Tags
change, hope, insanitybytes22, lamentations, life, opinion, rants, trainwrecks
I have long lamented how this small town just don’t like change, not even good change, or especially not good change. We get into a rut, more comfortable in the darkness than we are in the Light.
I can get myself into all kinds of trouble even speaking of such things, but sometimes keeping the lid on my little teapot, is just too much to bear. So you know, businesses go bankrupt and get shut down, people lose their homes, meth and heroin start pouring in, people are dying right and left, and its all good, hardly anyone cares at all, this is just business as usual. We’re comfortable in the darkness, its familiar and safe.
But someone steps forward with some kind of vision, something positive, and suddenly the knives come out, we’re immediately suspicious and uncomfortable. Gossip begins to fly, we get hypercritical, and we’re often invested in their failure. Can’t wait for that guy to fail, for the world to show him what a fool he is….
I’ve spent a lifetime observing this phenomenon, trying to understand, trying to be forgiving. Not sure I’m making any progress on the forgiveness end of things.
You see this play out in the business world and in the churchian world, too. It’s all good, just so long as you stay in your place, don’t rock the boat, or heaven forbid, actually succeed and accomplish something.
We actually have a slogan here, “it is what it is. We are who we are.” Yeah well, we’re called to be better.
I have long prayed for 20 good men, a rather comical prayer, but that’s all I need Lord, just 20 good men with a vision who are willing to fight and perhaps to go down fighting. It’s comical in the sense of 20 good men, big ones, strong ones, not women at all, but men with a vision and the strength to pull it off. Better men than me, because I lack the power to do it. I’m more of prayer warrior and an encourager, a cheer leader, but don’t think that’s very sweet, because I am chucking here, but I may well be praying for you to get yourself into a great deal of trouble and confrontation.
I’d like to see the train of despair totally derailed. I’d like to see learned helplessness slain and tossed across the power line like a pair of old shoes. I’d like to be able to tell young people who are busy drinking and drugging, you need to stop that because you actually do have a future and a hope.
Where there is no future and no hope, there is no vision either, and life becomes a matter of just trying to swallow the pain and drown yourself in acceptance.
I’m angry with so many of my Christians here too, and perhaps it’s because my expectations are too high, my demands are too great. Or perhaps it’s because I live in a world of chaos and confusion, where a pastor runs off with his new husband and is celebrated, and the Catholics have gathered incognito to ordain the lady priests.
Perhaps it’s because I talked to an evangelical, evangelical mind you, and he actually told me, I think there are more than enough Christians in this area. We really don’t need anymore.
Maybe it’s because a Christian told me, “I love this town and its quirky characters in their funny hats,” and I looked up to see my baby sister. My own sister. Your entertainment, your colorful characters, are actually just my family, now homeless, now trapped in a cycle of addiction. I like her funny hats too, but not as much as I liked the essence of who she once was, the potential now unrecognized and perhaps lost forever.
How is it you have known me for 10 years and still know nothing of my pain?
Maybe it’s because so many Christians are just settled and comfortable, they come here to retire, and they worry about things like, “I don’t want that tree cut down because it frames the view from my window.” Me, I’m more like, I don’t ever want to see another young person living on the streets forever trapped in a meth induced psychosis, or addicted to heroin, or dead from an overdose, or sprayed across our highway in a drunk driving accident.
I want to be able to tell some young dad who is trying to raise his kids alone, we have something better to offer you than dishwashing for minimum wage for the rest of your life. I want to be able to say, it gets better, and to actually mean it. All I got right now is blind faith and empty hands.
Just 20 good men and an angel army behind them. They come sometimes you know, one at a time, just often enough that I know God is listening to me, but they often don’t last long, because this is a dark, dark place and the rewards are few. In fact, odds are pretty good you’ll meet nothing but condemnation and constant disapproval. At least that’s true if you’re worth your salt and willing to stand on it.
My bitterness and cynicism threaten to consume me sometimes. It is dark and alone and always expecting far more of people than they can actually deliver. And so I continue to pray with empty hands, just a few good men Lord, just a few willing to stand as salt and light, some men with a vision and willingness to fight for it……
He cares for me, this half drenched sparrow in a hurricane, and He often whispers, take heart I’m coming….
Doug said:
Sounds like you’re surrendering. We just give up and surrender to the day He takes over and just wipes it all away? I’m certainly not challenging what you want to believe… but somehow I don’t see giving up does anything.
LikeLike
insanitybytes22 said:
LOL! I have surrendered so many times, waved the white flag even. Oh that I could surrender even more! A better question to ask Doug is, what or Who am I surrendering too? That’s really the part that matters. It makes all the difference in the world.
LikeLike
Doug said:
I guess I’m more the “God is my co-pilot.” person rather than waiting around for “God to release me from this mortal coil.”
LikeLike
insanitybytes22 said:
Somebody smart once said, “if God is your copilot, you’re sitting in the wrong seat.” 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Doug said:
Cute quip from the “smart guy” but if we’ve been given free choice to live then we are in fact the pilots of our own lives and the Almighty is there to support us if we let Him. Heck.. I can even toss out there “He’s the wind beneath our wings”.. I mean.. we can go on with metaphors forever here… and I consider you a far more knowledgeable compendium of such applicable religious bromides than I could ever hope to be so I will not venture to compete. But therein also rests a point I’ve made in the past… all religion is open to interpretation.
LikeLike
insanitybytes22 said:
Not to be unkind Doug, but most of your time seems to be spent dismissing religion because you think it’s all just “subject to interpretation,” and generally proceeding to complain about Donald Trump?
As bleak as the view from my window sometimes looks, I do take note of the fact that the unemployment rates in this state are now the lowest they ever been since we first started keeping record. That’s astounding and a bit of good news.
LikeLike
Doug said:
Actually I do my best to make sure I separate religious observations from the political… as I have in responding to your post here… and especially in your blog here in general. Obviously we both share the “following” of other blogs that do contain more political thought and I respond in kind on those blogs. If that’s biasing what I might reply to in here for you then I have to accept that and I will take it into consideration from now on. I certainly didn’t allude to anything political in my reply thread to your post today.. but rest assured I am very happy that my fellow Americans in your great state are experiencing an era of low unemployment.
LikeLike
Anna Waldherr said:
I empathize completely. The darkness we see rising around us can be deeply discouraging. Even as Christians, we can lose heart and lose hope. But God is our eternal hope. His perspective is not ours. He sees possibilities we cannot see. In fact, He creates them where they did not exist before. This world of sorrow will one day end…to be replaced by one of glory.
LikeLiked by 2 people
insanitybytes22 said:
Thanks, Anna. Much appreciated.
LikeLike
Wally Fry said:
Heard a deacon say once that we didn’t need to go out knocking on doors because we have a sign out front and they know where to find us if they want to come.
LikeLiked by 1 person
insanitybytes22 said:
Sheesh Wally, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I’m halfway joking here, but a bar will actually put their name in lights, pay for big ads, and invite people to come.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tricia said:
Things can sure seem awfully bleak and hopeless at times, especially in your neck of the woods where learned helplessness is considered a virtue and politicians hand it out like candy. You touch on a good point on Christians becoming too comfortable and not want to rock the states quo. I mean when you have Beth Moore worried about the white privilege status of her library of books than you know something is dreadfully wrong with Churchian priorities.
LikeLiked by 1 person
insanitybytes22 said:
Right?? Beth Moore’s fears kind of reminded me of this gluten free woman who drives so many of us crazy. So she was demanding “gluten free liver and onions” the other day and lecturing us on the illegality, the discrimination and unlawfulness of not offering such a thing. And I am thinking, dietary choices are awesome, more power to you, but wut in the heck is gluten free liver?? And seriously, you think there oughta to be law, a mandate to accommodate the whim of some obscure liver eating, gluten free VEGAN. Have we fallen off the crazy train and hit our head?? Like, did someone fail to inform you that liver itself does not actually grow on a tree??
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tricia said:
Lol! Gluten free liver, now that’s a new one. And of course it’s discriminatory not to offer it. Jeeze, we really are on a downward slide. Grab the popcorn I guess and watch. Gluten free of course…;)
LikeLike
Hamdaan Baig said:
Great post! Please check out my latest post as well. Thanks.
LikeLike