Top 10 Explanations for High Functioning Deon

Ohh, yeah, if you can’t be manic and optimistic, pretend like fuck and eventually you’ll still be depressed and angry.  So it goes that yesterday I pretended to not be depressed.  I pretended I was fine and got dressed and got into my car and drove pretending not to be afraid of the other drivers.  I was less afraid than usual because I wasn’t leaving in the middle of rush hour, but I knew that since I couldn’t find my fucking cell phone until 5 minutes later than I needed it to be there on time, I’d be a little late.  I failed to pretend when the nonexistent traffic ground to a halt and then proceeded to mosey when I knew I was already late to get to the doctor’s office, but the other drivers either couldn’t hear or pretended not to hear.  I don’t like car horns, so I don’t use my own unless the rage is particularly bad, and yesterday it wasn’t.

I boldly got out of my car and smiled at some other poor schmuck and his kid in the parking lot, because why add my stress to their stress.  I held the door for them, because if I’m already 3 minutes late, who gives a fuck about being 1 more minute late? I pretended with the receptionist when she told me that my appointment was a half a fucking hour and 5 minutes ago, and she would have to reschedule.  I pretended to be OK leaving the office knowing I’d have to come back and might be late for work, and expressed my gratitude I could get it out of the way today and not wait a few more weeks.  I’ve been fine I guess without medication, my acting chops have proven invaluable at work pretending I accepted the new bullshit they shoved at me in the form of moving me to the ass end of the schedule without a pay grade bump.  Because having less money than I need is better than having NO money at all.

I went back and endured a little less traffic at 10, and pretended  with the receptionist again, acting as normal as I felt normal might act.  I pretended for the doctor, because why should he worry about me when there are far worse cases he could invest his time with.  I mean, someone who’s dying isn’t as bad off as someone who only feels like shit in his mind.  That shit was real shit when I got home, and it was nothing but stress, so it’s a good thing he didn’t get a sample of that.  It’s normally a whole lot more regular and a whole lot less displaying evidence of my stress level, so I was peaking yesterday morning because after I went before going to the doctor the first time, I went again after going to the doctor the second time.

Side effects of the medications cause me to lose weight, which is great, and add to that I have a new best friend to take on frequent and regular walks around the neighborhood, and add to that the stress of recent changes has, in small ways, affected my appetite.  So I’m not really eating lunch on the regular.  I eat dinner and then I might have some toast and I might add butter or peanut butter, as a late snack.  Yesterday I added a banana because if I didn’t eat it we’d need two more bananas in an aging condition to make banana bread, and frankly I was too tired to bake, and I felt like eating it wouldn’t make me nauseous.  No, I was nauseous before and after the doctors appointments, but not last night.  And I buttered that toast before I added peanut butter and that banana.  Elvis much?  I didn’t grill it, so maybe it’s not as buttery and artery clogging.

With my weight loss, my blood pressure has dropped into a quite normal and healthy range, and my stressed out pulse didn’t freak out the nurse practitioner.  I’m reporting some good news, people, can you believe it?  My resting pulse is at this weight probably normally 60, with the meds pushing it down into the 50s.  I’ve lost 5 more pounds, and I’m now closer to 200 than I am to 250, which feels nice and looks great… so why isn’t Mrs M climbing me like a softly barked, very solid sequoia?  Well, maybe I only look great if you don’t look too close…  There’s still the matter of the scruffy beard, which only hurts when I shave.  I get a razor rash, and I’m allergic to the shit you’re supposed to use to treat that.  And I get nicks, which seem like they’ll never stop bleeding (Waaahhh, would I like some cheese with that whine?) .  I’ll compensate by pretending I have the energy and motivation to clean, which is just fucking sexy if one isn’t taking one for granted and presuming the ambition exists.  I might be even more ambitious and sexy if there was an actual, erm… reward, for my efforts.  I push because shit’s gotta get done and who’s going to do it?

It worked out fine.  I kept my mouth shut; I didn’t bitch about anything.  I didn’t tell him about the stress at work, or the issues of my very beautiful, but allegedly pre-menopausal wife and her lack of a normal sex drive.  I can accept her age, but the drive has been in the same gear for almost our whole marriage.  And frankly, as gears go, there’s never been enough grind.  I compensate for her lack, by wanting sex about twice a day, in one glorious form or another.  And she compensates by saying “no,” which I want to respect.  “I said too much; I said enough.  I thought that I heard you laughing.” (fucking earworm!  REM?!

Maybe the earworms are trying to tell me to sleep.  AC/DC or Led Zeppelin to the rescue!)

Anyway, the doctor,  bless his heart, bought my act and re-prescribed meds I’ve been out of for a month, compensating for some of them with alternative substances (mostly coffee or herbal tea and liquor and vitamins, including hefty doses of vitamin D) and wishes for regular and frequent therapeutic, relaxing, stress relieving, full-body massage.  He’s a new guy I had never seen before who’s probably been there the whole time I’ve been a patient, while we were on different schedules.  It’s a medical group, and they all treat all the patients, although I do have a primary care provider who is a member of the group, I haven’t seen him in more than a year as our schedules haven’t been compatible.  So I saw this new guy and pretended I was OK with meeting another stranger, AND, he brought a tagalong, some kind of intern or something, to observe.  Anyway, I went to the drug dealer and got the scripts, and took a very late dose.  Did I sleep or did I stay awake to write this?  Did I mention insomnia if I take it too late?

Did I mention ADD and cyclothymia under a depressive tidal wave full of tree trunks and cars and busses and street signs and broken glass and suppressed emotions and other shit?  And did I mention I haven’t taken my meds in a month?  It’s a wonder I’ve written ONCE in the past month, but no, you’ve had to endure the torment probably 3 or 4 times, and twice yesterday.  FFS, Deon, shut the hell up!

Now that I mention that whole ADD thing, allow me to pretend to focus on the point of this blog entry… well, best I can pretend to focus.

Top 10 Explanations for High Functioning Deon

I don’t know if there are 10.  Maybe there are 35.  Maybe there are three or four.  But hey, I’ll brainstorm and see what kind of shit the dredges bring to the surface.

10.  Terror.  As much as I’d like to lie and tell everyone how brave and courageous I am, I am more like the cowardly lion before he discovered his heart.  As I said, I’m a briliant actor.  And “If I were the king of the fore-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-st!” …Nevermind.  Suffice it to say I identified with him and I know all the words to his song.  High functioning Deon is caused by terror.  I’m afraid if I don’t fight, the world around me will go to shit FASTER.  Oh, it’s going to shit, there’s no stopping that, but if I quit functioning and shut down as often as I wanted to, I’m afraid over time my house would become more of a hovel featuring both filth AND squalor, my boss would fire me, my wife would divorce me, my children would disrespect me even more, my house and car would be repossessed, (and I own the damn car!) all my teeth would break and I’d get a slow and painful infucktion that wouldn’t ever actually kill me but would torture me for a long, long time,  and all of my “friends” in the real world outside of this blog would express their disappointment and shun me with the promise to stop if I repented.  Please, shun me and don’t stop.  That last one isn’t a fear so much as “a consummation devoutly to be wished.”  And for fuck’s sake, if you’re not going to shun me, then give me motivational cash and gift certificates to your favorite steak house and burger places and to the various low-rent stores you’d never go to yourself, preferring to call the guy or visit classy retail establishments.  Suggestions I might use could be the local home improvement place, for wood and paint and plumbing and tools and other house-type items, the local convenience store with everything from groceries to clothes to greeting cards to bedding and furniture and new tires, the local auto repair shop so I can get my shock absorbers replaced, …the list of practical places goes on and on.

9.  Promises.  When I was young and hadn’t experienced much of life yet, I was much more full of hope than I am now.  I made certain promises to certain people.  When I make promises I like to keep them, and it drives me because if all I have that’s good is my word, then when I give you my word I will keep my promise or die trying.  I may do a half-assed job of whatever it is, especially if I’m exhausted, but I’m going to take a crack at fulfilling the letter of the promise.  If I care about the person I’ve made the promise to, I’ll strive for the spirit of the promise, which usually is better quality work than just doing exactly what I say I’ll do.

8. Compulsivity.  OK, at the risk of personal disclosure (what the fuck is a blog for if not for that, Deon?), I suffer from fits of compulsivity.  If I start cleaning it, I have to finish it, but thank God that only applies to whatever surface or area I’ve decided to clean.  It frustrates me if I don’t have time to finish, or if I finish only to look the next day and my wife or kids have messed it up all over again.  I did the microwave two days ago and I keep wiping it out.  Since I’m home and heating my caffeinated beverages I’ll invest an extra two minutes and wipe off whatever exploded in there.  The kids’ bathroom is next because I noticed the sink is disgusting and I am not picturing either of them cleaning it.  I cleaned the downstairs bathroom sink today, and it was just the sink, but it’s clean and shiny and it made me happier after the Doctor-induced panic.  Which brings us to the next explanation:

7. Caffeine.  So,  you all DO know lots of chemical compounds or molecules that end in -ine are stimulants, right? Caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, Amphetamine…  Well, prior to being actually diagnosed officially with ADD, and still today, my drug of choice is caffeine.  Coffee, tea, chocolate… I used to drink caffeinated sodas, but I don’t want all the sugar.  But it’s helpful, it fuels the concentration.  I love the flavor of a good coffee or tea.  I drink them plain, no sugar, no cream.  All I want is the caffeine molecules, and the water doesn’t hurt.  Ritalin isn’t like those, aka MethylPhenidate.  It is a stimulant, but it’s synthesized, since 1944, and it doesn’t act like a normal stimulant.  I bet if I did take ritalin, I’d be one of the rare ones that gets more depressed.  It’s a known potential side effect.  Concerta is a brand of the same but it gives my daughter hallucinations.  I don’t want to see scary things that aren’t there, since things that ARE are scary enough.  The more natural, the better.  Caffeine may technically be a “high,” but it’s natural enough to keep drinkers high functioning, including me.  Now…where did I put my coffee cup?  Coffee keeps me moving, even though my motion often seems to me to be more backward than forward.  I don’t have any bathroom difficulties, with or without caffeine.  But WITH caffeine, I spend less time contemplating how murder might make the world a better place.

6. Rage.  The list wouldn’t be complete without my rage.  Rage gives adrenaline better than fear.  There are different kinds of rage, as there are different kinds of fear.  Fear of disappointing Mrs M motivates me slightly less than being in a frustrated fit of rage at whatever button she pushed that really pissed me off.  Don’t you fucking ever dare tell her that.  I’m not sure if there’s an upper limit, a threshold I shouldn’t be pushed over.  She hasn’t reached it yet, as her body is very much alive and amazing, but if you informed her that rage worked better than fear of disappointment, she’d piss me off all the time just to get whatever shit she wanted done, done.  You don’t understand.  She’s not physically abusive, not really verbally abusive, just, she knows how to push my buttons in the worst possible ways if she wants to.  I dread her verbal jousting more than her disappointed huffing sigh.  Rage motivates me to go to work at this fucking cess pool where they abuse me mentally and fiscally, because it’s not as strong as my fear of being unemployed, and motivates me to work hard.  The company may not show their appreciation but I value my name enough to take the best care of the clients that I can, see also, #9.

5.  Hope.  Or Depression.  I’m not sure which is stronger.  Hope.  I know, it’s adorably naive, isn’t it?  But really.  I can and do have hope for eternity, but the more depressed I get the less hope I hold out for the here and now.  So either my hope, or my depression, which feeds into my feelings of rage against society, fuels my perseverance.  When I’m feeling particularly hopeful is when I can do something that makes a difference and helps someone, even if it’s something small.  When I’m depressed, usually from watching the daily news Mrs M insists on having on in the morning, it just makes me depressed, less hopeful, and more angry at our so-called “civilization.”  I mean, for fucks sake, what the fuck is WRONG with everyone?  Idiot “sociologists” try to persuade me that crime is justified when there is an absence of hope.  I call that theory “interesting bullshit.”  Sorry, but there is no excuse for crime and violence and vandalism.  There are people in dire circumstances and they’re not out rioting or looting or mugging or destroying shit that doesn’t belong to them.  They’re on your local street corner holding signs asking for your spare change.  Give them something, even if you don’t have much.  Give them your lunch and go without for one day.  If you ate yesterday and got your coffee this morning, and you’re going to eat tonight, c’mon.  But yeah, crime and violence and vandalism, looting, robbery and rape aren’t symptoms of hopelessness.  They just make me mad.  They make me wish I was a superhero able to stop the criminals.  Crimes against children make me the most angry.  Pay your fucking child support, or you’re a thief and a child abuser, you stupid fucks.  That is NOT how you love your kid(s), dear deadbeat dick donors.  You should  be paying extra, to make sure YOUR KIDS are well taken care of. But instead you treat your own kid like shit and withhold the care you should be providing  because you want to stick it to your ex; do you not fucking care about your own fucking KID(s), you abusive, stupid, ASS HOLE?  Treat them at LEAST to the court required support, and THEN pretend you’re “Disney Dad” when it’s your turn to “have custody,” which is court-appointed doublespeak for “taking direct care of your child(ren) without their mother’s help” which, when you were together was probably “you letting her do everything without your help.”

I keep trying, I keep working, I keep on setting the best example I’m able to set, even with the emotional difficulties I have.  The rage and depression, and the hope that my example will make a difference eventually, or might make a difference now, keeps me trying to move forward even when life is pushing back hard.  See also #1.

4.  Music.  Music is an alternative wave that I ride for those temporary escapes from the focus on how tired I am.  It also is a channel of weirdly loose focus, that allows me to keep working on whatever chore it is.  Sometimes the lyrics remind me of profound truth, see “Get Back, Honky Cat,” and sometimes the lyrics don’t quite ring true enough so I tend not to gravitate toward those songs when I want to work.  But the profound truth of ALL of my labor is that I can handle it, and the reward of looking back at the successfully finished task is often enough encouragement.  Dishes can get discouraging, but the gleam after washing…  Bathrooms can be bad, but look after the scrubbing bubbles are wiped away.  The floors can be filthy, but look after I vacuum, or sweep and then mop!  I like a little bleach.  See also, this motivational musical number:

I figure there are two options:  Either brooms and mops, bleach and soap, or high explosives.  So far, the former are still working for me.

3.  Brilliant acting chops.  It’s quite possible that my forced enthusiasm is nothing more than a brilliant act, and I may just be so brilliant at it that I fool myself.  I pretend so well that I care about the dirty house, I can actually fool myself into vacuuming, emptying the lint trap in the dryer, mopping, wiping, dealing with the sorting act and deciding what’s trash and what’s treasure, chasing the paper, washing, drying and putting away laundry, etc.  Mrs M has been brilliantly handling the bills since she fought me for the checkbook many years ago.  She doesn’t fight fair.  Those eyes…  Those curves…  Still hot after more than 20 years.  When I say I love my family, that’s not an act,  …roughly 96% of the time.  Don’t hurt any of them or you’ll find out I love them to death, literally, and I don’t mean their death, or my death…  So I’ve learned to act like a French maid.  …I need one of those sexy French Maid costumes, but for a guy.  You ladies can keep your thigh-high stockings with the seams up the back, and garters.  I don’t think Mrs M will mind, presuming it’s masculine enough.  I can’t wear high heels.  They don’t look good on me and I fall over.  And I can’t wear the girly stuff, but something minimal with a soft, black, Stetson with the option of either a black ribbon around the crown, or a black leather strap, depending on my mood, pleated white silk tuxedo front and cuffs, and maybe black silk boxers, and black lace-up combat boots…  I don’t guess I could wear that in front of the kids.  They act all grossed out if I smile at Mrs M across the dinner table.

2. Alcohol.  Would be necessary if I actually ever tried to carry off the French maid bullshit above.  But it was a funny image, now, wasn’t it?  Alcohol keeps me in a high-functioning range when life is shit and I need a little medicinal relaxational motivational beverage at the end of a hard day.  It makes me more relaxed and less stressed out and better able to carry on conversations with family AND less focused on the effort of completing tasks.  Combine that with magical, motivational music, and I am good to do more housework.  Holy shit, what I need is a job that lets me drink something other than tea and coffee sometimes.  Tonight, probably The Rolling Stones.  Because, “Start Me Up.”  Yesterday, if I remember that long ago, it was Aerosmith.  But I like the older stuff.

1.  Warrior Mentality – My sense of manhood.  Life is a fight to the death.  We all eventually lose.  But I’m just going to describe my heart here.  I don’t give a shit if you want to throw your inner feminine side out there, guys.  I just don’t give a shit.  And I also don’t give a shit if you want to grow a pair, ladies.  In MY personal inner being, lurks a warrior spirit, and life IS a fight to the death, and I don’t intend to lose until I’m dead.  Like the song goes, “Don’t try to push your luck, just get out of my way.”

There I go. Is it 8 PM yet? It’s Friday, Hallelujah. Maybe the song should be back in pajamas. That’s my armor, folks. All Ephesians 6 says to do is “stand firm.” I got that covered. In pajamas. And all I’m saying is my inner warrior is in a fight to the death with life. All those things I hate? I want to fix it. And if I can’t fix something because I don’t have enough training, so be it. If I can’t fix something because I don’t have enough money, again, so be it. But if I can fix it, or TRY to fix it and do a decent job, it’s worth the fight, I say, even as I bitch about how hard life makes something that should be easy and simple. Fixing a ceiling fan, or something that makes me climb a dreaded ladder, sure, I have panic, but I know I can do it if I climb. And then, of course, the damned screws always fall or refuse to thread correctly. Fixing a leaking sink, sure I can do it, but not if it’s broken and refuses to go back together correctly, and of course, there’s always grossness in the pipes to clean out and then they leak because the grime was holding hands and keeping the water on the inside. Household labors nearly ALWAYS take more time, more effort, more training, and more money than I walked in wanting to invest. Or, they frustratingly fall apart and require re-doing, which always makes me just shout for joy, or, they break to a point where calling the guy” is required, which costs WAY too much. I mean, fucking car repairs, really?! The guy is always tsk!-ing and telling me how I need this and that or the car will die in the middle of the highway and get me killed, and how he wouldn’t drive it like it is if he were me. But fuck you, mechanic, yes you fucking would, because if I were you I’d be charging $75 an hour labor and then shop and parts fees, and if you were me you wouldn’t be able to afford that shit.

I knew a lady once whose plumbing always fell apart on the holidays. Seriously, her hot water heater held up until Thanksgiving day, and then blew water all over her house. Her sink blew up on Christmas, I was waiting for the toilet to explode on the fucking fourth of July. And me? I once saved a “simple” plumbing thing until the holiday only to ultimately call the guy (I waited until the next day) to put it right. I HATE house repair projects especially when they go to shit, which is like down to 40% of the time because I’ve learned not to try a percentage of things I don’t really know shit about, and I know I’d do a shit job if I tried it on my own and then have to call the guy, which means paying for parts at least once and then probably twice, AND paying whatever hourly bullshit the guy can get away with depending on if it’s a holiday.  AND, in my own defense (STOP FUCKING LAUGHING!  …Oh, go ahead, knock yourself out.  Please.  Laugh harder, you’re still breathing and conscious.) In my own defense, over the last 20 something years, Mrs M has bullied me into a rage sufficient to learn how to fix a lot of shit.  Lighting fixtures, fans, vacuum cleaners, some plumbing, although I still have a dread fear of the water leaking or dripping, and I once rebuilt a damned shelf 4 times because she had too much shit stored up on them.  Shut up!! I was building it correctly, it just wasn’t strong enough to hold the weight.

0.  A sense of moral obligation.  I don’t see a lot of this in the real world.  This is why guys get what they want from a girl and then leave the girl to carry the responsibility all by themselves.  HIV/AIDS.  Herpes.  Gonorrhea.  Syphilis.  Scabies.  Babies.  Rabies.  Oh wait.  It’s a poem, a rap, with a catchy street beat:

STDs, you know they come in all sorts,
Viruses, bacteria, bugs or maybe warts, (that’s attractive!)
Chancroid, PID, gonorrhea,
pubic lice, scabies, chlamydia, (now, interactive!)
Trichomoniasis, HIV, and HPV,
Molluscum contagiosum, and hepatitis B, (It’s in your blood!)
Don’t be rash…, choose wisely, as the buyer,
Get yours today, they’re spreading like fire! (You’re leaking crud!)

Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.  Committed monogamy is not a sexually transmitted disease.  Thank God I’m married.

You don’t see a lot of this because it’s not being advertised a lot.  The world, the media, your idiot peers, the advertisers, your favorite television shows, all glamorize how wonderful it is doing the dirty deed, as often as you can, any time you can, with anyone you want who wants you back.  Or front.  Or top.  Or bottom.  Yep, it’s great.  Shop around, bop around, hop around, they never show you the consequences unless it’s maudlin and you’re supposed to feel sympathetic to the um…innocent? victim?

The one thing that should never be advertised without a painful, flesh (not chemical) castration, behavior modification, lobotomy, and aversion therapy, is rape.  Rapists should be treated as harshly as possible, not get their name broadcast on the news (Hey, look friends!! I’m FAMOUS!!)  or worse, told they’ll likely never get caught.  In 2013 the estimate was that only 34.8% of assaults were reported, and it used to be even less.  In 2011 the estimate was that only 6.66 out of every 100 rapists were ever brought to any kind of justice, which by law might be some sort of fine, or might be a season of imprisonment.  So, the estimate is that 93 out of every 100 rapists get off and face no consequences whatsoever.  And that, readers, is fucked up.  I swear I didn’t make up the 6.66, which is fucking diabolical.  And this page, for some reason under the label BJs.gov… which I couldn’t make funny if I WANTED  to but for fucks’ sake, no pun intended, someone tried, it shows that the average jail time even if you ARE convicted of sexual assault, is  about 66 months.  That’s right kids!  Put someone through the trauma, and then the post trauma-tic stress of having to relive your unwanted attack, your damnable defiling of their private, personal, holiest of holy, sacred temple, whenever your innocent victim’s now traumatized brain puts them through it again, not to mention making it next to impossible to trust anyone in a romantic relationship ever again, not to mention causing difficulty with intimacy if they DO try, and then, after you’ve put your victim through that shit, if you’re one of the unlucky 6.66% that actually gets caught, charged, and fucking convicted of doing it, you MIGHT serve 5 and a half damned years and then you’re free to try again and see if you’re luckier the next time.  THAT is why I am in favor of drastic sentences and punishments for rapists, even though for some reason they won’t put a rapist to death, not even a person who rapes a child.

If the FBI is  reading my blog and my browsing history I think it’s hilarious because I just looked for information about what kind of plants grow best over a buried dead body.  I didn’t find any, which is disappointing.  We planted flower bulbs over both of our guinea pigs which died of old age, which is disappointing because they only live 8 or so years at the maximum, and ours lived that long and then just quit.  The flowers grow every year around Easter, which is just after when both died, which is a beautiful reminder that we loved the guinea pigs.

I looked it up not actually planning anything, just thinking that if victims and their families who actually love the truly innocent victims ever decided to handle the situation in a way that feels more just than fucking 6.66%, it might be nice to plant something to remind them when they walk by the hidden grave, known only by justice… I mean just us…, that the world has one less monster walking around free. If they are allowed to roam free, they are 93.34% likely to hurt another person and fucking get away with it.  Worthless animals that hurt people for their own sadistic pleasure need to be put down.  http://cdn.hark.com/swfs/player_16x16.swf?pid=kpmgdzqllc<br/> <a href=”http://www.hark.com/clips/kpmgdzqllc-the-twilight-zone-theme-song&#8221; style=”font-size: 9px; color: #ddd;” title=”Listen to on Hark.com”></a>”>Funny thing, right after I wrote the thing about the FBI, my whole internet crashed for 15 minutes…

I did NOT start this blog with the purpose of ranting about rapists, but there it is.  Rage as a motivator.  I’m switching to Channel #2 in just a short while, but I wanted to write about having a strict moral code.  The world needs people who set high moral standards, and also needs those same people to be gracious when others don’t measure up to their personal holiness.  I listened to some jackass talking about how he posted some shit on someone’s social media about how the guy needed to be a higher class of guy if he wanted to attract a higher class of girl.  And he said some more shit about how he wasn’t trying to pass judgement.  Then what the fuck WERE you trying to do, because it sounded like you suck.  I mean suc…ceeded at exactly that.

I DO have a relatively strict moral code and I DO strive for it, despite failing all the damned time.  And I’ve learned there’s a good reason for my failures, although they suck.  I mean there’s at least one good reason.  I have learned more about extending grace,  because I am so very aware how much I need it for myself.  If you are holier than thou, you don’t need grace and you love to flaunt your perfection and look down your snoot at the poor helpless sinners asking them why they don’t “just” be a higher class of godliness.  Pious fucker.

The world doesn’t need more judgement.  Judgement’s coming, don’t get me wrong.  But we Christ-followers don’t need to be the ones to bring it.  No, what the world needs is more grace, more forgiveness, more honest, Christ-like love. “Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more.” Or how about “God have mercy on ME, a sinner!” ?  I may never go home after praying feeling fully justified, and maybe that’s a good thing.  It keeps my heart in a place where I can encourage people, because we’re all the same.  Instead of offering no hope, and only judgement, Christ followers need to understand how to do something very important.  But some are so holy they don’t need it themselves, so they forget how to offer it.  “It” is mercy.  If we offer it, Christ followers, to those who need it, the world will believe us when we say Christ gives it away.

The book of Hosea is a fascinating story, God commanded the prophet Hosea to make his own LIFE, a picture of how God loves people in spite of everything they do, so it’s fitting that Jesus quoted it.  Hosea 6:6.  Matthew 9 is full of example after example of how Christ followers should NOT ACT.  Jesus is being loving and kind and forgiving, and the holier than thou set are being all judgemental and looking down their noses at JESUS, for Christ’s sake, (hahaha) thinking they’re better than JESUS.  And he quotes Hosea in the middle, saying, not in my exact words, “No, you religious freaks, that’s not how you love people.  You love people by learning this:”

 Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus loves you, but you have to know you need his love and mercy before you can really understand it and receive it.  If you don’t need it because you’re already perfect (in your own eyes), then fuck off.  If you desperately need it like I do because you know you’re SO far from perfect it’s completely hopeless and depressing, then you’re ready for it, and not only that, after you’ve accepted it, you’re ready to share it.  As long as you don’t become one of those tight-assed religious freaks who forgets how they used to act and uses their newfound lifestyle as an excuse to not help others, not love others, and pass judgement without mercy.

-1.  Mercy.  Mercy motivates me.  I need it.  But it’s beyond just need.  I’m starving to death for it.  I’m desperate.  And the desperation motivates me to express mercy, and acceptance, and forgiveness, and grace, which are the very heart of Jesus, in my very imperfect way. I am sorry for failing to share more often and more clearly, but this is where i am.  And as much as I hate everyone, God compels me to tell you that He loves you.  And as much as I hate it, I’m supposed to show you.  This is me showing you, even if my own heart says you’re a complete ass hole and I don’t want to.
So yeah, I’m “high functioning” despite all of the shit life dishes out, despite my boss, my budget, my bitching, my brood.  I have to be.  I also want to be, even when I don’t want to be.  So that’s what I’ve decided to be.  I’ll keep trying harder, even on days when I don’t want to get out of bed.  And there are lots of them.  I still push myself and go do what I have to do, motivated by one of the above, to keep going.

-2.  Maybe it’s really not me.  Maybe it IS my choice, but maybe not entirely.  Maybe it’s Something Else.