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It’s all a bit much.

The last decade was filled with psychics and necromancers vying for our attention and our dollars, and for each spiritualist out there, 2 Christian apologists denied the truth of it all. I listen to a lot of talk radio when I’m on the road, and last week I heard a woman and host discussing the “errors” in modern religious thinking that Christian followers have incorporated into their own world views.  Many I agree are lies that have been accepted because they are “popular.” A church/leadership that calls itself Christian and yet denies the need for atonement is teaching heresy. If your church is telling you (or you are telling yourself) that you can be good enough to get to Heaven, or that you have the power to be good all by yourself PERIOD, then run. RUN. Find yourself a good book about the faith by R.C. Sproul or John Piper and curl up with a blanket and READ.

On the other side, if your church is telling you to march with a sign saying “Die, President fill-in-the-blank, Die!” you should heed the same advice. They’re just as messed up.

Where I drew the line with this woman, tho, was when she said Christians cannot have spiritual experiences (other than the Holy Spirit, of course) that aren’t demonic, that those of us who claim to have experienced ghostly activities have really met with familiar spirits, or demons. I find it hard to believe that demons would come around to comfort anybody, and I’ve heard too many stories and had enough experiences of my own that tend to make me believe there’s more to the story. I totally agree that familiar spirits are VERY active in the ghost hunting world, I just don’t think they’re alone.

OK, that wasn’t really ALL that set me off, but it was a start.

They had psychics back in the day, too. They were called “prophets.”The difference in our version and the original prophets is the origin of the message: a prophet never spoke for his own gain. His messages and visions were initiated by God, spoken for His purposes. They didn’t hold seances to try to contact anybody. God spoke directly to them, and they suffered for it. I doubt many modern psychics would acknowledge God, let alone live in the desert eating honey and locusts. It’s just a different mindset.

Biblically, we as Christians are supposed to stay far away from those who talk to the dead, from playing around with spiritual things. I don’t think any of us, Christian or not, are equipped to handle the consequences of playing with things we can’t see or comprehend. It’s obvious the spirit world operates on a whole other plane of existence, and we aren’t made to understand it. You wouldn’t tell a 3-yr old it’s ok to play in the interstate as long as they look both ways first, and that’s the mandate here. The consequences are much worse than death, no matter how many movies Hollywood makes to the contrary.

It doesn’t make me stop wanting a K2 meter, tho. I want to walk around back to the hanging trees that witnessed many prisoner crossings in the last 150 years, and see if I can have a conversation with some of them. I want to know why there are certain spots around the yard that make me feel uneasy. There’s a building in a nearby town with a haunted reputation that I would dearly love to investigate, but I won’t. It’s all pretty intriguing, but I ain’t stoopid.

You wanna come play in the middle of the interstate with me?

I don’t disagree with that at all. The problem is that we aren’t living in Jesus’ perfect world. Our world is stained with sin, with self-service and greed. The health care system is built on greed as it stands: costs are so high because of frivolous litigation, doctor greed, hospital greed, and people working the system to get free care without ever giving back. I think we could go a long way toward cutting costs if emergency rooms could turn away people with runny noses and toothaches without being sued for negligence, and had the freedom to care for true emergencies instead of head colds.

“The poor will always be with you.” If you look at those who were mentioned in the Bible as the poor in need of care, they were those with chronic diseases: blind, insane, crippled and unable to do the type of labor that would help them survive. they were widows, the elderly. In America today we have teenagers on welfare rolls because they got pregnant at 15, and our government writes them a check as a reward. They don’t use this money to buy formula or diapers or go back to school. They buy cheetos and cigarettes and pay the cable bill. I know these people personally.  A recent study in NY revealed that instead of using the $200 per child some families received to buy school supplies for their kids to actually BUY SUPPLIES, they bought big-screen tvs, ipods, and video games.

Before you accuse me of heartlessness, I am not generalizing the entire population of the welfare state. I’m merely pointing out abuses. The problem is, those abuses are the norm rather than the exception. I believe public assistance is a wonderful thing when the people getting it understand it’s a tool, not a crutch. It saves childrens’ lives, and I am proud our country is able to help itself.

WWJD? Jesus would tell a good many of those people to get a job and work if you want to eat. I know the economy sucks at the moment, but there are jobs out there. I am not suggesting that every unemployed person is jobless by choice. I’m not that stupid, nor am I that thoughtless – Marie Antoinette I am not. But there are many who HAVE made the decision that government assistance is far more profitable than a menial job, dignity and self-worth be damned. It’s far too easy for some people to cash that government check. I’ve worked as a church secretary in the recent past, and there were people who called every single month looking for help paying electric bills or rent, who said they had never tried to get a job, or had a litany of excuses why they couldn’t pay their bills. They made the rounds of the churches in the phone book. Every. Single. Month. I believe Jesus would have called them on it. More likely, he would have passed them by when they stood in His streets begging for bread, because He would have known their hearts. We don’t have the luxury of a 6th sense, but we can use what little sense God gave us and not contribute to our own problem.

The healthcare issue is so complex, it is insulting to think that the Magic Messiah could fix it in a couple of months. If we truly want to make things work, we need to start with the human heart: as long as we have people in this country who think they are owed care and feeding from the government, we will continue to decline. The government is the people who pay for it, and those people are getting mighty tired of footing the bill.

What would Jesus do? He’d turn over the tables in the temple, set the animals free, and toss the money changers on their ears.

I, for one, wish He’d get on with it already.

Society has a whole cabinet of DRINK ME bottles it would be tickled to see me tip, from shrinking elixirs to passivity potions.  Alice was the only sane one in that rabbit hole, you know. She may have been stoned, but the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts and that stupid cat were the true sociopaths. They’re all still out there, too, trying to get us to be sheep or convince us we are the odd ones. I AM odd. But it’s a GOOD kind of odd.

I’ve always said I have no regrets. The choices I made may not have been good ones, but they are what they are. The bell can’t be unrung, the pooch can’t be unscrewed. Lately, though, I’m beginning to wish I had been wilder when I was young, and had been able to recognize fun when it was staring me in the face. There are benefits to being chaste and boring, namely I’m not walking around with some sort of disease or a rap sheet. But what memories did I make? What tales of youthful indiscretion can I tell?

Let’s see. There was the time… no. Kissing a guy isn’t a story. I swear a lot these days, mostly to myself, but that’s not much, either.  Umm… how about the time a bunch of us went to a satanic church in the woods, and the ROTC scared the crap out of us? Nah, that’s not much. It’s a good story, but not really rebellious or anything.

I lost my underwear skinny dipping in a spring. That’s it. Stuck ‘em in my pocket when I thought I heard somebody coming and got dressed underwater, only they weren’t there when I got out. I had to break back into the spring later to find them before the spring’s owner did. I know there have to be other things, but I honestly can’t remember a one. My dad used to tease me about finding footprints in the headliner of my ‘70 Mercury Montego. It took at LEAST 5 years before I figured out what he was suggesting.

I am such a hellchild.

Later.

moar funny pictures

Quite effective, akshully.

Elsa is first in the gallery, and she was first to be caught. She and Boggart, the carrier kitty underneath her up there, were the two who greeted me first. Elsa took my bait, but Boggart was more cautious than starving. He’s in the carrier in the pic ‘cuz his first attempt at transferring to a large crate with his sibs left me bleeding and everybody upset. I doubt I would win any humane treatment awards for how I got him back out of the crate that first night. The others are happy little terrors in the house now, so he’s alone in a crate now until he’s socialized. The other orange boy and the black boy were at the dumpster eating bread off a mattress when I went back to get boggart the next night. They are both lovely little things, sweet and loving with motors loud enough to be heard across the room. Romeo and Spock curl up with me on the sofa, and with their sister Elsa, come when called. It’s the cutest thing, as all kittens are, I’m sure. Mine are just a wee bit cuter, tho, right? RIGHT?

They seem to know their names! They came into the house Wednesday and Thursday night, and already they are home. The first night I called Spock and he snapped his little head around to look at me. Romeo always responds, as does Elsa. Boggart may be a bit of a mean name. I haven’t decided. I  figure if he turns out to be a sweet boy when he’s tamed, I can call him Bog for short. In Harry Potter Speak, a boggart is a demon that transforms into your worst nightmare. I’m not sure it’s my WORST, but having a baby I can’t help is definitely up there. If his fear is vanquished with spells of good food and a warm bed, so be it. He already seems to feel safer, and will sniff my hand before retreating.  That has to count for something!

If you know me, you also know my house is already full of cats. Babies make 10. The others have relinquished the front of the house to the li’ squirts, and they are allowed to sleep on my bed in return. It seems only fair they get SOMEthing they desperately want in trade, doncha’ think? So far, so good. No love from either side, but in time I think they’ll adjust. Unless someone wants to adopt…! *Hint-to-the-hint.hint.hint*

As cute as they are, they are a strain on the wallet: $300 for first-round shots and various meds. Three neuters and a spay will be another $200 or so.

The rest of their shots w/boosters…yeah, um… if you drive by my house and see smoke from the back yard or bags on the porch, you’ll know why.

I can NEVER go to the DUMPSTERS again.

I have a pretty low threshold for human contact. I do have certain people in my life whose presence raises that threshold considerably – human security blankets, if you will – so that if one of them is in the room with me, I can just lock eyes and feel calmed. If I am left in a crowd, I am utterly undone, and that haze across the center of the room will be my dust. You know, what I leave behind in my haste to get OUT. THAT dust.

So tonight I was among friends, having a relatively good time, when a couple of triggers were pulled. One, I was reminded of the quagmire we are in politically right now, and of the knowledge that I may very well wind up in jail for standing up for what I believe in if this administration isn’t stopped. My cats will have to feed themselves. Two, I was reminded that I have no legacy.  I lost the last of a generation of family yesterday, and now I will have to wait for Heaven to get some answers I’ve needed for a long time. Truth is, though, I am the end of the genetic line for my ‘rents, with no children to give that knowledge, so what’s the loss?

Three, well, my security blanket left. I realized the instant the door closed I was in a room full of people I really enjoy but that I had had enough. I wanted to punch one of them in the mouth to shut her up, but that’s another story. My social temperature went from a comfortable 72 to 106 in 15 seconds, and I had to get out. Thinking back on the evening, needs-punching-girl was actually Trigger One, and if she hadn’t been there, I probably would have stayed and enjoyed myself. I couldn’t hurt her feelings and make an arse of myself, though, so I cried all the way home instead. It’s such a blessing to be a social moron.

If you need me, I’ll be sitting here on the sofa in the dark, covered in cats.

I am not eye candy. Let’s just get that out of the way. The normal male response to me is, “Oh, she has a GREAT personality. LOTS of personality.” Yeah. It’s like that. Still, my daddy’s warning to his pubescent daughter has held true through the years, no matter how much my personality has continued to be my greatest asset. He said “a hard dick has no conscience.” My daddy was the voice of experience on that one, and although I didn’t know that at the time, I believed him. (Even in my inexperience I understood what he was saying, and I think that’s one reason I have been so guarded about that area of my life. It’s hard to trust any male advance at all with that endorsement ringing in my ears.) In his experience, that’s just what kids did, and I think he figured I was more knowledgeable than I was letting on – he didn’t understand why I looked at him like he was stupid when he joked about finding footprints on the headliner over the backseat of the Mercury. How he thought I was learning those things, I don’t know. It’s not like he didn’t know where I was ALL. THE. TIME. The one time he thought he didn’t, he got mad and took my car keys…until he found out he had just forgotten I had told him I was going to be at church late.

I ran into a lot of promiscuous people at college. No surprise there, I know. I was appalled to find out my 19-year-old suitemate and her long-term boyfriend were “doing it,” but by the time her room mate got it on with some foreign exchange student, I was jaded. My sophomore year in college a drunk friend and classmate wanted to sleep with me because he was so “needy” he couldn’t “stand it.” I invited him to help himself out and leave me alone. Likewise the next-door neighbor who came over, drunk, to get a little action from what he assumed was a lonely and desperate woman.

The ‘best’ offer I had was one that came after weeks of build-up. I was clueless as to why this neighbor was offering to help me in the yard and being SO sweet. He was 40 years my senior, at best, and once asked permission to shoot “near” my cats to scare them away from the chickens he had in his in-town back yard. When the call came late one Saturday night (surprise! drunk!), I was utterly unprepared. “I was wonderin’, Miss Girl, if I could come over an’ keep you company.” I asked him what his wife would think of the idea, but he assured me she wouldn’t care. It took me a while to politely decline – he was pretty persistent.  He didn’t offer to trim my hedges anymore, though. A friend later asked me just what I thought the guy was doing, being so friendly beforehand. I honestly didn’t know – it never occurred to me that he was flirting.

Hm. I have so much personality that the only was a guy can consider me as a partner is to get sloshed first. THAT’S good to know.

I ran into a woman at Walmart the other night who has me flummoxed. She cuts hair – it seems to be a gift for her. Her other most obvious gift is gab, followed closely by insanity of the highest order. Don’t get me wrong: I love crazy people. I have to, because they find me, follow me, and generally stick to me like a fart in a phone booth. This one, well, she’s special. She sees demons.

Before you get all hallelujah-praise-Jesus on me, you should know that I believe her. I have been attacked by them occasionally at night, and it’s not a big step to say I have a healthy respect for the supernatural. It’s just that this woman, she does not know what she thinks she knows, and she is in seriously deep waters. She has actually crossed into the occult, and I don’t know how to help her. We’ll call her Lorie, a totally fictitious and otherwise made-up and unrelated name. Verily I say unto you, it is not-eth her real-eth name. Eth.

Lorie believes God showed her the face of the devil because she asked Him, and she has a gift for casting them out, and that she has had them living in her while she was claiming to be a Christian. Those three things, they do not play well together. While I as a Christian can be aggravated beyond sanity by demons, the Holy Spirit is in me. He’s not about to rent a loft to a little demon to make some side cash. If she truly is a Christian, she wouldn’t be talking about a demon rising up out of her belly. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and all that.

She’s a train wreck, and frankly, I wouldn’t want to serve her god. That he would show me the enemy and allow him to take me over when he knows I am chemically imbalanced while IGNORING my requests for health and peace is just not something I would tolerate in a deity. Thank Him, mine isn’t like that. Mine speaks very clearly to me and says, ‘Girlie, you can NOT handle that right now.’ Then He says, ‘No.’ Or, if He’s feeling spunky, He gives me a taste of what I want, just so I can SEE how much better off I am without it.

My problem here is two-fold. 1. I want her to be sane. I want her to see that she is being unwise by inviting this stuff into her life. 2. I really like how she cuts my hair. To sit in her chair is to be lectured, sermonized, and beaten to death and resurrection with her stories and her dreams. She… um… wants to be a famous singer. And have sex. A lot.

You can’t make this stuff up, people.

The good news is I won’t need another haircut for a couple of months.