And if last night was abject terror, staring face to sneering face with the naked ugliness of my soul, and the knowledge that i may never again be able to take comfort in the certainties that have always comforted me in those times, because my trust in those certainties has been eaten away, today is anger. Anger at myself for squandering ,wasting and ruining, anger at God for dangling what seem to be good "gifts" in front of me, and retreating to watch, mute, as i squander, waste and ruin, all the time trying to do what i think he wants. Anger at someone else who i never wanted to be angry at...
Anger to hear that a good friend has been arrested, interrogated and threatened with injury merely for trying to live accoding to her beliefs, and that i have caved in without nearly so much opposition on most of mine.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
I want a divorce
Lately I've had a hard time living with myself. Really, i don't like me very much. I wouldn't get along with someone like me very well, and when i meet people like me, i don't like them. In fact, i avoid them, which is a normal reponse for dealing with awkward, ugly things. When we find something repulsive, we naturally want to be, well, repulsed, be pushed away. We want to get as far away as possible, or we squish the little slithering thing quickly with a tissue and throw it away so we won't have to look at it or be reminded of it's unpleasantness. But if what repulses me most at the moment is myself... I can't get away from myself. I can't break into a seperate person who can stand in judement of myself from the safe vantage point of "not being like that". Just as I cannot, as an actor, REALLY play a character unless I can find something sympathetic about him, some reason he is able to live with himself - otherwise the character becomes a hollow charicature of a person, a hollywood "front" like the fake towns in the old westerns, just a carefully presented exterior with nothing behind it but the functional struts required to maintain the illusion. Because i am stuck with me, i cannot wholly repudiate myself. I can repudiate my actions or motives or choices, but i have to maintain some sort of basic sympathy for me - or i will never be able to put much energy behind "overcoming" my struggles, because why would you want someone you can't stand to win? I am having trouble with that basic sympathy. Everything i thought was valuable, or good, about me, from the "rightness of my cause" to my supposed " necessary perspective" it all feels hollow, like those hollywood sets, something biult purely to convey the desired impression.
And of the steps i have taken to combat this disgust, to move towards a me i can live with, have not worked out well. A decision to stop intentional deception of myself and others, regardless of the consequences of the truth, has so far resulted only in greater injury and pain, which tempts me to return to my earlier assumption that a lie that makes people happy is justifiable, an assumption i nevertheless cannot respect.
I suppose that the quest to "feel good about yourself" is not a Christian one, and that being utterly, inescapably convinced of one's own lack of merit is a good starting point for a Christian who wishes to receive grace. But while i could myself easily repeat the arguments stating why this is not the case, receiving such grace seems like avoiding resposibility for my actions. Mind you, it is apparent that my raging guilt, which would have me feeling wholly responsible for everything from my failed relationship to the invasion of Iraq, has yet to produce any change in my behavior, and being consumed with it has kept from reaching out to others in need who i might have been able to help. Punishing myself does not make me a better person. In fact, it may be another form of self-absorbed pride- another way to justify myself-saying " i may have done these things, but at least i was"good" enough to torture myself about them."
The idea of grace, after all, is that we cannot earn anything, we cannot be good enough to deservedly pat ourselves on the back and say, " I'm an ok person" And grace is the focal point of my whole professed belief system. God supplies our self worth simply because he chooses to value us, and from that foundation of unconditional and unearned love and acceptance, we build better lives out of purer motives than simply trying to prove to ourselves we aren't a waste of air and water. That's how this is supposed to work, anyway. I'm still not sure what stops us from saying "thanks God, for taking care of my nagging conscience, now i'll go on being a bastard, if you don't mind." Maybe i still don't have a very good grasp on that unconditional love and acceptance.
And of the steps i have taken to combat this disgust, to move towards a me i can live with, have not worked out well. A decision to stop intentional deception of myself and others, regardless of the consequences of the truth, has so far resulted only in greater injury and pain, which tempts me to return to my earlier assumption that a lie that makes people happy is justifiable, an assumption i nevertheless cannot respect.
I suppose that the quest to "feel good about yourself" is not a Christian one, and that being utterly, inescapably convinced of one's own lack of merit is a good starting point for a Christian who wishes to receive grace. But while i could myself easily repeat the arguments stating why this is not the case, receiving such grace seems like avoiding resposibility for my actions. Mind you, it is apparent that my raging guilt, which would have me feeling wholly responsible for everything from my failed relationship to the invasion of Iraq, has yet to produce any change in my behavior, and being consumed with it has kept from reaching out to others in need who i might have been able to help. Punishing myself does not make me a better person. In fact, it may be another form of self-absorbed pride- another way to justify myself-saying " i may have done these things, but at least i was"good" enough to torture myself about them."
The idea of grace, after all, is that we cannot earn anything, we cannot be good enough to deservedly pat ourselves on the back and say, " I'm an ok person" And grace is the focal point of my whole professed belief system. God supplies our self worth simply because he chooses to value us, and from that foundation of unconditional and unearned love and acceptance, we build better lives out of purer motives than simply trying to prove to ourselves we aren't a waste of air and water. That's how this is supposed to work, anyway. I'm still not sure what stops us from saying "thanks God, for taking care of my nagging conscience, now i'll go on being a bastard, if you don't mind." Maybe i still don't have a very good grasp on that unconditional love and acceptance.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Aspiring to be a hick
The minstrel has finally found gainful employment. While not too terribly gainful, it involves being outside all day providing the low paid slave labour required to run a playground for rich people. I have to get up before anyone in their right mind would, engage in hard ( well , at least relatively taxing) labour as the sun comes up, and spend the day under said sun tending to very short, groomed fields. Plus, i get to play with large-ish motorized equipment. In some respects, it seems a lot like farming.
Now, some may have observed that i am not known to be overly enthusiastic about the working man's lot, but, as i sat on a grassy field idly picking weeds out of sand, and getting paid for it, this really isn't all that bad.
I seem to be very powerfully affected by the atmosphere of my surroundings ( sometimes going to far as to change continents to attempt some change in myself) and the office jobs i have been doing...my intense dislike may have had a lot to do with spending the majority of my waking hours in a florescant-lit, climate controlled excercise in functional blandness.
Here, though from the start i was hot, sunburned and bug-bitten, at least the air is moving, i'm under the unobstructed sky, and there is water, and ducks, rustling leaves, rippling grass, a pleasant excess of green, and butterflies- seriously, they're everywhere. I may form the opinion that no job could ever become entirely tiresome as long as it continued to allow for frequent exposure to butterflies. I would gladly spend my whole day in a place like this even if no compensation were involved. I wanted to get out of the city- this almost works. Even on three hours of sleep, i feel quiet, rested, surrounded by living things, alive.
Which, given recent events, is good. Nice to play with feelings other than pain and regret.
Now, some may have observed that i am not known to be overly enthusiastic about the working man's lot, but, as i sat on a grassy field idly picking weeds out of sand, and getting paid for it, this really isn't all that bad.
I seem to be very powerfully affected by the atmosphere of my surroundings ( sometimes going to far as to change continents to attempt some change in myself) and the office jobs i have been doing...my intense dislike may have had a lot to do with spending the majority of my waking hours in a florescant-lit, climate controlled excercise in functional blandness.
Here, though from the start i was hot, sunburned and bug-bitten, at least the air is moving, i'm under the unobstructed sky, and there is water, and ducks, rustling leaves, rippling grass, a pleasant excess of green, and butterflies- seriously, they're everywhere. I may form the opinion that no job could ever become entirely tiresome as long as it continued to allow for frequent exposure to butterflies. I would gladly spend my whole day in a place like this even if no compensation were involved. I wanted to get out of the city- this almost works. Even on three hours of sleep, i feel quiet, rested, surrounded by living things, alive.
Which, given recent events, is good. Nice to play with feelings other than pain and regret.
Interlopers
Hmmm... now there are all these posts on my blog...and i didn't write any of them. Mind you, i never used to have a blog. I suppose , if i'm supposed to be so polite, i wouldn't tell people to screw off and stop impersonating me. I could also change my password. But that wouldn't be polite.
Monday, June 20, 2005
...
...No, but i wish i was... if i were actually a sheep, i wouldn't agonize over what to do with myself and i wouldn't have the crushing pressure of a need to accomplish things. I would just munch grass and follow the asshole in front of me.
Plus, i'd be mutton. Mmmm.... sweet, glorious, tender juicy mutton....
Plus, i'd be mutton. Mmmm.... sweet, glorious, tender juicy mutton....
Peanut butter sandwiches
So a great number of women want to sleep with me... and there are an increasing number of blonde and blue children pulling on my legs... where have all the men gone? I mean, I'm just alone with a horde of women, and they have these looks on their faces... oh what do they mean? I'm just a minstrel, minding my own business...
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