Back off

Today I find myself feeling embarrassed for nothing really, just for being me, for being here, etc.  I guess I'm feeling tired of having to live up to people's expectations.  It's funny how even people with a reputation for bucking the system still end up confined by expectations.  Maybe it's just my own expectations.  Maybe it's all in my own head, brought on by the isolation of this life.  I spend hours without saying a word, just ghosting around people who barely notice I'm there.

The few friends who know about it are not any help.  They pretty much don't get it at all and can't figure out why I don't fit their expectations of how I should be reacting in this situation, or how they think they'd react, or whatever.  To be fair, some people are true.  Those people I value.  If you think you're one of them, you're probably wrong and if you aren't sure, then it might be you.  But while I don't want to hurt anyone, I'm not ok right now.  So this is my time to get sorted.  So you're just going to have to deal with it.

I suppose I could break out of this funk.  I could push myself into other dynamics.  But I don't really want to.  I would love to see the people I care about here, but they are far far away, far enough that it's not much different than when I lived in the US.

I'm disappointed with this experience, with myself, with what I'm learning about myself, etc.  The one thing I want to do is just not think, not pretend, just be whatever I am at the moment I want space to be that and I'm going to freaking take it.  So everyone should just butt out.  I'm giving myself permission to feel angry and sad and lonely and disappointed and hurt and to be quiet and to hate small talk and talking on the phone and one-sided friendships and F&'(##$% Skype.

I'm going to simply react and be for awhile.  So fair-warning, if this bothers you or hurts you in some way, just stay away from me.  I'm ceasing to strive in any way.  I am what I am good and bad and in between and I'm not pretending or apologizing for it.  So stop expecting things.

Burning

**NOTE: this blog is real and raw.  Changing or omitting names won't protect identities of people referenced.  So I employ pronoun swapping to further confuse identity.  This blog is NEVER a slam to individuals, but a means of processing ideas.**

I have not posted in a while because of something I was going to write about, but just recently something happened that has upset me and I'm burning about it.  So I will write it out.  Then maybe I'll be free to process the other stuff.

I think the biggest thing that gets under my skin is lack of respect.  You might think this odd coming from a punk, they not being known for respect.  But the truth is, punks are actually very big on respect.  In fact, it's such a big deal that we refuse to pay false respect.  It must be earned.  If you set yourself up over someone else, we're going to call you down.  And that is the crux of the problem, really.

Respect is about boundaries.  People who take liberties tread all over those boundaries.  Some people just never seem capable of understanding another's point of view.  But there again, that's what respect is for.  You don't have to understand.  Just follow the rules of general politeness and all is good.

You see, I have this old friend that I was once very close to, in fact closer than my own sibling.  He had shown me some generosity that makes me feel somewhat indebted even over a decade later.  But early on, it was clear certain people she was related to had no idea about personal boundaries and I would not get along with that person.  I mean serious leech personality, like barging into your house uninvited, refusing to leave when I repeatedly told them I had to leave myself, expecting us to do things without asking, forcing my friend to be 2 hours late for a 2 hour event that the other was not invited to, etc. 

But that's ok.  We don't have to like everyone our friends like.  The problem is that my friend eventually became inseparable from this negative influence, probably from good motives.  I tried to advise him about the negative changes I was seeing in her, but he made it very clear that my advice was not appreciated.  So I backed off and we lost all serious contact for about a decade.

Then she shows up again like nothing has changed...leech now fully affixed such that the two are never apart...ever.  And as you'd expect, my friend has now taken on many of those negative traits, interrupting conversations and then monopolizing them.  Ordering people around.  Insisting on uncomfortable topics.  Once, he invited himself and leech to a party neither were invited to intentionally because of the leech, then made a scene at the party in front of everyone asking if they weren't supposed to be there, and when we tried to just side step it saying, "you're here now." They both proceeded to start altering things like music, temperature, etc. in a rented facility.  And when we refused to comply, they went to get staff to do it.  Which was where I put my foot down and leech waited outside for a few minutes until my friend finally couldn't take it and left.

So fine, whatever, right?  But through a remnant of old relationship, this friend became privy to some personal information about my family.  Which she then of course told Leech.  So for the past couple months Leech has kept insisting on "advising" us about it, openly in public.  We've downplayed, we've walked away, we've even told them straight out to stop before this information gets out and causes unnecessary problems for us and for others.

The last straw came this week when Leech accosted my son about it in public and wouldn't let go.  I didn't know at the time.  But upon finding out, I had to confront them.  I tried to do it privately, avoiding unnecessary embarrassment, sticking to the topic at hand and not old issues, etc.  But then my friend's response was something along the lines of, they hadn't told anyone and it must just be a game of telephone gone wrong, but while we're on the topic, we know you're afraid, but that's why you shouldn't have secrets."

BOOM!!!  I went through the roof!  It's a good thing this came in writing or I'd have had it out with them for sure.  I couldn't have controlled myself and I would have verbally laid them out as all the pent frustration gushed out.

They couldn't be more wrong about my concern nor could they have missed the point any further!  They don't get to make a judgement on this!  Not accepted!  And then they were clueless enough to ask if they could come to another event I was doing. Not even, "is it still ok."  Just, "how do we sign up!" 

So after multiple attempts to respond, I finally went with something to the effect of here's the line.  Don't cross it, or I will not hesitate to let them know in open and certain terms.  I have severed ties with these people to the greatest degree that I can.  But I have no doubt, they won't get it and they'll come prancing in to some event as if nothing is wrong.

Good God!  Help me forgive this because right now, I have no desire to.

How to make a liar

I haven't posted in a while.  I tried but couldn't.  I've been through one of the worst dark periods I've had ever.  I don't want to go into it, but it's been rough.  I'm doing better now.

I don't know what the purpose of it is, but it has revealed my weakness, my baseness, my violence, and my selfishness.  Maybe that is the purpose.  I just know it is not fun and not pretty.  It's also not made up and I can't help it.  If you've never been there, you won't understand and that's ok.  Don't seek it.

I have said it before, but it is clearer to me than ever that whatever is good in me is not from me.  I know you'll deny that and think it's just the darkness talking, and that's fine.  I hope you never see that side of me.

But I'm trying to keep seeing it.  I don't want to live in it, but I don't want to forget it either.  I tend toward hubris and self-confidence without it.  Even the humility you think you know in me is a form of self-pride.  I'm not kidding.

People lead the question all the time.  Christians are the worst about it.  What do you think will happen if you constantly keep telling people how to be?  Anyone with half a brain will quickly learn how to pretend at it.  Put on the actions and even self-deceive that they have achieved it.  I've done it.  I habitually do it.  And you reward the better liars.

I have a ready bunch of scripts to throw up in any given situation.  I watch carefully.  I have fakes backstopping fakes and will say whatever works to get the reaction I need.

And what I really need is a safe place to let those things slowly fall off.  People who are not impressed by it.  People who want me to thoroughly be good rather than merely seem good.  You condemn yourselves in me!  And I condemn myself!

Understand me, I am not saying this from a place of despair.  Quite the opposite.  When I was despairing, I hid from you because then I can't keep up the masks, can't keep the demons in their chains.  But right now I'm in that hazy space between the nightmare and the bright day and soon I'll be fully dressed and presentable again.God forbid!

I need a savior.  I am fully reminded that if there is any hope for me it is in Jesus.  Not knowledge about him, but in the real living him.  I am not claiming to know grand mystical things.  If I did, I doubt them now.  He didn't even show up in some nonmiraculous way to rescue me.  But I don't care.  My heart leaps when I think about him, when I read about him.  I understand the meaning of hoping in him.  I didn't choose this.  If I did it was rigged.  I am not in control.  So if he doesn't have me, if I do not eventually arrive in a place of peace and perfection and learn that he was there when I couldn't see it or know it, then I would rather rush headlong into the void now.  It isn't about this world.  It isn't about the surface things you spend so much time talking about as if we could just decide to be something else.  Even if you can, I CAN'T!  I don't know how.  It doesn't work.  Whether that's brain chemistry, spiritual sense, slavery, karma, grace, whatever you want to call it.  What I can do is lie about it though!

You'd rather me be presentable, disfigure my feelings into acceptable packages, even though you THINK you want me to let it out.  Which is the most insidious part!  Your words say one thing and your actions say another in the same breath.  Your words are a trap.  A demon maw yawns behind your fair and hopeful words, you whitewashed tombs!  Damn you satans in a hollow christ's image!  I've never yet found anyone who really meant it when they say it's safe to let it out and let it go.  Maybe one or two people come closer than others.  But if I have ever let the depth of it peak out, people take pains...no give pains to shut it in again.

So keep teaching behaviors.  Keep focusing on outwards before inwards.  Keep modeling the plastic masks.  Keep grinding out budding faith with your two faces.  Keep making liars.  I don't want to be one anymore.

Cloud

It's been a while since I posted and there's a reason for that.  A lot has happened.  I got busy with local non-profit stuff I do and on the way back from one of the events someone ran a red light and smashed my truck.  They hit right behind the driver door at about 50kph.  My truck spun out and stopped against a curb.  The lady dropped her phone an reached for it.  When she sat back up, WHAM!  she had two kids in the car and if she'd hit a fraction of a second earlier, she could have killed me and definitely would have injured me worse.  SO PUT THE FREAKIN' PHONE DOWN AND DRIVE RIGHT!

I walked out, but had a few bruises and some muscle strain in my neck and shoulder.  All in all, not a bad accident, thank God.

This all just after we made the decision to buy my wife a new car because hers was on the way out.  We hate to have a car payment, but we got a good deal and made the leap, then this.

See, they don't make my truck any more and certainly not driven so little.  With another car payment, I really didn't want to make two right now, so a new truck was out.  I did manage to get another truck, but it took some searching.  Prices have gone up and with so many major American companies ceasing to make small pickups, the used market is really hot for them.  It is a couple years newer, but has been driven more and is a bit more worn on the body.  But it's also better on gas and, being a Toyota, would be superior to an equal Ford (what I had before).  So vehicle is different, but a wash in the end.  Insurance covered basically the whole purchase, so I can't really complain, as long as this one turns out to be as reliable as my old one.  I haven't had it long enough to trust it fully.


But as you know, this blog is about contemplation, and that's what I do.  So I'm always looking for the greater lesson.  Certainly, I think there's something in that I may have been tacitly trusting in my station in life more than God himself.  I was sitting pretty well with no long term bills, a good job, plenty of disposable income (which we gave a good deal of to charity).  Amazing how fast that can disappear.  While nothing major happened in the end, it was enough to wake me up to this.

Secondly, I was thrown up against a bit of Job-like feeling.  I didn't do anything to deserve the wreck.  In fact I was doing more things right than many.  But apparently, that doesn't matter.  I know this logically, but for all of you who want to speak chiding platitudes to me, I reply, just let me come plow your classic car to bits and almost kill you in the process and let's see how you feel about it.  Your pat answers just make me angry.  I mean, I took care of that car and paid it off and was set to run it for the rest of my life, or nearly.  That was yanked right out from under me through someone else's negligence.  I think I have a right to process some emotions over it, even if they aren't entirely logical.

Add to that the deepest thing which will prevent this entry from being widely distributed.  Namely, that I sit too close to the edge of depression anyway.  If you are one of these people then you know what I mean.  If not, then thank God and either try to understand something you know nothing about, or just stop reading now, because you won't get this easily.  You see, this mental state doesn't go away.  If we are functional, it's through a series of coping strategies and masks...yeah, masks, we put on.  Because people don't get it.  They don't know what's it's like to have this darkness hovering just behind your eyes like a cloud.  Sure we joke about it and make cute donkeys or funny robots to parody it, but the reality is not amusing.  Imagine looking at any scenario and immediately seeing the worst cases, running them to conclusion, and then having to hunt for the good options if you can even see them.  Imagine that any joy or fun is constantly tainted by the shadow of the cloud behind your eyes and imagine having to worry if too much of that slips out and gives away too much of your inner struggles.

Our culture wants us to be happy and level.  Anything below the line is not accepted.  Try getting a job, being trusted with children, or even keeping friends that are good for you.  Of course different people react differently to it.  It isn't all just weepy, can't get out of bed stuff.  Some of us cope using anger and near rage.  The Linkin Park song describes it well.  That face on the inside never goes away, taunting, staring, laughing.  Some get destructive of self or other things.  And it doesn't take much to knock us over that slippery edge.

So for someone like me, these events carry a greater challenge to grasp for life at something that can hold me out from under that cloud.  I can feel it slipping when another idiot cuts me off in traffic and I have a near PSTD moment (not to belittle the true sufferers of this condition, but only to allude to it since it gets better press) with sweaty palms, racing heart, and raging temper.  Or when the neighbor plays his stereo too loud and I'm feeling my blood pressure rise with every vibration of the base.

I know I will get better.  I'm learning to deal with these things more quickly.  And there must be a reason for God taking me down this road.  I'm trying my best to trust him.  He is my refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.  But if I slip up and complain a bit too much or seem more agitated than usual, cut me some slack, ok?  And keep your worn-out platitudes to yourself.  They don't help.  If you don't know what might be a platitude, it's anything you've ever heard more than one person say about a similar situation.  No matter how well-meaning you are, it is going to come off shallow and dismissive.  So just back off.  And if I offend you, I'm sorry.  But you offended me first.

The Difference

I was once told by someone who had just met me in person that I was not what she expected.  She said my writing was fierce and angry, but sitting in front of her, I was nothing like that at all.  Of course she fell prey to a common fallacy of generalizing a very limited experience (of me, in this case) to what is a much larger and more complex reality.  But I don't want to bash her logic.

Instead, I want to apologize...in the old sense of offering a defense...for this blog.  It is intended to be a very real and raw and unfiltered record of my experiences.  As such, the tone vacillates, mostly across the more troubling spectrum of human emotions, since obviously, I'm not wrestling with much in the busy or more pleasant times; leastways, I don't have time to write about them.

So it occurred to me that the few of you who read this, especially any random surfers who hit on it, may easily get the impression that I'm a hateful and angry person.  And in some aspects you would be absolutely correct.  But that certainly isn't all I am.  Nevertheless, mistaking my state is less of a concern than if you were to mistake my intent toward others.

While I most certainly reference and sometimes quote actual events and people, some of whom might actually read this blog on occasion, you'll also notice that I never use names or identifying characteristics.  And as an added safeguard, I'll let you in on a little secret: I sometimes even swap pronouns or other subtle indicators just in case someone starts to think they know who I'm talking about.

Why?  Because my intention is never to judge or condemn the person.  We are, all of us, much more than any single incident.  More even than a history or a portfolio of behavior.  We are complex, living people who change and grow and fail and succeed.  I have felt the daggers and darts of judgement and misunderstanding and I would never be the source of pain to another.

Like Paul, I am keenly aware, more than most, of my own failings.  As raw as this blog is, you are not privy to my most inner thoughts and feelings.  The climate in my head is a harsh and terrible place of extremes built in arid arid regions of asceticism, glaring plains of self-scrutiny, tempestuous seas of emotion, and dark mires of spiritualism.  Trust me, no one survives there, even myself.  My point is that I expound externally nothing harsher than I have already applied to myself.  And while you have the option of turning off my blog, I can't get out of my own head.  I am very much the subject of the old Linkin Park song.  But while this explains it somewhat, it does not excuse my virtiolic.

The difference, I think, is in the target.  If you read carefully, you'll notice that my attacks are always directed at a fallacy of logic or belief.  Particularly where that fallacy has a negative impact (intended or not) on another and usually weaker party.  You see, the vitriolic is toward the idea and it's manifestation in behavior.  Not the person.  If we were all to play so nice as to not offend anyone about anything they do, the result would be that the weakest and softest among us bear the undue burden of our mistakes.  So I'm sorry, I have to speak against it.  I know you are not your actions or even your ideas and are therefore not receiving the bullet that you assume to take.  No one has the right to allow their problems to harm another without their consent, even if your personal well-being is so entangled with your behavior that you feel personally wounded when I speak against it.  In fact, the wound, even as fallacious as your affront is, will likely do you good by forcing you to pay attention to it and perhaps disentangle yourself from yourself somewhat, though even that is categorically not my intent.


As I have said before, I am a sheepdog.  I help the shepherd herd the sheep.  I know my flock and I will continue to uncompromisingly attack those demons and shades that would harm them, even the ones that pretend to be shadows of holy and upstanding people.  If my jaws happen to snap a little too close for comfort, please remember I'm aiming for the leech on your neck and the wound you feel is from it digging in, not from me.  Just like any dog, grudges are not held.  When things are safe and good, you're welcome to lay your head on my back and we can gnaw a bone together.

Man of Peace

Sometimes things get away from us before we notice them.  I'm convinced most bad things start as good ideas that get perverted in the application...probably by small unnoticeable steps.  I recently found myself being quite tense and angry.  Every little thing began to bother me.

Fortunately, I rather quickly realized that it wasn't a problem with the entire world, but with me.  Among the quite probable multiple errors I made in this, one I noticed was that I felt as if I was resisting a constant tide.  It was me standing strong, fighting forward, alone against the fray...metaphorically, in my mind.

Like I said, I don't think this is wrong in itself.  I think we need more people who stand up for what is right, demand that as far as their influence reaches, things are done well and honestly.  The probelm is this is very tiring, alienating, stressful.

The truth is, I don't have to fix everything, including myself.  In fact, I have to fix nothing.  The yoke should be easy, and the burden light, not the opposite.  Funny how fighting to take off burdens becomes a burden in itself.

But I don't want to dwell on the principles, I want to talk about the specifics in this case.  I am laying down my arms.  I have misunderstood the militaristic imagery of the Bible in my own way.  I have realized that I can't be any kind of hard-minded.  This includes how I think of myself.  I am shedding the Holy Knight's armor for the friar's habit.  I no longer want to be the warrior monk, not even the standoffish Ranger exuding a watchful quiet that whispers of latent danger.  I want to be Brother Elias and Lawrence.  Bombadil.  Unaffected by the churning of the world. 

I don't mean to close myself off to the world, but to approach it differently.  I had become so focused on defending my flock that I lost sight of the fact that the flock isn't in any real danger.  Not circumstantially, but existentially, catagorically.  They are safe because they have been removed from the possibility of harm.

I love the epic story so much, it's easy to cast myself in that light.  But the truth is, the danger has been eliminated.  Truthfully, there never was any real danger.  God has always been in control, nothing occurs outside his will, and even the most dastardly schemes to do harm are woven back beyond impotence to actually work good and the will of the Father.  This is the Gospel.  The world is restored.

The people I most admire overcame terrible circumstances and even walked into horrific death, not as steely gladiators, afraid of nothing, but as simple people so convinced that the world had been set right that even their present suffering was not a blip on their radar.

This is who I want to be.  And I can't do that with my fist clenched and my fangs bared.  So I'm laying down my guard, laying down my weapons.  I'm sure there is a place for those feelings, but I can't use them right now.  They are too tainted, carry too much possibility of consuming me.  So while I may still feel those urges, I am offering myself up to a new perspective and can only pray that I do not go the way of Mendoza in the Mission.  I want to be a man of peace.

What this means for me is that I will not associate myself with or flood myself with images of fighting.  I will not style myself that way any more.  My physical training will shift: rather than preparing to face the foe, to be ready to snatch the helpless from the jaws of the beast, I will move out of joy and celebration.  I will look for and acknowledge the good.  I am choosing a path of peace...not pacifism, but understanding conflict, it's roots, and moving beyond it.  I have to learn to let God fight for me and not the other way around.  I think I'll find that there will be no fight to have because all the variables are in God's control.

I'm sure this makes little sense and is far too internal to be of much use to anyone else.  But this is the key to my cage.  I'm opening the door and walking out to find it was never locked.

Heat

I have a passion, a fire.  My temperament is this way.  I control it well and don't lose my temper often, but I am excitable and quickly heat up about things, good and bad.  I have a hard time letting an injustice go unaddressed.

I have in the past been quite angry...not in the uncontrolled anger management sense, but in the seething beneath the surface, fiery oratory sort of sense.  I have been called a match: quick to fire up at the least abrasion, but short lived and relatively harmless.  I would quickly pop off on people.  Tell them what I thought.  Call them out.  Politely, but directly.  In nicer times, I could frame it as a joke and lay some low with pointed humor that accomplished the same thing as the angry version, but with less direct confrontation.  It has served me well and I took it as a gift.

Of course any gift can be perverted, and so I took my tendency to pop off or become quickly agitated.  I even thought this heat inside was to be used to call crusade for good.  To call out injustice and wrongness.  I wouldn't stand for it and everyone needed to know that they couldn't get away with that junk around me because I'd call it right out in front of everyone.

But lately, I've begun to wonder if this is not such a gift.  I'm not sure.  Really.  I have just begun to see that maybe there is virtue in quietly handling the wrongs, perhaps even letting people go their own way.  Perhaps not always...there may well be a time to stand up and call it out.  But maybe there is a time for noticing without mentioning.

Previously I viewed this as tolerating what shouldn't be tolerated.  As a disservice to the one I refrained from speaking to.  After all, Truth must shine forth, and we have a duty and calling to hack away at the darkness.

Don't get me wrong, I've never attacked people like many legalists do.  My crusades are about grace and forgiveness.  But fuelled with a blazing angry passion.

The thing is, it's really hard to win.  I took this as confirmation that the world was corrupt.  As in the Mission, I was DeNiro's reformed conquistador, ready to shed blood, even my own in defense of what was right.  I'd rather stand up and take a blow to the face for speaking out than sit by and let a wrong go.  It was not my job to win...just to fight.

But now, I'm seeing a lovely grace, an almost asian-master sort of goodness, in letting things flow.  Perhaps speaking boldly out is not always the way to go.  Perhaps there is collateral damage that could be spared.  Perhaps there is something to a more pacific attitude.  Perhaps this is not over-tolerance, a moopy spine.  Certainly it could be, just as my passion could be perverted to plain anger and hate.  But maybe this is a time for me to learn how to be meek in the truest sense.

Jesus did speak boldly.  He did enrage and agitate and even physically overturn.  But he also nurtured and helped and loved in a soft and tender way.

Perhaps the Greystokian animalistic nobility, the chivalric gentle warrior, is not God's ideal.  Perhaps it is far less inspiring.  Far more suffering (in the old sense).  Far more humble (in the old sense of lowly).

Please teach me the answer, Jesus.  What am I to learn from you in this yoke?  Help me to be pliable and open to you.  I fear I will lose my strength, my identity, and I don't know how else to be.  But I must lose mine to gain yours and I will be what you make me.

Railing

My reader...the only one I think (maybe I should just address these like letters to that person) said that my posts can change dramatically in style and tone. I recognize that and apologize by saying that I wanted this blog to be raw and real, so those swings are actually swings in me, chronicled in the hopes that some other soul may read them and feel less alone...but I know it makes it hard to read sometimes...which is probably why I have one reader. Whom I am tempted to call the "fan base", but I'll leave that reference there just to see if anyone ever gets it.

I also noticed that my blogs tend to be railing sorts of things. Not always, but a good deal of them. My facebook posts are even more so. I don't really like that about myself. I don't start out to be that way. And I don't feel like a very angry or miserable person always. I just think those are the things that get posted more. I have a hard time writing happy drivel.

Honestly, I try very hard not to be negative. This is an uphill battle as anyone who reads this blog will know about me. But it isn't helped by the fact that there are just so many darn insufferable things out there. What is insufferable? Well, for me it is misrepresentations, usurpations, manipulations, by those who claim (and are expected) not to do so. In my world, these are usually people who call themselves Christians and the organizations that they operate. I can't judge what goes on in their hearts, but I can comment on their actions. I want to be clear that I do not judge the person as I judge the actions. I don't. And since no one but God can see into my heart as well, you'll just have to take my word on that. I hope my actions bear it out as well.

I want Truth. I want what is real. Recently, I went into church after a few weeks out. I've been slowly extricating myself from that system of religious obligation and manipulation, but was feeling open and ready to see if God would speak through those present. I was trying hard to not be bothered by the usual irks (plastic expressions on singers, forced hype, awkward smiles covering real hurts, etc.) And then, what met my ears was, well, insufferable to me yet again. I fully believe in a real hell. I've experienced enough of it and what comes out of it to know this, so we are on the same page at the root. I was even able to look past the short-sighted Biblical citations. They were correct in reading, but the speaker failed to mention (if he knew) how those who counter them do so. There are some very good arguments against them that make it hard to use those verses alone as proof of point to someone who knows how to argue at all. If he knew and chose not to mention it, he only sends his flock out with false security against wolves.

But then he went on to start nothing short of brainwashing. Telling the congregation that they may have questions, but so what. Throw them out because if the Bible said it, that was all they needed. At this I was piqued. But then he went on to have a call-response where the congregation was supposed to repeat the mantra that they didn't need proof and their questions didn't matter. I had had enough. I had to walk out. What I felt like doing was interrupting the whole sermon by calling out the heresy right there. Maybe I should have, but most wouldn't have understood what I meant and those that did would have been too bound by their own issues to accept it. I would have instantly rocked their boats so hard, they would have instinctually thrown me out simply to stop the shaking.

So I went to the bathroom to hide for a minute, then look for a place to go. Everywhere I went there were people milling around who knew me and wouldn't understand. I couldn't attempt to talk to them, they'd see my upset. So I had to go outside.

Out there was a world. A world that God made and lived in. There were things living and moving and happening. It was calming. A whole different tone from the cursed tomb that was being created inside what should be a place of life, a well of living water. Instead it was turned into a stinking sepulchre of religious bondage.

Jesus never spoke to people that way. Jesus went to lengths to be tender to people's needs. To meet them where they were. To explain and build trust. He even met with one scholar one on one to explain one of the seminal passages in the Bible! I'm sure he must have done it more, but we don't have record. He still does this today. I thought we believed he was a living and active and caring God. Yet speakers like this try to force their point on the masses who look to them for guidance through manipulative techniques like that. God, it would be better to have mill stones hung on their necks and be thrown into the sea than to lead those astray. The Bereans were commended for questioning what they were taught and searching it out to see if it was true, not expected to blindly repeat what they were told! It hurts me and makes me want to rend my clothes! And my only outlet for this is some lonely blog with one reader. I am thankful for that, don't misunderstand. But it makes my heart cry out like David, "How long, God?!" How long will this evil continue? God I want to see your mercy and grace poured out on these people, even the speaker.

And yet these masses will listen for a while, until the stench builds so strong in their noses that they know something isn't right. Then they leave as well...probably to be more disgusted with Christianity and less friendly to the one who came to do away with this very thing. Jesus only ever railed against the religious and self-righteous...with good reason.

Responsible

Why am I always expected to be responsible? Is it because I've never been anything but? Even my rebellion is responsible, chivalrous even. I hate lies and would sooner tell someone to their face that I will not do what they ask than sneak around.

But right now I feel like I am surrounded by people who are not like this. I know I hold myself to a very high standard. Far higher than most people will ever know. Psychotically high almost. But sometimes, I feel that my responsibility gives others the room to be irresponsible and they don't feel bad about taking advantage of it. I don't even believe they notice it most of the time because I just pick up the slack.

Maybe I should just stop. Skip work, miss a payment or two, leave someone hanging or stranded, not do something I'm expected to do at work or home. Blow a paycheck or two. But the thing is, I can't. I can't! I can't let myself be this way, so it will never happen. Oh sure, I could give my whole paycheck away, but I couldn't blow it on frivolous stuff. I can't let the housework go. It eats at me and I have no peace until it's done. The kicker is, most of the mess I clean up isn't even mine. I recently went through to throw out more of my stuff and had a hard time finding any that wasn't necessary and useful items.

I guess that's why people don't believe me when I try to tell them these things. I even recently lost a long time friend over this very thing. He just wouldn't believe that I was capable of expressing bent feelings in an irresponsible way. Everyone else could be forgiven, but I was not given that grace. I was even accused of intentionally trying to hurt him by acting that way.

When will someone come find me? When will I get the hand up?

Even as I write this I am reminded of times when God has provided for me. He has never let me go too far. But that's just it...no human has ever done this. Is it any wonder I find so little of value in this world? A band once wrote that "this world has nothing for me, and this world has everything" I feel just like this. The thing is if it's true, then there is nothing left for me.