Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Mere hours after the latest shootings of American citizens on American soil came the march of Christian memes:

Jesus can fix it.
We just need Jesus.
If the shooter(s) had Jesus they wouldn't have done this.
If we let Jesus back in schools this wouldn't keep happening. (You really think He left? The Jesus I follow is a political subversive... a few weak rules wouldn't keep Him out of our schools.)
And so on.

These pithy memes line up in tidy order alongside the memes that say if you just prayed more/better you'd be healed, and that if you just had "more of Jesus" you wouldn't have anxiety. (I drank His blood and ate His body this morning at church, how much more do I need? His liver? Spleen? Thyroid? I thought "body" was all-inclusive.)

All that goes together neatly with the ideology that if you were perfect you'd be prosperous, and if you had no "unrepented sin" in your life, that terrible thing wouldn't have happened to you or to your family, and if you were really a believer and had your faith life together you wouldn't have been diagnosed with that incurable illness, or had a loved one die unexpectedly, or watched a marriage dissolve, or lost a house or business to foreclosure, or... (fill in the blank).

That ideology is BS. Like communism, it looks great on paper, but it doesn't work in reality. (It works for the people at the top, but the proletariat suffers.)

I'm really tired of people trying to use God and/or Jesus as a quick fix solution to the woes of the world.

You can have Jesus in your heart and still have anxiety. (And He still loves you. Your religious friends might be irritated by your "lack of faith", but Jesus loves you anyway.)

You can have Jesus in your heart and still be broke, sick, unhappy and traumatized. (Jesus doesn't expect you to put on a happy face and "get better." He sits with you in your funk and loves you.)

You can have Jesus in your heart and still be mentally ill, deluded by propaganda, and subject to deception. (Jesus isn't a cure-all for gullibility or ignorance, obviously.)

Saying we need to "put God back in schools" is declaring that God is limited to acting on a few recited words and that the enforced recitation of those words will change the hearts of children who obviously have bigger issues than worrying about getting good grades. (That's magical thinking at its best, folks.)

Jesus set a wonderful example to follow: love your neighbor, love yourself, love God.
It's remarkably simple.

July 2 (today... I should be sleeping) marks nine months since you left us; the same amount of time I carried you in my body. I miss you. Maybe more now than in those early days following your departure. Then everything was colored by your absence. Now it sneaks up on me... I'll go to share something or send a picture and remember and it's like taking a sucker punch to the gut.

We all live with a voice within that talks to us, whether we want to hear it or not. (If your inner voice is positive and encouraging, this post isn't for you. This post is about the negative voices that sabotage us from within.)

The voice might be the voice of a parent, a stepparent, a teacher, a coach... It's someone who left a mark. The sound of their voice may be pervasive, or it may only speak up about one area of your life. It might tell you that you'll never be an athlete. It might tell you that you'll never be an artist. Or it might just sow seeds of doubt into whatever you set your hand to. The voice within can cover lots of existential territories.

My voice within likes to raise an alarm whenever I have any semblance of success. She questions the value and validity of the success, then asks if it's worthy of praise, or if it even matters in the grand scheme of things. If that doesn't dull my shine (I'm perfectly capable of dulling my own shine, by the way), then the voice reminds me that if everyone likes what I'm doing, I'm mere breaths from major destruction, or obviously doing something wrong. If THAT doesn't work, the voice raises the shadow of superstition: good must be balanced with bad... am I ready for the dark side? The balance? Can't have anything positive without accompanying negative, you know. If I succeed, something awful will probably happen to me or my loved ones. Par for the course, the voice says.

Logically, I know this is all great fodder for therapy.

Practically, I know I'm not the only one dealing with an inner voice of sabotage. I lived a long time without recognizing that "the voice" wasn't the voice of truth. It's taken therapy—and a hefty dose of major trauma—to realize "the voice" isn't reality; it's just a crappy recording, twisted to fit the situation at hand.

I'm making an effort to turn "the voice" off. What about you? How do you deal with "the voice"?

Six months. Today marked six months since we learned our oldest son died in a single-vehicle car accident.
Things I've learned since?
His accident was the result of a series of stupid choices.
He wasn't stupid.
Non-stupid people make stupid choices
No one is immune.
You, too, might be stupid or make stupid choices depending on the situation.
WEAR YOUR SEATBELT.

As an only child, playground games were foreign to me. I clearly remember the first time someone (one of the "cool" kids) asked me to join in on a game of "crack the whip" during recess. Naive, I joined the end of the line of children holding hands and was told, "don't let go." By the time it was over I thought the bones and joints in my arm and shoulder had surely snapped.

The grieving process reminds me of that playground game.

We're almost four months in. Despite my best intentions, my son's ashes are still planted in the center of my home on an antique cabinet that once housed an early-era TV or radio (I'm not sure how old it is). He may stay there indefinitely, but I do plan on finding him a more suitable container, or at least a more suitable bag for the temporary container from the crematorium. I thought a Crown Royal bag might suit him (Jack Daniels doesn't make bags), but I can't find one that's large enough.

As the immediate family left behind, we're riding the waves. Up one day, down the next.

What has surprised me is the "crack-the-whip" effect of day to day events:

My little rescue Westie is having some health problems that could be terminal... WHIP-CRACK negative 100.

A new grandbaby, hallelujah!... WHIP-CRACK positive 10,000.

Work stress that should be neutral is a WHIP-CRACK negative 50.

A minor event in the life of the youngest child that should be a negative 10 or 15 becomes a negative 75 or 80. WHIP-CRACK.

The death of another local young person—who knew my boys—to complications from the flu due to preexisting health problems is at least a negative 90.

I've had multiple days of permeating sadness and mind-boggling loss. I expected that much. But this emotional crack-the-whip is exhausting. Anxiety and gratitude compete for every breath... and there's no escape from this playground game.

It's as if everything is amplified... the good and the bad. Maybe this is living outside the humdrum, day-to-day existence I've come to accept as normal. Maybe I should view these extremes as a blessing.

Meanwhile, I cling to my bit of driftwood amid the shipwreck and hope for the best.

Death does not negate the promises of God. That's hard to accept in the face of death, but I still believe it's true.

For now, I expect the roller-coaster of emotions to continue.

Perhaps I'll learn to enjoy the ride.