Ramblings

Caught in a Trap…Again

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“If we’re being Honest…Sometimes it’s the “Church Folk” that run People away from the Church.” – Adam Hopkins

I’ve run away…and not because of Jesus.

Christian Zealotry masquerading as a man of the cloth was the trigger. Is Zealotry even a word? Must be, my spell check didn’t alert me otherwise. After being told I was on a slippery slope to hell due to my leftist leanings, the trigger took me back to a previous pig trail I followed. I’m guessing I am still following it. The path leads away from organized religion.

The original motivation for this occurred six years ago from a sermon I heard.  I wrote about it then and have retitled and rewritten in the present. What I haven’t done is changed my beliefs. We “Church Folk” have done much to destroy the Christian Church.

My original was written in a time before Donald Trump’s Presidency, before the pandemic, before Qanon, before the Capitol riots, before Joe Biden, before recounts, and before the more recent plague of wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, more wars, and rumors of war…and Hunter’s laptop.

My trigger, a former student now a minister, believes some of these are God’s will, others the work of Satan or Democrats, (to him and his minions…err, church members, they are the same). He also believes he is free to mix and match strips with plaids or linen and cotton, but alternative lifestyles are damned. (Leviticus 19:19)

Before “times that try men’s souls”, I did not find comfort in my words then and I still do not. Times are still trying men’s souls and the words are still “trending” in my head. In other words, the trend still applies…to me.

“As Christians, we do a better job of promoting what we are against than what we are for.” This was a quote from my minister on a Sunday morning six years ago as he presented his sermon and for once I was paying attention.

Had I titled his message for him, the sermon would have read, “THE TRAP THAT IS RELIGION.” He referred to this “trap” a couple of times and his sermon provided a “thoughtful feast”…although some of his servings might have been a bit bitter.

Later in the day, as I thought about the “trappings” of religion, my thinking ran along another pig trail to a rabbit hole. Not the trappings my minister was talking about. It was “my church is bigger than your church kind of things”. Fancy eye-catching robes, repeated liturgy in unison, fireworks, and lightshows, long, long altar calls, and other public displays. It was about my God being better than your god and if you don’t believe it, I will beat you over the head with my Bible, Quran, or Dead Sea Scrolls.

My pig trail led to wealth gospels, faith healers, QAnon followers, and a video of a Baptist minister preaching about “How Women These Days are Just Not Hot Enough.” My pig trail led me to our hallowed halls of government where I see little modeling of Jesus despite my trigger’s nonvalid point that “we are a Christian nation” versus my valid point that “no, we are a constitutional nation.”

My cynicism toward organized religions has grown to epic proportions. I haven’t been able to return “to the little white church in the vale” even as my fear of COVID passed. My loss? Their loss?

After hours of self-reflection, I realized I have problems with public displays of faith, and it may be my lack of substance. Little Donnie having problems should not mean you should, unless they are empty displays, and I should clarify.  I do not mean modeling Jesus; I mean chest and Bible thumping, a handheld above the head, snakes being handled, calls for hellfire and damnation…all while hating your neighbor because they choose a different lifestyle or hating another religion because…because it is not your religion. Having the trappings without the substance.

I should clarify further, it is my problem, not anyone else’s problem. If you wish to handle a snake to prove your faith and piety, go for it, just alert me so I may be absent.

I also have a problem with the “my way or the highway” point of view of many religions, and not just reactionary Christianity.

My religious beliefs are private, personal, and hard for me to express, certainly hard for me to put into printed words. Is it because I’m not religious enough? Am I not filled with the glorious “light of the Son?” Why do I freeze when asked to pray publicly? Has my pig trail run me off a cliff?

I know some Christians believe that public displays are part of the trappings and are necessary. They are comfortable with them…I am not. I wish I were. I want the God and Christ in one to make me more “public” but, yet, they have not eased my struggle. They are busy elsewhere. They should be and profoundly so.  I do not blame them for their silence and still believe in their teachings…most of their teachings, some of their teachings, which is another part of my trap.

When I thought about the “trap that is religion” I could not help but remember the lines from the Buffett song “Fruitcakes.” The lyrics went, “Where’s the church, who took the steeple? Religion is in the hands of some crazy-ass people. Television preachers with bad hair and dimples. The god’s honest truth is it’s not that simple. It’s the Buddhist in you, it’s the Pagan in me. It’s the Muslim in him, she’s Catholic ain’t she? It’s the born again look, it’s the WASP and the Jew. Tell me what’s goin on, I ain’t gotta clue.” Like Jimmy, I really don’t have a clue.

The line about religion being in the hands of some crazy-ass people is what gives me the most pause. I believe religions have done much good…and much damage.

I am concerned about followers of reactionary American Christian Religions whose piety allows for racism, bigotry, and misogyny.

I fear zealots, especially those who wrap themselves in the United States’ flag calling it patriotism. A zealot by any other name is still a zealot whether it is religious or political. I fear those who have combined the two into one nationalistic ideology.

Locally, I am concerned when a deacon displays a “Let’s go Brandon” sign prominently on his home…that might have been “what broke the camel’s back.” I worry about and question the sincerity of some. While it is not for me to judge I find myself falling into that trap too. “Judge not lest ye be judged” and I would not want to be judged.

Where in the Bible does it say to weaponize the word of God and use it to bludgeon non or contrary believers into submission? While I don’t wish to judge, I do and find some relief from a friend’s quote, “Judge not lest you judge wisely.” I’m not sure that is Biblical, but I am sure it is not a trap.

Sorry if my ramblings resemble those of a blind pig.

More of Don Miller’s ramblings may be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR1YR8au-BVuOSJ_WJlJAWc2sZShmp9F8UTvlrr9cmNiW957CDUbTdNsivE

Mojo, Blivits, and  the Space-Time Continuum

/ cigarman501 / 3 Comments

♬Oh, where or where has my Mojo gone, oh where, oh where can it be?♬

It’s early summer and the days are long, the sunlight abundant.  I am not suffering from SAD. I am not depressed.  If anything, I’m manic…something I never am.  Downright squirrely.

John Phillips just reminded me, “The Mississippi River runs like molasses in the summertime.”  I don’t live near the Mississippi, but I’ve been outside, and the humidity is sticking like molasses in the summertime and it is not July yet.

I shouldn’t be running around sweating like this looking for my metaphorical gris-gris bag while searching for my juju.  Another way of saying, I can’t get my poop together.    And if I were able, I probably couldn’t pick it up because my hands are sweating too much from the humidity.

What mojo I had has galloped over the horizon into the distant sunset I am still waiting to light up from the Saharan dust storm.  Clouds, clouds, clouds.

As you can tell, my thoughts are fragmented and muddled, dancing about like Looney Tunes’ Tasmanian Devil.

I can’t get anything done.  My life is a nasty “blivit”, ten pounds of poo in a five-pound bag.  I flit from project to project while adding others, staring off into space, tapping my toes, contemplating, ruminating, and completing nothing.  COMPLETING!  I’m not even starting.

I sit knowing I should be doing something but doing nothing.  I should make it my goal to do nothing.  One can’t foul themselves with a “blivit” if you don’t touch it.

Some of you may think I’m speaking metaphorically or allegorically about irregularity…I am but it is more than a couple of failed bathroom trips although all my problems may center around constipation rather than the time-space continuum I am contemplating.  I just don’t know.

There are four storylines waiting to be finished, waiting for most of a year.  They aren’t finished because they suck largely.  A garden that needs extreme weeding and a yard that resembles an Amazon rain forest, a porch needing repainting, a home we’ve turned into a hoarder’s paradise…and today is my anniversary.  I have lost all control over my life, my yard, my mojo, and possibly my bodily functions, but I did not forget my anniversary…I think my bride did, but she recovered nicely.

And the virus…and the protests complete with looting, rioting, teargas, and downright nasty social media arguments.  I’m not going to wish my life away because there is no guarantee 2021 will be any better.  I just going to wish for a little movement…and soon.

Well, it is raining…dripping would be a better descriptor.  I see the sun trying to punch its way through the overcast. “Ole Sol” seems to be winning but the dripping gives me an out.  Instead of heading to weed my tomatoes, I sit writing this…This…whatever THIS is.

I have a theory.  Want to hear it?  You’re going to.

Writing is a way for me to face what is disturbing me.  The problem is I don’t know which disturbance has caused my mojo to run screaming into the day?  I have a plethora of disturbances.

The way my thoughts bounce around something must have happened to the time-space continuum.  There must be a rift in time.

In my head, a calm Picard orders, “Make it so, Number One,” while Commander Scott, the Scottish engineer implores, “But Captain, the engines won’t take anymore.”  In the background, I hear Benjamin Sisko’s father saying, “The soufflé will either rise or it won’t, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

I know, I just combined tall he Star Treks series, and unfortunately, in my condition, the Sisko quote makes perfect sense.  I told you; time and space are funky as is my colon…I mean my brain.

There must be some magic charm, some talisman, some spell that will make my mojo come back.

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong venue.  Time to appropriate someone else’s culture.  Surely there is a wise, old, New Orleans, Hoodoo priestess willing to cast good luck juju upon this humble soul.  What do you mean, Voodoo dolls aren’t used in Voodoo?

Despite the facts, I feel I must have a hat pin jammed deeply into my head…or parts south.

I can’t seem to concentrate on any one thing for any period of time if that period of time is longer than seconds.  I do a little research, a little writing, a little reading, pop up to watch a bit of an episode of The Kitchen, oh wow, grilled fish tacos, a little checking of social media, walk to the refrigerator, open and close the door without retrieving anything, head down to the garden, forget why I went down there, then out to the yard and find only ten minutes have passed despite my head telling me it has been hours.  IT IS a run-on sentence, and it fits perfectly with the way my brain and colon are not working right now.

Okay, so Voodoo is out.  Maybe my mojo IS lost in the space-time continuum.  Captain Kirk, lost between dimensions in The Tholian Web, came back.  Data died in one movie only to return in another series.  Spock died in one movie and came back in another, he even lost and re-acquired his brain in the same episode, Spock’s Brain.  So maybe my mojo will return!  More than likely it will be my “chickens coming home to roost” first…or maybe I should just eat more fiber.

John Phillips sings Mississippi on YouTube.

According to Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,

A gris-gris bag is a Voodoo amulet originating in Africa which is believed to protect the wearer from evil or bring luck. It consists of a small cloth bag, usually inscribed with verses from an African ancestor containing a ritual number of small objects, worn on the person.

JuJu is a spiritual belief system incorporating objects, such as amulets, and spells used in religious practice, as part of witchcraft in West Africa especially the people of Nigeria.

Hoodoo is a traditional African-American Spirituality created by enslaved African-Americans in the New World. It is specific to the distinct African-American lineage in North America. Hoodoo is the product of enslaved people and was a rebellion against absolute mental and spiritual domination by Europeans. Also known as Lowcountry Voodoo in the Gullah Lowcountry of South Carolina, Hoodoo is an amalgamation of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were held in secret away from White slaveholders. In some cases, Hoodoo was accompanied by Catholicism or Christianity.

Don Miller writes in different genres when not constipated and his author’s page may be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR1-nlM-kc0EFF7g5-W4Vtkeary-O49oUk3PF_i7Z615YELZdIoxgnvCezk

The image is from Quora.com