The Quiet in the Land

 I think I’ve figured out why Americans are always shooting each other. 

My rage is at a rolling boil. You might not think so, but I do have a lid on it. It’s challenging to live this way, always ready to pop off, always ready to rumble, always pressing up against your own values. Since Trump started his 51st State rhetoric, I regularly forget that I’m a pacifist. Maybe I’m actually not one at all. You never know until you’re squeezed, what is going to come out of you. 

Whatever you’re doing now is what you would have done then. 

Is that dramatic? I think about that every single day. 

I’m so angry.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have decided to stick with love - hate is too great to bear.” I have been mulling that one over, too, thinking deeply about how he must have been feeling before he came to that place of resolve.

Rage.

Funny how I had never considered the rage before. I’ve never felt this kind of rage before. Maybe it’s white privilege, but I don’t want to let go of the burden just yet.

People have been so quiet - have you noticed? In my corner of the internet over the last month it’s been, like, deathly quiet. Except for kittens. And recipes. And holiday photos. And Michael W. Smith videos. And the occasional Freedom Convoy supporter dropping ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS warnings about extremely wicked, shockingly evil and vile Mark Carney.

There are a few things that have happened over this past month that I believe are worth talking about.

The wealthiest man in the world, arguably high on ketamine and power, snapped a crisp seig heil on national television. 

Nobody cared, and now it’s a trend. 

A woman in Idaho was physically pulled out of a town hall meeting because she said, “Is this a town hall meeting, or a lecture?” She said it too many times, too loudly, while somebody else was talking. 

The deferential man at the end of the row moved out of the way for the men in black who refused to identify themselves; together they dragged her out of her shoes, out from a row of seats, and zip tied her. 

Her friends were interviewed afterward. Who knew she had friends? 

Rage, rage. 

The president of Ukraine got pistol whipped in the White House. The president of the Divided States let a hack reporter and his Hillbilly VP dress down Zelenskyy in front of Russian media. Trump put hands on him. He shoved him. He tried to extort him. He tried to humiliate him. He tried to gaslight him. 

I know explosive narcissistic rage when I see it.

I don’t know if it was planned, but I do know someone was triggered.

Trump vision-casted for his Holy Land Riviera Resort, and his beautiful Christians loved it. They’re all about the cleansing. They’re singing and praying in the Oval Office as though God were in the midst of them. It doesn’t work any more to say those aren’t real Christians. Just like America can’t say any more, this isn’t who we are every time a kindergartener gets shot. 

It’s beyond ironic. It’s beyond hypocrisy. It’s beyond the pale. It makes me want to flip a table. 

As though the people of Ukraine don’t pray. As though the people of Gaza don’t pray. As though tens of thousands of demoralized Canadians sitting in their living rooms in front of their tv sets, watching their honour and dignity slide around like a puck on ice don’t pray, and maybe even plead a little bit, with tears, God, please. I know you have bigger things, and you don’t care about hockey, but you know this is not about hockey - God we’re abused, and exhausted. We need this. God have mercy. 

I’m not claiming God is on our side.

 

I’m so angry at Christians, I don’t want to be one. I don’t want to be associated.

He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you. To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with the Lord your God.

There is going to come a reckoning. Maybe that’s just the rage talking.

My mother worries that my anger is not good for me. I am keeping it. 

Now is the time to object.

I object to all of it. To illegal threats and declarations of war on Canada, to theft and rape and gloating, to disrespect and violations, to arrogant words and haughty eyes, to a pause on aid to Ukraine until Trump gets a grovelling sorry and mineral rights, to sieg heils and to people who defend them, to removing sanctions on Russia, to concentration camps, to Guantanamo Bay, to 51st State, to FuckTrudeau signs, to Pierre Poilievre’s divisive slander and worn out slogans, to quislings, to election interference, to bots and trolls and traitors, to disinformation and google experts, to rage baiting, to buying Greenland, to the Gulf of America, to tariffs, to deforesting National Parks, to fake assassination attempts, to lies, to liars, to lying liars with overdrawn lips and gold crosses around their necks, to billionaires, to apathetic voters, to absolute utter fools, to the Tkachuk brothers, to bulldozing Gaza, to floating golden balloon Trump heads, to DJT and JD and DOGE, to Musk wearing his child as a human shield, to Trump golfing while the world burns, to betrayal and back-stabbing, to anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers and measles, to convoys and infiltrators, opportunists, extortionists and cowards, to Kevin O’Leary, Jordan Peterson, Wayne Gretzky, Franklin Graham and MAGA hats, to losing friends, to taking the Lords name in vain, and to Bethel and Hillsong and the American evangelicalism that put antichrist in the White House - I object to all of it. 

You have to know, it’s never going to be easier than it is right now to object. It’s only going to get harder. In America, it’s starting to be illegal.

Go not gently into that dark night.

Rage. Rage against the dying of the light.                                                             

Won't You Be My Neighbour?

Folks differs, dearie. They differs a lot. ~ Ann Petry

I've lived in a lot of differing communities – in big cities, in farm houses, on an island, in small towns on both sides of the tracks.

I myself have been educated in nine different schools, in four different provinces. My kids have been in public school, in private school, in a one-room schoolhouse, and home-schooled.

I've been a part of work communities in offices, restaurants, hospitals and malls.

I've been part of church communities that met in schools and libraries and living rooms and warehouses; churches that had three people, churches that had three services; churches that you had to dress up for, or that you had to dress down for; churches where you were expected to speak in tongues, churches where you were expected to wear closed toe shoes; churches where people invite you home for lunch, churches where people stare and send you home lonely.

I'm not exactly a world traveler, but I've had a lot of neighbours.

My dream was always to just live in one place, to be part of one community, to raise my children with roots and a sense of belonging, and to not always feel like an outsider or an interloper, or somebody being welcomed and learning the ropes.

That's not how we do it.

Now my dream is to live in an RV.

I'm over it.

The older I get, the more I have that this world is not my home feeling. I'm just passing through. I don't mind anymore that I don't exactly belong anywhere.

Honestly, I'm getting more and more OK with that.

People are basically the same everywhere I have been – but the truth is, every community has not been the same. Every community is a kind of community within a community – I often have to be in and out of one in order to catch its flavour.

This small town I live in right now – it's a great town. It's a very wonderful place to live and, aside from the $250 seat belt ticket we got in our driveway on the day we moved to town, people have been very welcoming and warm right from the start. It's a nice town full of good, kind people – as nice as any place I've ever lived.

Sometimes I almost feel like I belong, like I have roots here, like these are my people. People here drink coffee, they have sharp wits and easy smiles, they shop the thrift store, they read books, they help people in need, they give their kids sugar, they volunteer, they communicate with gifs, they mind their own business and they share their fax machines. What more could anyone want?

So what if some people think the earth is flat, and some people think God makes gold dust rain from the rafters, and some people think Donald Trump is a great man of God, and some people think don't tell is a great life motto, and some people shop-vac their drive-ways, and some people think the Holy Spirit leads them to abandon their spouse and children so that they can be happy...

So what if that's not me? We are not all the same – even though we kind of are.

We all want to be loved, to receive grace for our mistakes, to be right about what's important, and to not suffer.

I have yet to meet anyone anywhere who wasn't that way.

Is it really so important for me to try to persuade others to see things from my particular point of view?

I am ambivalent about so many things.

I'm trying to mind my own business.

I had some fun with Donald Trump memes prior to the election – but, after 'the people spoke', I didn't feel it was right to entertain myself by running commentary on the politics of another country. It certainly wouldn't be considered polite. I certainly wouldn't want it done unto me.

Folks differs, dearie.

Sometimes it has felt like living next door to a domestic abuse situation. I have worried a lot about the kids. I think my eyes rolled in my head a little bit at the last mass shooting. As far as compassion and empathy are concerned, I think we are running a trade deficit.

Please, just keep it on your side of the fence.

That's not how we do it.

Until there's a scuffle, and the fence gets broken, and now it's my business.

Why does it become my business when it is no longer about what is right, but about how the wrong directly affects me?

I don't think I'm ok with that. I'm trying to work it out.

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

What is written in the Law?” he replied.“How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,”Jesus replied.“Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said:“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him,“Go and do likewise.” ~ Luke 10

#BellLetsTalk

Oh great. Another hashtag. #BellLetsTalk #MeToo #timesup

Everybody needs attention. Everybody needs to be heard and validated and special. What happened to the good old days when people just lived their lives, took responsibility for their own actions and stopped blaming other people for their own sorry lives? Amiright?  Can I get a whut whut??

Whut?

Oh, you know I'm kidding.

When I was a child my dad spent a few years working in the occupational therapy department in a psychiatric hospital. There weren't so many rules about confidentiality as there are now - I heard some stories.

It was around that time that my parents introduced the concept of 'mental health days' to our home. Not because someone was sick, not because there was a blizzard - but maybe because the sun was shining and the breeze was just right and everybody needed a break - they would close their shop/call in to work, pull us from school, and we'd go have a great day together doing something fun and life-affirming like hiking through a meadow or skipping rocks by a stream. I highly recommend this.

I learned very early to respect and care for my own mental health. What is anything you could accomplish or accumulate in your life worth, if you don't have the capacity to enjoy it?

Mental illness has deeply affected my entire life, yet it is a hard thing to talk honestly about. It's so hard to find people to talk TO about it. Sometimes you can really only talk around it, because of respect for the dignity and privacy of the ones you love - because sometimes the mental illness that you're struggling to cope with isn't yours.

I was driving through town with a kindly, elderly gentleman a few years ago, when he casually pointed his finger out the window of the car to a bundled woman walking across a parking lot.

That woman has depression.

I wanted to say to him, My son says f**k a lot.

I didn't expect that he would understand.

You know what's fun? Driving down the highway at 110km/hr when your child suddenly decides to pull the door handle THREE TIMES just to make sure it won't open.

You better believe I have anxiety.

But we've all got something. I've seen the underbellies of enough people to know that none of us are exactly mentally well - at least not all of the time.

What is there but a spectrum's difference between a paper cut and an infected wound that leads to a deadly blood infection?

Mental illness isn't really any different.

If your mind isn't well you might lose your purse, suddenly forget where you were driving, burst into tears over an Old Spice commercial, or forget that there's anyone in the world who loves you. Your brain might simply be overwhelmed, or you might have Alzheimer's. You might need someone to run you a nice long bath, pour you a cup of tea, make you supper - or, you might need all of the above, every day, plus some medication.

If your mind isn't well, you might find it soothing to spend a day or a month or a year lying on your bed in the dark, staring at blackness, listening to Muddy Waters or Cold Play or U2. This is the kind of thing people do after a break-up or a death or during an existential crisis. Emotionally, it is the equivalent of needing to be in traction after falling off the side of a mountain. You know you will heal, but you just need some time and to be left alone not moving.

Sometimes mental illness looks more like temporary insanity -  you might lie face down numb on the kitchen floor, or face up on the grass in your backyard, chanting 'God, God, God, God...' You might drive your car around in a blind rage looking for people to run over. You might push furniture in front of your door to keep yourself in. This is the kind of thing you might maybe do if your child has been assaulted or your spouse has betrayed you, and suddenly you just know you could kill somebody. It's the emotional equivalent of having been doused in gasoline and lit on fire. It's the interesting kind of craaaazy that makes for great gossip and invisible scars.

There are just so many ways for mental illness to manifest itself. You might cut yourself, or starve yourself, or write suicide notes. You might mix the Kool-Aid for someone else to drink, or swallow so many pills that your children have to get special permission to come visit you on the quiet ward.

You might drool and lick people's faces and wipe your feces on the walls in truck stop bathrooms.

You might molest children, or murder men and bury their body parts in your planters.

You might wrap your head or your house in aluminium foil.

You might shoot up an elementary school.

You might drown your babies in the bathtub, or contemplate throwing the one that's screaming out the open apartment window into the freezing snow. You might consider throwing yourself in front of a bus, or shoving a random stranger in front of a subway car.

You might lock yourself away and completely ignore someone, like they are dead to you, like they are not even there.

Our minds are all actually incredibly and dangerously susceptible to illness. If thinking about that doesn't make you depressed and anxious, you're probably not mentally ill. That, or you're suffering from a dissociative disorder. Just sayin'.

In more recent years, I've learned some other things about mental illness.

I've learned that it can break you with its relentlessness and cruelty. I've learned that it can make you invisible. I've learned that it can isolate you and leave you empty and dry and desperate for hope and for one true friend. I've learned that all of the help is just based on trial and error.

No one knows but Jesus.

Mental illness is more distancing than lice, than leprosy. When it's in your house, no one draws near just to sit with you. People want to evaluate. They stand opposite you and look deep into your eyes so that they can be sure they are really making themselves understood, and they put their hands on you, and they dispense their wisdom.

I've seen this before.... You should..... I had a friend who.... Have you tried..... You're just not.....

If I had a dollar...

That's the thing about mental illness - you. just. have. no. idea.

My husband left me a beautiful letter on the fridge the other morning, with the words of Exodus 20:21 - The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

And he challenged us to have hearts like Moses.

So we press in where we may be tempted to stand far off, and we draw near to the thick darkness - because of course God is in it. We can't see His face or His hand or His footstep - but we can hear His voice and He is very, very near.

My body and mind may fail, but God is my strength and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26

Boos and Bouquets

My resolution for 2017 was to get religious about washing my floors. Religious turned out to be shorthand for Christmas, Easter and the occasional Tuesday. I dare anyone to say I didn't rock it.

Jesus did come to my door a few times, and I was not prepared even once when he did - which is pretty much what I expected, but still unfortunate since it was really the whole reason behind the religious floor exercises to begin with. Pull out the couches and wash to the corners - nobody shows. De-junk your closets, break the banister and throw in a scrap with your spouse, and you're guaranteed a knockknock dingdong.

I was polite, I moved some laundry piles around so he could sit down - I fed him pie, fixed him coffee and even signed him on to my wifi. I gave him hugs, high-fives, and fist bumps. I told him he was a good neighbour - he told me, "That's who I am. I'm a good neighbour. I'm good to everybody, that's just who I am."

He told me he didn't care about my dirty floors - that he was used to it. He swept my sidewalk.

I'm not sure what more I would have expected Jesus to say or do. He received my offerings, he expressed his affection, he revealed his nature, he accepted me just as I am, he cleaned the path between his home and mine.

I confess, I was left wanting.

Maybe it's me.

Maybe I'm looking for Love in all the wrong places - looking for Jesus in too many faces.

As far as fostering an attitude of expectancy for Jesus to come and say and do and reveal amazing things, I can't say focusing on my floors particularly helped. If it did, I sure didn't feel like writing about it.

This year I have renounced religiosity in Jesus name and I've decided to play to my strengths.

You might not have guessed this, but I happen to be very, very good at writing letters. I specialize in the jagged you.you.you.ought.to.know kind, but life is about balance and I'm interested in broadening my skill-set.

In this spirit, I have declared 2018 The Year of Boos and Bouquets. I think this will be fun.

It's only January, and already some individuals have done some very you are winning humanity things, and others some very you are totally failing, maybe you should just quit things. It's staggering, when you really stop and think about it, the impact that we have on one another and how far-reaching the ripples of kindness and cruelty go.

I'm not really sure what there is to be done about that, but I'm hoping I might encounter more of Jesus in the soul expressions than in the scrubbing.

To be clear, when I say soul expressions I mean the spewing of complicated and narcolepsy-inducing feelings misdirected away from actual people with faces and addresses, towards random strangers in a wildly cathartic, sanity-saving effort to minimize my own pain and the inevitable clean-up required following my impending mental breakdown. (Did I mention that my very caring doctor who was recently writing me very necessary prescriptions just got FIRED? Booooo). Just to be clear.

Oh yes, this is going to be serious fun.

In the interests of balance and restraint, I have both challenged and limited myself to writing two entirely sincere letters each month for the entirety of this year - one letter of compliment and one letter of complaint/constructive criticism.

January's Bouquet went to Proctor and Gamble because your skin you will have with you always, and mine is wearing thin. Acknowledging that I am wholly and wilfully ignorant of any news relating to P&G's carbon footprint, their employee standards, their ethical practices, their position on animal testing, human trafficking, transgender bathrooms, reproductive rights, Donald Trump, their employment of child labour, and/or their support of and for either Woody Allen or "The Purpose Driven Life", I have unreservedly declared my love of their Oil of Olay products. Olay Pro-X is da bomb.

They responded within 48 hours with a personal email from a representative, and kindly requested my address so that they could send me a $10 coupon. Classy.

A loud Booo went to Contigo for the poor design and problematic functionality of the travel mug I recently purchased. I didn't keep a copy of the message that I sent to them, but believe me when I say that it was pretty fantastic. Still waiting to hear back from them. I've been waiting so long that if I'm not served up a gift wrapped travel mug and a handwritten note apologizing for making me feel that my nose must be a N.O.U.S (Nose of Unusual Size) I will not be satisfied.

We should all have such problems.

#MeToo

#MeToo was trending on social media the other day and I, like many other individuals, spent a lot of time sitting in front of a screen with a pounding heart and chilled fingers, periodically typing out the letters and then deleting them, writing paragraphs and then deleting them. I don't like to waste my words. It's nobody's business, really. It's not like I'm going to save anybody by speaking now or forever holding my peace.

Ok, fine. Me too. Of course me, too. What woman hasn't been harassed in some way - received an unwanted picture via text, been scared into walking on the other side of the street, been cat-called, had some rude comment hurled at her from behind the screen of an open window? Why, just a few weeks ago my daughter happened upon a drunken man chasing a head-covered woman and her daughters down the street, calling them whores and sluts. In broad daylight.

One of the unexpected perks of being almost 50 is the invisibility factor - sexual harassment virtually never happens to me any more. Now it happens to my daughters - my daughters get unsolicited messages from men named Fernando.

The first time I was assaulted, I knew for certain that I had been assaulted. It got a little blurry in the years after that, but that first time I was very sure. I was about six years old, playing hide-and-seek with some neighbourhood kids, hiding under a bush with a teenage boy and his girlfriend. He put his hand out, grabbed my crotch, and laughed. His girlfriend said something scolding. She's just a kid. I don't remember what I was wearing.

Not long after that, a mop-haired boy about my age tried unsuccessfully to paw me. My memory of him is 40 years old, but I can still conjure it - him walking up to the front door of his house, sobbing. His dad standing in the doorway, no shirt, cigarette in hand, asking his son, What's wrong? The boy pointing at me, scrunched up face like I'd stolen his toy, I just want to sleep with her! The dad shaking his head, his hand tousling the boys hair, him looking at me and laughing. I know, I know, he said sympathetically. One day.

In second grade kids played a game at recess, called 'kiss tag', in which the boys would chase a girl, pin her to the ground and one (or more) would kiss her. Once, when I was pinned to the ground screaming, a laughing boy named Graham came and tossed a rock in my mouth. That's right - I'm naming names.

By this point I was realizing that there was a sort of selection process at play - not just every girl got chased squealing around the playground. Maybe it was as primitive as just being one of the ones who ran. Being chosen didn't exactly connote status, but I was definitely getting the message that all of this center of attention/assault stuff was supposed to be flattering.

In sixth grade I came home from school with a giant chalkboard eraser mark across the backside of my jeans where a loud boy named Darryl had whacked me as I was taking a drink from the water fountain. I tried to kidsplain to my angry mother that it was a good thing - that he had just been playing, that he had been laughing when he smacked me, that a lot of boys did it, that it meant I was pretty.

In seventh grade, standing in line at the pencil sharpener, a beautiful, mole-faced boy named Jim took the freshly sharpened lead of his pencil and poked it hard into my nipple. I stood wincing back tears as he laughed and walked back to his desk.

Seriously, why always with the laughing? Always, always there was laughing.

Years later the young emergency room doctor who treated me, without any amusement at all in his eyes, consoled me with the words, It happens a lot.

It does happen a lot. It's barely worth the words to mention the time my friend's stepfather tried to get into the bathroom while I was using it, or the time a man stopped his car while I was waiting at the bus stop to ask me if I wanted a ride, or the time some men yelled 'Show us your tits!' while I was walking down the street after a concert, or the time a man called in the middle of the night to ask how big my c**t was, or the time a man on the subway threatened to make me sorry because I wouldn't tell him where I lived.

I haven't said anything at all about things that I have seen and heard happen to other children and women. Like that time my friend's mom was sitting across the kitchen table from her own friend, and they were smoking cigarettes and crying and talking about how the friend's husband had gotten drunk and had raped her so violently that she had lost her baby. These things happen.

So, sure. I'll say #MeToo. For whatever it's worth, me, too.

But know that the other side of my one #MeToo - on the other side of every single #MeToo - is an #EtTu,Brute. Maybe that actually matters more. If we honestly want to change things, maybe it really matters a whole lot more that we start calling out the brutes and betrayers among us, that we take them seriously, that we believe them when they tell us who they are and the things that they have done.

If nothing else, please stop laughing.

Nobody says #MeToo because of one man, or for one life-derailing sexual assault. I'm just an average white woman living in one of the most decent, egalitarian countries on Earth - for me, #MeToo is because of dozens of years, and dozens of smirking, grinning and chuckling boys and men who have casually humiliated me, embarrassed me, frightened me, wounded me, abused me, damaged me, and have all together participated in shaping my experience of the world. I'm sure they didn't mean anything by it.

Personally, I don't have a need to be believed. I don't need anybody else to validate my story. I am at complete peace with myself, with my life, with all that has gone before. There is scarcely a person alive who has not lived something that they deeply regret.

I hope you're somewhere prayin', prayin'

I hope your soul is changin', changin'

I hope you find your peace

Falling on your knees, prayin'.

- Kesha

Swabbing the Deck

One might not immediately recognize the correlation between floor maintenance and the practice of religion. Well, maybe one would, depending on where that one was raised. Some people might think floor maintenance and the pursuit of holiness were quite obviously naturally and closely related, but it's not always been obvious to me.

I once heard tell of a great woman-of-God who had two long strips of carpet running up the middle of her garage for the car tires to rest on, that were vacuumed as part of her morning liturgy. I never met her personally thankyoujesus but the man who relayed this story to me said that she lived by the old adage, cleanliness is next to godliness.

I asked him, Why spend your energy trying to be next to godly, when you could just spend it trying to be godly?

...crickets...

Dear Reader, as you have probably already guessed (or heard), I am a very terrible housekeeper. I compensate for this shortcoming by being really loving and warm and disarmingly charming, playing with words and thinking about stuff, and just generally tidying and scrubbing and organizing the corners of my mind. I also play a lot of Pet Rescue, which I think is kind of like helping the poor and needy – or at least it sure feels a lot that way. This is called being spiritually minded.

Not surprisingly, I'm also a bit of a wash in the religion department. I think maybe I have a form of Oppositional Defiance Disorder – like, I have ODD but I'm in defiance of it. If you tell me that I can't, then I will – but you, knowing that I have ODD, would expect me to be defiant and so now I won't be. However. I, knowing that you recognize that I have ODD, must certainly realize that you would expect me to be defiant and not defy you, and so clearly I can't not be defiant and therefore absolutely must do the thing you said I could not do. Also, that works in vice-versa.

I know, right?

I'm trying hard to get religion, but honestly, it's a lot of work – and there isn't much time left for wondering, which is one of my favourite things in the whole world. Just wandering and wondering, and wondering as I'm wandering...

So far, the thing that religion and floor care appear to have in common is that they are both very much about preventative maintenance. Footprints in the sand? So lovely. I know that Jesus carried you some but now, tell the truth – you know you walked a little bit of that by yourself, didn't you? Yes, you know you did. Please wipe the sand off on that mat over there by the door. No, the other mat. The outside mat. No, that's the “Welcome” mat – the other outside mat. Look, this isn't helpful. You realize, of course, that whole beach thing was just supposed to be a metaphor.

It's hard for me. Since I have started cleaning my floors religiously – besides realizing that I need some waaay bigger mats – I've really started to notice how other people around here play pretty fast and loose with the snow and the sandy footprints and the trails of icing sugar. So, rage is another thing. Like, if you've got any latent rage, religiously obsessing about your floors will really boil that stuff up to the surface. I think this is why silence is important if you are seeking the spiritual, and music is so, so important if you want to perform any exercises religiously.

I can be me and you can be you. Doo, doo, doowa choo, doowa choo doo. Doo, doo, doo, doo, doowa choo doo, doowa choo doo, doowa choo doo.

I printed off a new devotional booklet today entitled, The 2017 Declutter Calender. Yesterday's religious exercise involved self-flagellation in the form of decluttering under my bed – which just so happens to be one of the places I keep mementos from dead people I have loved. So, I was taking a little break from my meditations to do some important internetting about swabbing the deck, and this is what I discovered via Frosty_Seafire at reddit AskHistorians:

“In terms of the cultural impact of mopping on ships, I do not feel qualified to comment, however there were several practical reasons for regularly swabbing decks. During the Age of Sail and usage of Ships of the Line, loose powder on gun-decks was a significant fire hazard and danger. Therefore swabbing decks to keep them moist dampened any powder that fell to the floor and reduced the risk of fire. Loose powder would also need to be cleaned up after the guns were used. Regular cleaning of wooden decks slowed down decomposition and was also an import part of discipline, giving a sailor a task to achieve instead of succumbing to boredom or idleness.”

I think this is probably the truest value to be found in most religious exercises – sit, stand, sing, sit, sand, swab, rinse, repeat, rest – the slowing down of decomposition, the discipline that aims to avert our souls from boredom or idleness, the dampening of the residue left behind after we set all our guns blazing at once.

I don't know how you feel about it, but all things considered I think I'm off to a pretty good start, religiously speaking. I mean - just look at that floor. Is that shiny, or what?

Blue Genie

Speaking of scuffed soul floors, I'm just going to clean up some skid marks.

This will kind of probably offend you, but ohhh welllll. ~ Jenn Johnson

I feel ya, Jenn.

God is.... who you want Him to be. God is... heaven to the lonely. Show me... what you want Him to do. God is what I've got for yooooou...

Sing along if you know it.

Doctrine is rapidly going the way of all things – things like vows and decency, the love of the truth, grammar and spelling and sentence structure. These are guidelines, really. Does doctrine really matter any more? Does anything really matter any more? I mean, does anything really matter any more? Does anything really matter any more? What, if anything, matters any more? Any matter does more anything, really.

Huh?

What I'm saying is, isn't the Holy Spirit just whoever you say the Holy Spirit is? That's not in the Bible, but maybe it is, who knows? It's a mystery. If you Google “what is the holy spirit”, it's there. Also you could just take my word for it, because – revelation. I'm not saying I had a revelation. I'm just saying – revelation. You can go ahead and read what wikipedia says about the Holy Spirit, just don't cite it anywhere because wikipedia is not a reliable source. But pretty much everything else on Google is reliable. Also, you know what else is reliable? You are. What great truth does Google hold, that you don't already know somewhere deep within yourself? Like I said, this is all subjective anyway.

If you say the Holy Spirit is a genie in a bottle, well then, who am I to say otherwise? Everybody loves a genie. Who doesn't love a genie? You just rub them the right way, and BAM! Power from on high. Beeteedubs, you know who else is a genie in a bottle and likes to be rubbed the right way? Christina Aguilera. But I digress.

I hear that Holy Spirit genie likes to be rubbed on the Internets, 24/7, with magic chanting words like,

Go ahead God and do what you do, do what you do, do what you do. Go ahead God and do what you do, do what you do, do what you do. Open up the heavens and do what you do, do what you do, do what you do. Release the Kraken!

Oh sorry, wrong movie.

Come Holy Spirit where you can be you, where you can be you, where you can be you.

We release you, Holy Spirit.

You can be yourself here.

Beeeeee yourself.

Infinite power. Itty bitty living space.

I'm kinda probably offending you... Ohhh wellllll.

Honestly, at this point to argue for anything otherwise would be a bit like throwing a dictionary at an immigrant and yelling, learn the language! First of all, rudeness. But also, language, like doctrine, is built on so, so much more than words – it's 80's song references, and it's idioms and infinitives and punctuation.

How do I begin to explain all that is wrong with vain imaginings of the Holy Spirit as the genie from Aladdin? I. Can't. Even.

You said 'wrong'.

       Yes. I also punctuated in. The. Middle. Of a sentence.

Oh my gosh, you can't just tell someone that they're wrong.

       WRONG.

Donald Trump. Bringing wrong back since 2016.

Somebody put that on a t-shirt, that's a million dollars right there. Again, I digress.

This is 2017. You can't tell people what they should or should not believe.

The Purpose Driven Life is the best book I have ever read!

     Ok! I support your right to believe that!

The earth is flat!

     Flat is the new round! Love the shape you're on!

My Holy Spirit is a blue genie!

     My Holy Spirit is orange with fuzzy fur!

          I think I have the Holy Spirit in a box in my parents' basement!

Forget about repentance – it's all about reinventance! I just made that word up. It's a word now – you can use it. As in:

Hey, you know that really fantastic movie that everybody loved that was just great the way it was?

     Yes.

Let's reinventance it!

     Yes!

Save the gramma fer ur mamma. As in:

I heard you were sick yesterday.

     Nah bruh.I b sick erry day

Your grammar is atrocious.

     Ur grammar smells like elder berries

So what? What's it to you? What's it to you if my Holy Spirit is a silly blue genie and his skin matches my pants, and I'm going to hug him and squeeze him and tickle him and call him Silly, and he's going to give me a pony and tell me secrets and wash his robes in the blood of my enemies... oh, wait, did I say that part out loud? Don't you have some floors you should be washing?

Blasphemy and heresy are antiquated notions, you silly curmudgeon – you relic of the past – you, you, you judger. You know who else is silly? My blue Holy Spirit. He's sneaky and he's errywhere. Er.ry.where. And anyway, I'm swimming out of my depths if I pretend that I'm anything close to either a grammatician or a theologian. And it is 2017 – at least, on my calendar it is 2017. It can be whatevvvver        year      you     think    it is. But you can't start a sentence with the word but or and. Well, you can, as long as you know you're not supposed to. You have to know the rules before you can break them. That's called poetic licence, which is a literary term and should not ever be confused with licentiousness, which is a small matter of doctrine – and is not at all the same, at all, except for sometimes.

Whatevs.

Psalm 139

O Lord, Thou has searched me and known me,

Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up;

Thou dost understand my thoughts from afar,

Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down,

And art intimately acquainted with all my ways,

Even before there is a word on my tongue,

Behold, O Lord, Thou dost know it all,

Thou has enclosed me behind and before,

And laid Thy hand upon me,

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Where can I go from Thy Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Thy presence?

If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there;

If I make my bed in Sheol,

behold Thou art there.

If I take the wings of the dawn,

If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,

Even there Thy hand will lead me,

And Thy right hand will lay hold of me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,

And the light around me will be night,”

Even the darkness is not dark to Thee,

And the night is as bright as the day.

Darkness and light are alike to Thee.

For Thou didst form my inward parts;

Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb.

I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made

Wonderful are Thy works,

And my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from Thee,

When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.

Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in Thy book they were all written,

The days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

How precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

When I awake, I am still with Thee.

O that Thou wouldst slay the wicked, O God;

Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.

For they speak against Thee wickedly,

And Thine enemies take Thy name in vain.

Do I not hate those who hate Thee, O Lord?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against Thee?

I hate them with the utmost hatred;

They have become my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

And see if there be any hurtful way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way.

I feel ya, David.