Meditations, Mysteries, Miracles, Miles and Misgivings

 

I took a pass on going to church today. Don’t die of shock, I’ll listen to their podcast and go next week.  And I recalled a favorite musical group from the 90s.  I remember the 90s.  Years of hope and promise.  I got married in the 90s.  I got a masters degree in the 90s.  I had faith in the 90s.  Stronger than the 2010s.

Here’s the group:

80s hair+  Brilliant Rock Vocals + Christian = Still kind of awesome.
And just in case you aren’t convinced here’s a bit more:  you don’t have to stay for the last minute but it was funny to me.

I’m still waiting for the answers to my recent prayers for myself.  I’m still waiting for certain things I was hoping for back then.

I could tell you a few things that led to the demise of my faith.  This is some kind of a journey to someplace while here on earth, I’m just not convinced any more that it’s to a good place.  I wish I still believed.  But I’ll just have to see a few more miracle type events  that undo some of the grind events that have slowly ground my faith down beyond the stump of faith I thought I used to have even after the 90s left and the 2000s really sucked. They decidedly sucked.

I could tell you how it’s my fault, how God disciplines the ones He loves.  Well I’m tired of discipline if that’s what this is.  The 2000s sucked, and the 2010s suck too.  Except for watching the kids grow from swingsets and training wheels to sassy, hilarious kids.  THAT is a win.  But today sucked too despite the relief of not going to church.

I don’t know how much anyone can take of life.  Today I dropped my carafe for my espresso machine, we’ve had it at least 15 years. But it’s mine, because, as she jokes, the Bible says “Hebrews.”  Mm hmm, not as funny any more as it used to  be for me.  I swept it up.  A metaphor for life?  Today the window on my car got stuck and wouldn’t move.  I pulled up with one hand and used the other on the motor until it engaged.  A metaphor for life?  Who the fuck knows?  Today I pulled A LOT of thistles from the yard, and the tiny garden areas, the little bastards.  Metaphorically speaking, I’m just really tired of being dealt the shit hands in the poker game.  I need a few winning hands in a row; that might reassure me.  The Bible also says it rains on the just and the unjust; I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse.  Depends on how hard the rain falls I guess.  And it depends if I can save the water and sell it I guess.

We’re supposed to remember the good things that happened before to help us get through the shitty things, that’s what they tell us from the church stage.  I liked the good times in the 90s.  I liked when my kids were born in the early 2000s, but for me personally it wasn’t really a good journey through good times.  It was a journey of being lied to, pushed down, stolen from, and having my feelings hurt, by ass holes I barely knew, by people I should have been able to trust, and by my own family sometimes.  And the late 1900s weren’t that great, except I have lived through it.

OK, I remembered the group and a few of my favorite songs.  I bought all their albums back then.  And it’s not all terrible.  I have a house, a wife, kids, the car at least STARTED, and eventually I got the window up.  Managed to vacuum, cleaned some shit out of the garage and maybe I’ll have killed the rodent that lives under my house.  I’ll check tomorrow.  I have to take it as positive, I have to believe it’s progress.  It’s just not all sunshine and roses, Larry.

I like Larry, too, except he’s kind of clueless.  It’s his charming simplicity I like.  Trusting, naive, like kids are supposed to be.  I’d kind of like to be able to be like that.  To just know there’s a point.  To just know what I’m supposed to do.  I don’t.  Sometimes all I know  to do is sweep the damned floor, and that will be crapped up again tomorrow.  No progress.  Just status quo, and a little more loss every day.

One of the pastors talked about Ecclesiastes today.  I didn’t need to be there.  I know there’s no point and sometimes it’s just time to mourn.  But really?  More than 10 years?  I think sometimes I’m cyclothymic because I SHOULD be depressed as a baseline because life is so fucking depressing, but my brain doesn’t WANT to be depressed so it pushes a manic button and makes me not think about the shit so much, some of the time.  it’s still raining shit, but my brain won’t let me process it.  I think that’s why I think I block it out.  Why I can’t remember shit and it frustrates Mrs M I don’t remember things.

I want the fucking winning hands.  Not the memory of when it was tolerable.  I want the good things.  I want the new car.  I want a new espresso machine.  I want my wife to love me back, the same way I love her.  I want a clean garage.  I want a yard not infested with fucking thistles.  Money answers all of these but one.  True love answers that, and I guess I’ll see.  If it’s true, I’ll let you know.  It is from my side of this thing.  Oh, and a few shots of rum and a dish of vanilla ice cream would be nice.  But it’s going to be Monday soon so I have to wash the fucking dishes again and then not drink so I can do the Monday things.

God?  Can I have a few winning hands?  A little freedom?  And the wisdom and discretion to not be an idiot if You decide to say yes?  That’d be great.  It’s been more than 10 years since the last time I felt good about anything, so maybe the next 50 could be good years to make up for my childhood being kind of shitty, and the past more than 10 years being broken carafes and thistles.  “I’m not a smart man but I know what love is,” says Forrest Gump.  I know what love is, and this doesn’t feel like love to me.  Thanks.