I’ve Discovered the Secret to Consistent Blogging!

I’ve written a blog for a few years, usually to rant and rave about something or to just feel loved. But it’s always been inconsistent. Here is my secret to fixing that problem.
1. Start an MFA in Writing.
2. Sit down everyday to write what you are supposed to be writing.
3. Claim writer’s block.
4. Go to your blog to “get your juices flowing.”
5. Write something dumb.
6. Post it on facebook.
7. Check your stats for the next day.
8. Conveniently use up all of the time you set aside for writing.
9. Repeat the next day.
Simple. Wish I would’ve thought of it earlier. Expensive. Leave me alone, WordPress, I gotta go read Wallace Stevens, and honestly, no matter what my book review says, I have no idea what he is talking about.

The Furniture Faced the Set

We watched snow and wrapped

foil around the rabbit’s

ears lusting for definition.

And if you sat just right

and lifted your leg in the air

sitting next to dad’s chair

and if he didn’t accidentally poke

you with his burning cigarette

then

the picture would be clear

and you’d laugh when prompted

and mom would buy sugary

cereals and dinners prepared in tin

so we could sit and listen and believe

what we were told about

Cuba and

Missiles and the

President’s dead

“he was shot in the head” and

Medgar and

Malcolm and

Martin Luther King

“there goes the dream” and

‘Nam and the

Panthers and the

President lied

“wish he would’ve died” and

hippies and

protests and

love and not war

“what are we fighting for?”

We sat in the living room, the family room,

in the family room, living  – not dying,

and watched the set and didn’t

miss a thing.

The Problem with People is People

I grew up in a blue collar home. I ‘m proud of it, I learned the value of hard work and doing what it takes to support a family. But growing up blue collar imbued me with an underdog mentality. Typical small town movie stuff. I didn’t get how you could have private clubs where rich people could play golf and “regular” people couldn’t. I didn’t understand why there were two swimming pools in our town, one for white kids and one for black kids. When I was in grade school I had a friend who was retarded.  I hated the way high school kids made fun of him, made him stand on his head in mud puddles or sing at the top of his lungs while they laughed. Underdog stuff.

I started going to church in the ninth grade and became a believer in Jesus shortly after I started attending. I read the Scriptures and it seemed like God was for the underdog.Here was a place where everyone was equal; no rich or poor, no white or black, no young or old, no Jew nor Greek, no male or female, no smart or retarded. Just people.

Idealistic, I suppose. Church people are like everybody else. They put together groups and don’t want other people to be in them. They’re fearful of people that are different than them. They don’t want to exclude people from church, I mean, they all want people to get saved as long as they aren’t in their groups. As long as they aren’t too demanding. As long as they don’t talk too much or say inappropriate things. As long as they smell okay and fit the definition of “normal.” I’ve known people to quit groups and quit churches because of people they defined as EGR people. Extra Grace Required. Puhleeze.

If you think you’ve never been an EGR person, think again. You drive someone crazy. Someone thinks you talk to much or smell funny or don’t fit their group. Someone things you are needy or poor or retarded. But when it happens to you, oh what an injustice!

We fret about doctrine and crosses and Bible translations and appropriate music and blah, blah, blah, but we can’t grasp the simplest concepts. Love your neighbor. Take care of those in need. If we can’t do that or at least work toward it, we should just shut the doors. What’s the point?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no angel, pretty far from it actually. Just read through my other blogs. But this one is simple. If we can’t treat everyone with kindness, if we can’t open up our gatherings to people different than us, if we want church to be our country club, we don’t get it. Any of it.