well then

Hey all! As usual i'm blogging late. . Rob's rolling fresh, new paint onto the same cupboard that cracked my skull!!! so i'm stayin' away from that particular one. . we don't like each other!!! heh heh. . . I visited my friend, Pauline tonight - we are enjoying each other's company for Canadian Idol watching every Tuesday night!!! WEEEE!!! We had popcorn, which we both seemed to like shovelling into our gobs like it was goin' outta style, also both confessed a predilection for licking the salty, buttery-flavoured oil from the sides of the bag!!! Pauline told me of a work friend who asked her how she ate her popcorn, and P then went on to demonstrate jamming an entire handful of the crunchy nuggets into her wide-open mouth, using her palm to push it all in! It was hilarious to see someone demonstrate the private way i eat this stuff. . was she a fly on my wall?? So, when the popcorn was done, we got talking about blogs after C.I. was over. . . and yeah, we had a good talk as always. I learned that there are those who might visit a humorous blog post (i.e. one of mine) that doesn't mention God every second word and immediately the Christian 'snobbery' rears its ugly head and judgement seeps in and does its erosive job.

So, i'm writing with a bit of heaviness in my heart and a sigh exhaling from my open mouth, which I almost feel as if i could sigh enough, a bit of the heaviness would escape with each exhalation. Its not working. . so i'm gonna write this.

All right. . . where is it written, or has it ever been written that people who love God have to be 'one channel'. . all God, all the time? Who says that a person who loves God must bludgeon people over the head with Bible quotes and little religious homilies for every occasion? Who says that Christians must always have an angle, looking for that opportunity to 'get' people. . capture them, preach at them? Must a follower of Jesus talk in the weird dialect of "Christianese" and say things like "Blessings" or "Hallelujah", "Praise the Lord!", "Father God", "Yes, Jesus!", "Amen"? I'm actually starting to really get annoyed with this kind of talk, cuz its thrown around and trampled upon like sidewalk salt in winter. . . so much. . . too much. . . these words seem to have lost their meanings. . . i cringe and wince with sayings like "God told me this" or "Let go and let God" (a particular UNfavourite), "When God closes a door, he always opens a window". . i'm sorry, i can't say these things, they just don't flow from my pen, my keyboard nor my lips. .i can't even believe them. Does this make me some kind of inferior, substandard Christ follower? Must a person who loves God act like this and talk like this, cuz if that's what loving God is all about, i guess I don't want to love him. Thankfully i know that is not even remotely close to what being a godly person is. I've got to pause here for a second. . . I do not want to speak out of turn or be speaking for myself when it comes to such importance.

If i write something, anything. . if i chose to talk about my poodle who throws up on the basement stairs and licks it up again. . or if i talk about cracking my skull on a cupboard and liken a botched paint job to primates smearing feces on my walls, or if i chose to talk about the velvety night sky or about a beautiful girl whose parents are struggling to come to terms with her death. . geez. . i write what i feel. . i write about what touches me. . i write for the sheer joy of putting words together because i love them so much. If I am a the 'real deal', doesn't God live in me? and doesn't he come out in what I say? even if its not blatantly, dogmatically, pragmatically, theologically coated???!! this makes me think of M&Ms. . don't ask me why, cuz i'm kinda upset, but i guess the 'coated' part. . . M&MS might be coated in candy, which is fun and crunchy and colourful and light. . but there is still chocolate to the core and the candy shell isn't all there is, even though that's the first thing you see!!! So, if my blogs are sometimes like the candy part of chocolate covered candy. . . they are still chocolate. Am i bonkers? Is there some anoxia happening in my brain now? okay, deep breath. . .

I know that most of you are probably wondering "hmmm, why does Kathy have this bee in her bonnet?". . .not to mention that she's mixing her metaphors!!! and I say to you. . its not you, its me. . okay, maybe its one bee. . . but I hope that this makes sense. The bee will know what i'm saying. . and hey they're entitled to be a bee and bees sting and it hurts. . . but bees will be bees.

I feel more unworthy than i could tell you to even bear the name of Christ, to the point that i even hesitate to call myself a Christian. . . but indeed I am following him and he's gracious enough to me to allow me to. I don't expound pious platitudes in my blog and if i ever did, i'd expect some 'smacking' SNAP OUT OF IT comments from you guys! I'd sooner pack it up and call it quits than turn into some superspiritual, hyper-religious *read 'boring* unreal, plastic, poor excuse for a human being. We're all in this together fellow babies (as Dr. Johnny Fever would say! - W.K.R.P in Cincinnati - your blast from the past). . . so let's know each other and read and write and be full of joy and share and be in community without cliches, force-fed Bible doses or weird phrases. This is an M&M blog for sure. . and what's wrong with that? I love M&MS!!!!! don't you???