Boots and Bibles

Thanatopsis

I have never seen someone die.

This should be a good thing, right? I should count myself lucky that the face of our own mortality has never stared back at me, never beckoned to me, never said “You’re next.” I’ve had friends and family who have died, sure, but I see them after the fact. Their faces are made up all pretty; serenity and calm encompass their features. It’s death, but it’s a very cleansed, refined sort of death. It’s like death done by Disney.

I feel strangely cheated by the fact that I've never seen anyone die.

Despite the prevalence of animated violence on televisions and cinema screens, I get the feeling that few people in the Industrialised World – excuse me, certain well-to-do and influential segments of the Industrialised World – would be able to look at death and maintain any calm or sensibility. This is something of an oddity, from an historical standpoint. Death is a part of life; it’s as much a part of life as sex, eating, drinking and pursuing happiness. To be sure, one could technically go through life without engaging in any of these matters – but death is an experience everyone gets to take in. Eventually.

Tonight's the Night

It's hard to determine exactly what it's going to be like, what the feelings will be, what will come of it. We're studying something that we should all at least be glancing at momentarily, namely, the End of the World™ and the impending doom of its unjust systems. It brings a smile to my face, a spot of warmth to my cold, jaded heart... I mean, thinking about the End of the World™ does. Hopefully this Bible study will, too.

I haven't blogged about much else for a while now. I'm sorry about that. My mind, as it were, has been slightly overtaken by this development. Well, this and making arrangements for August Wahnsinger. I've indicated before how much the end of UGC has affected me and continues to affect me. It's not like I miss being a pastor or a leader or anything (really, I don't, and even if I did, I know I'm not really up for the job), but I do miss cavorting with the Spirit-filled ne'er-do-wells that made that place like family. And I miss being able to exercise that one spiritual gift I have. Hopefully this study can be a harbinger of those aspects of UGC's return.

I'm slightly nervous about how well it will go. My recent ventures in teaching Bible studies have, as I've indicated, not turned out all that well. At all. I'm hoping something clears this up, starting tonight preferably.

No One Likes Us, We Don't Care

You ever get that feeling like you just don't belong anywhere except, well, where you belong?

3 September, 2006. I remember the date well. It's where belonging ended for me. It's where I had to destroy my family, my mission, my life – everything I'd fought for in the previous four years. It was like losing a war. And I suppose as a natural corollary to charging from victory to defeat, I began the most difficult period of my life to date, a time of depression and confusion; a time where I let down everyone who hoped in me, disappointed everyone who believed in me, and abandoned all those who looked up to me.

Yeah, it had to be done. Yes, everything that church stood for had been twisted or undermined by the time it was over. It still doesn't change the fact that there was a purpose in all of it. Underground Church, NYC acted to reach out to those not affected by the popular efforts of the church, and to bolster the faith of those who were. What I re-learned in the years that followed was that sometimes it is outcasts in the church themselves who are the most neglected and marginalised.

Serenity Valley

It's been a while since I posted anything. This, as usual, means I've been going through a rough patch. In fact, I should have already made this clear.

It's not just bad crap happening to me, however. There's also a lot of bad crap going on in my mind and soul. I don't like to make too much out of my personal struggles on this site - I do, after all, have a distaste for most things emo. But perhaps it wouldn't be emo to analyse some of the treatments various valiant individuals have recommended to me – and the ways in which my own faulty temperament responds to them.

I explained some of my more emotional difficulties to a friend last night, and afterward they suggested an essential practise of twelve-step culture: the Serenity Prayer®. For those of you who have never known an alcoholic or stepped inside a Christian bookstore, here it is:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

I nodded at his advice, pursed my lips, and mulled it over. I thought it certainly seemed like the kind of prayer I should have been lifting up, so I gave it a go. I could hardly get past the first line. I looked up at my friend. He was smiling demurely, noting that we had hit on a very tender nerve.

I don't have the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, and on the outside, I don't want to have that kind of serenity. Deep down though, way past where even I'm looking most of the time, that's a different story. Ultimately, everyone wants peace of mind and contentment. They want serenity, and I am no exception.

I'm just having trouble finding a place for it to fit.

WORST - YEAR - EVER!

• Miserably depressing visit to my family.
• Laid off upon return to NYC.
• Untold number of friends and acquaintances in car-crashes.
• Economy? Still falling.
• Had to work in one of the worst places I've ever been to yesterday – they didn't even have a computer at the receptionist desk!
• And to top it all off now, my laptop upon which I'd been writing BootsandBibles updates no longer wants to turn on. It opens up and gets stuck in safe-mode. It had better still be under warranty, that's all I'm sayin'...

So, how's 2009 treating you? Worst year yet in your existence? I know that thus far, I cannot think of a single year that has started off on so many wrong foots.

My friend Sandy, at least, is figuring that she's going to have the best year ever. By her logic, any year that starts out with this much crap at the beginning is going to have that much less room for any crap to happen later on.

I wish I shared her optimism.

Oh, and let the record show that Vista is as bad as everyone says it is.