aren't. But you aren't. You aren't better. You are hurting. And, in hurting, you've hurt somebody else, carefully, thoughtfully, sinisterly, deliberately hurt a delicate, fragile creature: me.
And now you have that deal with. Because now, hurting, you've corrupted yourself, and you see that. You see: 'wow, she sure is a sensitive cunt! All I said was ...' All you said was the exact words that you knew would hurt me, and what happened was that I didn't shrug or laugh it off, I lashed back, or I cried, or I went on a drinking binge, or I slit my wrists.
And you participated in helping me hurt myself, with your words.
So, you can deny that, as people are so good at doing: "I didn't mean that!" "I was only joking!" or "Man up, for God's sake and stop being such a whiny bitch!"
('Man' up?)
Or you can acknowledge that.
How do you acknowledge that?
"I'm sorry"?
No.
"I'm sorry." means all of the above, sugar-coated in sincerity.
Why?
Because "I'm sorry" demands an "It's okay" and in "It's okay" means every mean, little, belittling thing you said is now "okay" somehow because you said "I'm sorry" and you got your "It's okay."
You acknowledge that by acknowledging that. "Holy shit, I was a fucking bitch just then! I meant to hurt you, and I did. Oh, my God! I'm really like that."
And you know what? You're really like that.
Let me say that again: you are really like that.
You, your machinery, kicked into high gear, when you are hurting, and it said, let's hurt somebody really badly, right now, and you snap out those hurtful words, and you hurt somebody. And there are girls, and boys, in high school, right now, killing themselves because there are boys and girls, just like you that, when hurting, hurt others.
That's who you are.
You know why?
Because that's who you choose to be.
And not: "Oh, I choose to be a hurtful person."
No, like this: "I'm strong. I have to be strong. I can't hurt. I'm not allowed to hurt. I'm not weak. If I'm weak, then that means that all these bad things that I allowed to happen to me are because I chose to be weak, and not see them coming, and seeing them coming, not take steps to stop them from happening. Every time I start that fight with my sister she cries and I cry, but no, I start that fight, and now she's dead, or in the hospital with a stomach pump, but I chose to ignore my weakness, because I'm strong and have to be right, even at the expense of my sister's/friend's/classmate's/coworker's life, because it's either them or it's me, and I'm strong, so it's them."
Or: "I've seen my step-father looking at me. And I know, in the pit of my stomach, what that means, but no, mom left home for groceries, and I didn't insist on going, I didn't tell her I think daddy's going to rape me to her, so she left, happy as a clam, and as aware as one, and daddy raped me, and now I have that scar for my life, that I could have stopped. I could have, but now I'm going to scar mom for the rest of her life and every man I ever see for being daddy in my bedroom, and every woman in my life for not stopping what I could have if I had been honest with myself and got help before I needed it, too late."
My dad didn't rape me. But there are Dads raping their daughters, right now. And people just let it happen, because if they don't ...
Then they'd have to admit that something's wrong with him. SHOCKER! But worse, for them: they'd have to admit something is wrong in themselves for picking a man they now know something is not quite right with, but rather than listen to their heart, they do what is safe, they are careful, and turn a blind eye to the thing that hurts them and others, because we can't make waves, can we?
Here's something for you. Examine your histories. Who were the people written in the books? The people who played it safe and got by? Or the people who made waves?
Now.
Now you have a choice. You can get by, and, thereby hurt yourself, more and more and more, playing it safe, and hurt others, and in fact: everyone in your life that you encounter in big ways and in big (for those of you 'confused' about my last declaration, there is no small hurts, you fucking assholes).
Or you can acknowledge who you are being, right now, and right this instant. And choose. And choose to be that, AND make a difference.
"I am weak, and I won that game of firefight."
"I am black, and I have a dream."
"I am Desi, and I am Mahatma."
"I am a woman, and I am God's wire."
I am not MLKjr, Ghandi, nor Mother Teresa.
I am me.
And what can I do? And what can be done, that I am in the world.
Doesn't matter.
What matters, for you, right now, is that you are you, and what can be effected, what can be accomplished in the world because you now choose to be you, instead of using what you believe or what happened to you or what you have been telling yourself that you are, but really whispering deep down in your very core that you're really nothing and shit, ... no: what can you do, what can be done, and done, because you are you, now that you choose to be you, you in your strengths and in your weaknesses.
I am weak.
I acknowledge that.
And none can touch me. None can hurt me.
I am weak.
And I think, and I breathe, and I live, as no one else in this world can, nor ever will.
You? You are so full of your own shit, ... newsflash: just like me, and everybody else in the world, ... the one difference, the one difference between the wave-makers, the doers of this world, and the cannon fodder, the one difference between those two categories of people is that the former, acknowledge them as themselves and, with that, move the world, and the latter say, 'nothing's wrong! nothing's wrong!' and swim in their own shit, and eat it, too, every day, and serve it to whomever they can get to buy it, and call it 'Organic Mango Smoothie' and give you shit for not liking the shit they're serving.
You choose your side, every second. You choose the later by default. It's call the survival mode. But, newsflash: it's just as easy to join the winners' club. You know how I know? A genius and the common man? The mensa and the densa? The difference between the two is 1% more effort of brain power.
Is one percent all that hard? Is one percent effort worth it for you to rise out of the cesspool?
Here's one percent, for me, for you it'll be the same, even as you say it's different, but it's not, because I say so, and I'm writing this entry, so shut the fuck up with your opinion:
Give yourself a good, hard, honest look in the mirror, and acknowledge exactly who you are, and exactly who you aren't.
A child of God, who, with the faith of a mustard see, can say to the mountain, "go," and it will cast itself into the sea.
Have a nice day.
Monday, April 9, 2012
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)
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)
Monday, March 12, 2012
Alive Again
I went to breakfast yesterday with my extended family here, bb, his wife (Mrs. A), and my two nieces. There's always a genteel fight of 'sit next to me!' to be sorted out, so this time, this turn, I sat next to the little one. The older one was fine, I guess, being immediately buried in her book.
You have to navigate the mommy van in my family: there are boxes of books. And EM consumes, at least, one or two books every trip.
We went to a Swiss bakery for breakfast, so meusili, croissants, and Bavarian sausages. It was a little death for me to see all these Alpine reminders.
Why is it that everywhere I go, I'm reminded of Saga? It's like impregnated
into the very air I breath.
On the way to the bakery, Mrs. A played a CD of Matt Maher, a Catholic singer, she was sure to emphasize to me. And when the first song, rock ballad, actually, came on, a transformation occurred in the van.
EM kept reading, eyebrows creased intensely, as always.
But Li'l Iz ...
Her whole face shone, shone like the sun, with delight, and this little cubby cherub starting piping away in her sweet descant voice:
"I woke up in darkness,
Surrounded by silence
Oh, where?
Where have I gone?"
Then the chorus came, and Li'l Iz almost screamed the refrain:
"You called and you shouted.
Broke through my deafness
Now I'm breathing in
And breathing out:
I'm alive again!"
It was amazing. Compelling.
So the next chorus, I joined in:
"You shattered my darkness
Washed away my blindness
Now I'm breathing in
And breathing out:
I'm alive again!"
As I sang, I bobbed and weaved my head, 1-2 left, 1-2 right, and my hair, a black wave on the ocean, flying, windswept, careless as I sang and shouted the lyrics joyfully with my little niece a piercing voice from the heavens.
I'm asked: how can I be Christian, Catholic, even, being what I choose to be, and how can I, or how do I ... tolerate others, where I work, whom I talk to, who hold no such similar beliefs, because group? 'Polytheistic' is the closest approximation to what my workplace is like.
Well, I just do, but that's not the real answer. Not the examined one.
And examining it, I'm suddenly put into Saga's shoes, because she left me because of Christain scruples. Guilt, I'm sure, had a large part of it, but singing that song, being transformed by it, lifted up, lifted up to the Cross and the Glory, ...
Ladies and Gentlemen, everything was let go: my guilt, my fears, my pettiness, my hopes, my very self!
It all went away, and I was one in Christ.
Just for that moment, and then the next song came on, even better!
And the next, ...
And then we had breakfast, and I ...
Well, I settled back into myself, into being me, with my doubts, being in my skin again.
And the other side of that equation is this:
Evil, of course.
Because the other side is, I can look down my nose at everybody else, and say, well, at least I'm a Christian. I can stand before God and know I've got the whole package deal, the entirety of the Revealed Truth.
You see how dispicable I am? I'm shown the Glory of God in a very personal way in bits and pieces, and what do I do with it? I hoard it. Or run from it. Or write my confessions as an excuse to get attention and pity for what a fucked up little thing I am.
What did Saga do?
As always, she led. She said: this isn't right.
And she stopped walking down the road to destruction, and she started climbing uphill, toward her own Passion, her own cross, ...
her own glory.
And look at who's she affecting. Who, you ask. You. Because she's touching people, all the time, even people she doesn't know, not by drawing attention to herself, but she writes 1 review in Swedish, and she gets 5,000 hits on her profile page.
She's touching people she doesn't even know.
In alter Christus?
Saga is my little Christ, so I must be her prophet, a voice crying out in the desert, crying, 'Prepare ye the way of the LORD!'
I can't wait to meet King Herod, and be served for supper, my head on a platter.
But the question to me is how can I be a Christian, being what I am, and how can I be with people who aren't ... that is: aren't exemplar Christians or who aren't Christians, or even believers at all.
Well, the short answer is: easy! Very, very badly.
Because it comes down to this: sheep and goats.
In the end, God will ask me, what did you do?
And I will then have nowhere to run, nor nowhere to hide ... and nothing to show for the wretched life I lead.
But I will see God ask Saga the same question, and Saga, brave Saga, humble Saga, will say: 'Nothing, LORD, and that is the fate I deserve.'
And God will say, 'No, you are wrong. What you did was turn away from sin,'
And I'll watch God lift her up, because she did the hard thing, the impossible thing, the 'cruel' and unpopular thing.
Saga picked up her cross and followed Him, and she'll follow Him right into Heaven.
Me? I sang a song with my niece, wrote a blog entry, and sat in the squallor of my sins.
How do I feel about you not being a Christian?
Obviously, I don't feel enough. Because I have the gift: I've been given it more than once in my life, of the vision of seeing the Revealed Truth, and if I were anything other than one of the damned, I would've moved heaven and earth, mountain and stream, to get you baptized and walking in Grace.
Even the demons, on seeing the Christ Jesus, screamed 'You are the Son of God!' [Luke 4:41]
At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. [Philippians 2:10]
But Jesus rebuked them, as He will rebuke me, and commanded, 'Be quiet!'
So that is how I feel about you not being a Christian and walking in the Light: it is just another nail in my coffin, another example God has of my iniquity, of a sin of omission: what I could have done, a soul I could have saved ... and I didn't.
What would Jesus do?
We have the whole New Testament what He did: always took the hard way, always went out of His way to save one more soul.
What did `phfina do?
Too much, and not enough.
Too much, and not enough.
You have to navigate the mommy van in my family: there are boxes of books. And EM consumes, at least, one or two books every trip.
We went to a Swiss bakery for breakfast, so meusili, croissants, and Bavarian sausages. It was a little death for me to see all these Alpine reminders.
Why is it that everywhere I go, I'm reminded of Saga? It's like impregnated
into the very air I breath.
On the way to the bakery, Mrs. A played a CD of Matt Maher, a Catholic singer, she was sure to emphasize to me. And when the first song, rock ballad, actually, came on, a transformation occurred in the van.
EM kept reading, eyebrows creased intensely, as always.
But Li'l Iz ...
Her whole face shone, shone like the sun, with delight, and this little cubby cherub starting piping away in her sweet descant voice:
"I woke up in darkness,
Surrounded by silence
Oh, where?
Where have I gone?"
Then the chorus came, and Li'l Iz almost screamed the refrain:
"You called and you shouted.
Broke through my deafness
Now I'm breathing in
And breathing out:
I'm alive again!"
It was amazing. Compelling.
So the next chorus, I joined in:
"You shattered my darkness
Washed away my blindness
Now I'm breathing in
And breathing out:
I'm alive again!"
As I sang, I bobbed and weaved my head, 1-2 left, 1-2 right, and my hair, a black wave on the ocean, flying, windswept, careless as I sang and shouted the lyrics joyfully with my little niece a piercing voice from the heavens.
I'm asked: how can I be Christian, Catholic, even, being what I choose to be, and how can I, or how do I ... tolerate others, where I work, whom I talk to, who hold no such similar beliefs, because group? 'Polytheistic' is the closest approximation to what my workplace is like.
Well, I just do, but that's not the real answer. Not the examined one.
And examining it, I'm suddenly put into Saga's shoes, because she left me because of Christain scruples. Guilt, I'm sure, had a large part of it, but singing that song, being transformed by it, lifted up, lifted up to the Cross and the Glory, ...
Ladies and Gentlemen, everything was let go: my guilt, my fears, my pettiness, my hopes, my very self!
It all went away, and I was one in Christ.
Just for that moment, and then the next song came on, even better!
And the next, ...
And then we had breakfast, and I ...
Well, I settled back into myself, into being me, with my doubts, being in my skin again.
And the other side of that equation is this:
Evil, of course.
Because the other side is, I can look down my nose at everybody else, and say, well, at least I'm a Christian. I can stand before God and know I've got the whole package deal, the entirety of the Revealed Truth.
You see how dispicable I am? I'm shown the Glory of God in a very personal way in bits and pieces, and what do I do with it? I hoard it. Or run from it. Or write my confessions as an excuse to get attention and pity for what a fucked up little thing I am.
What did Saga do?
As always, she led. She said: this isn't right.
And she stopped walking down the road to destruction, and she started climbing uphill, toward her own Passion, her own cross, ...
her own glory.
And look at who's she affecting. Who, you ask. You. Because she's touching people, all the time, even people she doesn't know, not by drawing attention to herself, but she writes 1 review in Swedish, and she gets 5,000 hits on her profile page.
She's touching people she doesn't even know.
In alter Christus?
Saga is my little Christ, so I must be her prophet, a voice crying out in the desert, crying, 'Prepare ye the way of the LORD!'
I can't wait to meet King Herod, and be served for supper, my head on a platter.
But the question to me is how can I be a Christian, being what I am, and how can I be with people who aren't ... that is: aren't exemplar Christians or who aren't Christians, or even believers at all.
Well, the short answer is: easy! Very, very badly.
Because it comes down to this: sheep and goats.
In the end, God will ask me, what did you do?
And I will then have nowhere to run, nor nowhere to hide ... and nothing to show for the wretched life I lead.
But I will see God ask Saga the same question, and Saga, brave Saga, humble Saga, will say: 'Nothing, LORD, and that is the fate I deserve.'
And God will say, 'No, you are wrong. What you did was turn away from sin,'
And I'll watch God lift her up, because she did the hard thing, the impossible thing, the 'cruel' and unpopular thing.
Saga picked up her cross and followed Him, and she'll follow Him right into Heaven.
Me? I sang a song with my niece, wrote a blog entry, and sat in the squallor of my sins.
How do I feel about you not being a Christian?
Obviously, I don't feel enough. Because I have the gift: I've been given it more than once in my life, of the vision of seeing the Revealed Truth, and if I were anything other than one of the damned, I would've moved heaven and earth, mountain and stream, to get you baptized and walking in Grace.
Even the demons, on seeing the Christ Jesus, screamed 'You are the Son of God!' [Luke 4:41]
At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. [Philippians 2:10]
But Jesus rebuked them, as He will rebuke me, and commanded, 'Be quiet!'
So that is how I feel about you not being a Christian and walking in the Light: it is just another nail in my coffin, another example God has of my iniquity, of a sin of omission: what I could have done, a soul I could have saved ... and I didn't.
What would Jesus do?
We have the whole New Testament what He did: always took the hard way, always went out of His way to save one more soul.
What did `phfina do?
Too much, and not enough.
Too much, and not enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
