Heather Has A Mommy And A Daddy
Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy
Deep in the heart of Dullsville, at the end of a cul-de-sac, behind a lawn of scratchy brown grass dotted with giant plastic butterflies, three flaking cement deer, and a philodendron the size of Bob Hoskins though with fewer decorative parts, lives Heather Thompson. Heather has a mommy and a daddy. Heather’s daddy is an accountant. Her mommy is a homemaker. Before Heather was born they met, fell in love, and got married. “I love you very much and I’m having your child,” Heather’s mom said.
Danitra is Heather’s best friend. One of Danitra’s dads is an empowerment facilitator. The other is an aura consultant. Danitra doesn’t know what they do at work, except they don’t need briefcases. Before Danitra was born her daddies met and fell in love, and after seventeen years spent discussing caring and support, handling acceptance, and negotiating intimacy, they had a commitment ceremony. “I love you very much and I’m designing the rings,” Danitra’s Daddy Mike said.
One day in school Heather’s teacher, Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez, tells the class to draw pictures of their families. Danitra draws two men, Julio draws two women, and Heather draws a man and a woman. Keanu points at the woman Heather drew, with squiggly yellow hair, a crude red dress and simple brown shoes. “This dad here’s got some ugly drag going on,” he says.
At lunchtime Danitra sits on the bench next to Heather and pulls a sandwich out of a brown paper bag.“Want to trade?” Danitra asks. “I’ve got grilled eggplant and goat cheese on marjoram foccacia.” “Um, I didn’t bring lunch,” Heather stammers, kicking her brown paper bag out of sight. “I’m … uh … on a diet.”
“Diet?” Danitra asks. “Haven’t your dads told you not to buy into that patriarchal looks-based chauvinism? And anyway, what’s this then?” she asks, holding up the bag with “HAVE A SUPER DAY!” written in sparkle marker on it.
Julio, who was listening nearby, runs up and grabs Heather’s lunch. “Yeah, what’s this? It’s somebody’s lunch!” Heather jumps at the bag but Julio holds it out of reach. “You give that back!” Heather yells. “Try and make me!” Julio chides. He pulls Heather’s sandwich apart and drops it like it was electrified. He wobbles away, holding his stomach.
“Oh my God!” he cries. “There’s like dead stuff in there!” Danitra looks at the sandwich lying on the cement. “Is that MEAT? Is that like SPAM?” Claudia, sitting quietly at the other end of the bench, bursts into tears. “Heather’s eating BAMBI!” “It’s friggin’ Wonder Bread!” Julio scoffs. Keanu walks toward the bread and peers at it. “And it’s got LUBE all over it!” “You idiot, that’s MAYONNAISE.” “What’s mayonnaise?” “It’s like goat cheese for heterosexuals.”
“Heterosexuals?” Keanu asks. “Heather’s mommy and daddy are heterosexuals?” Heather starts to yell. “No! I don’t have a mommy and a daddy. I’ve got two daddies!” “Hell-OOOO!” Danitra says, drawing the word out to twelve syllables. “We can see your clothes!” “Um . . . “ Heather stalls, “then I’ve got two mommies.” “And we’ve seen you play baseball,” Julio answers.
Heather, unable to think of a response, sits on the bench and starts to cry. Danitra pulls a robin’s egg blue bandana from her pocket and dabs at Heather’s face. “Maybe your mom’s not really a woman,” Danitra offers. “Well,” Heather says, sniffing, “she cleans the house, and cooks, and does the laundry.” Danitra fumes. “We’re trying to establish that she’s female, not that she’s an idiot.”
“Maybe your dad’s not really a man,” Julio suggests.“Well,” Heather answers, wiping her nose. “He’s big and strong and he’s got a mustache.” Several of the children wonder what this proves but nobody says anything.
“So let’s say you’ve got a mom and a dad,” Keanu says. “Then where did you come from?”Heather thinks for a minute. “They went to bed together, and then I was born.” Some of her friends express further interest, but Heather doesn’t have a brochure. “Daddy put his thing in mommy — “
“Oh, man,” Keanu interjects. “Is that legal?” “HelLLLLO!” sings Danitra, who gets the word up to eighteen syllables this time. “We’re in CaliFORnia!”
“And nine months later I came out of my mommy’s tummy,” Heather adds. Several of the children wonder why they didn’t hire a surrogate with a vagina but nobody says anything.
Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part Two
One night there’s a dance at Heather’s school and her parents offer to chaperone. While Heather’s dancing with Danitra she sees from the corner of her eye her mom and dad moving onto the dance floor. She watches in horror as her mom just sort of stands there swaying, her gingham granny dress limply hanging to the floor. She grimaces as her dad starts chopping at the air like Jackie Chan being attacked by locusts.
Occasionally their movements coincide with the beat. Heather runs to the bathroom crying.“Heather, don’t feel so bad,” Danitra says. “Lots of kids have embarrassing parents.” She starts to lead Heather out of the bathroom, then stops. “Um, maybe we should stay in here a while longer. They just started doing the Bump.”
One day the class projects are due. Heather brings in the model she’s made. It’s a lump of brown Play-Doh with ketchup poured over it and dotted with marshmellows stuck on with toothpicks. She sets it on the table as her teacher comes over to look.
“Why, Heather! That’s . . . nice! Very very nice!”“What the hell is it?” Tommy asks. “TOMMY! Heather’s parents had me over for dinner once. This is what they call ‘Salisbury steak.’” Heather bursts into tears. “NO IT’S NOT! It’s a VOLCANO! That’s lava, and that’s steam coming out.”
Danitra enters and places her project next to Heather’s on the table. “Why, Danitra, what’s this?” Danitra delicately removes the sheet protecting her project. “Versailles.”
Heather takes one look at the tiny replica of Louis XIV’s summer home, constructed by Danitra and her two dads out of two hundred cubic yards of teak plank, thirty square feet of gold leaf, sixty pounds of Italian travertine marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used, tiny topiary and functional miniature fountains, and cries even harder.
“Why did I have to have a mom and a dad?” Heather sobs. “Why can’t my family be like all the rest?”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez pulls Heather close. “Children,” she says,”every family is special, including those conforming to the rigid, stereotypical standard of male domination.” She starts to tell the class about her own family, including her hearing-impaired Hispanic mother, her height-challenged Israeli father, and her Gypsy recovering-substance-abusing brother-in-law and Armenian sex-addict half-sister, but stops, realizing the school year is only 4,074 hours long.
“Just because Heather’s parents are heterosexual doesn’t mean they’re slow-witted philistines, though there are strong correlations you don’t need a PhD in statistics to understand. But Heather is lucky to have a sweet mom and a wonderful dad and a dog named Molly and a hamster named Samson, and they all live together in a lovely house. They’ve got interesting avocado-colored appliances, carpet as long as your hair, and furniture that‘s by-and-large wood that must have taken them hours to assemble. There’s a big plastic sofa that turns into a bed, and a La-Z-Boy — ”
“A what?” Keanu asks. “A La-Z-Boy,” Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez repeats. “It’s a big vinyl chair that reclines.” “Oh, man!” exclaims Keanu, covering his face with his hands. “And I thought our Herman Miller reproductions were embarrassing!”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez continues. “But the important thing is, they’re a family. They’re a group united for a common purpose, where each individual is given a sense of empowerment and their shared bonds are formalized in a ritualistic manner.” “Oh,” the students respond in unison. Everybody hugs.
THE END
The story was borrowed from World Class Stupid.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Unaddressed White Privilege
It is pronounced the same as nemo fee list. ~ maybe we need to use the r word less often, and with more thought and care ~ Which way to go? ~ I bet “Wendy” has her side of the story. ~ supposedly Mr. Whipple/Don’t squeeze the charmin is the most successful ad campaign in history ~ Whoever made this meme has a faulty sense of graphic design. The text on the right should be the same height as the image on the left. ~ Maybe it is time to start up OFFUG… Old Fogeys Fighting Ugly Graphics ~ The War Between the States was incredibly bloody. There were many efforts to honor the fallen soldiers. The Charleston parade seems to have taken place. However, it was not the only time the fallen soldiers were formally remembered. The custom of Decoration Day, later Memorial Day, would have happened with, or without, the Charleston parade. ~ @RoddeyJones Humbling concession speech from @PaulBrounforGA #gapol #GAsen #gagop #gasenate #GaElections ~ What exposure are you using? ~ I thought a homophone was a communications device used in midtown. ~ idk if you don’t hurry up people might forget how to read ~ OK, I don’t deny that the Charleston parade happened. I just don’t think that it was the invention of decoration day. There were people putting flowers on soldier graves throughout the conflict. After a war as horrific as WBTS, the remembrances were inevitable. How important was the Charleston parade? I don’t know. This is commenting on the causes of a holiday that was going to happen, one way or another. This is not “upholding white supremacy.” We might have to agree to disagree on this one. ~ When I started to associate with the Atlanta Faerie Circle, and the related events in Tennessee and North Carolina, it was simply the faeries. I seldom heard the word radical. I am not sure that we need the r word. Isn’t being a faerie radical? Maybe we pay too much attention to the radical part, at the expense of the faerie part. ~ You can do better than this. A post denouncing elementary school graduations. Good grief. The Liberty Alliance is not getting their money’s worth. ~ If you are as proud of your ability to listen as you are of the clever things that you say ~ “Faith is a Christian concept, not a Buddhist one” So much of our thinking is influenced by the Christian religion. So many concepts that are seldom challenged are actually highly questionable. The concept of taking a book, declaring it to be the word of G-d, leads to an obsession with semantics. ~ “Jesus’ s entire journey was the dissolution of his ego and dis-identification with ego needs!” “John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” There is a bit of a contradiction here. People read what they want into the Jesus story. What you say about Jesus says more about you than it does him. The elevation of this speculation to the level of hysterical belief is a formula for madness. ~ Karen Handel was almost elected Governor in 2008. She was endorsed by Sarah Palin. She did not make the runoffs in the last election. ~ Christopher Isherwood has written that it is not the religion that converts the follower, but the ~ There used to be a gas station with a sign, homo gal milk ~ ‘All you left is emoty”. That is pretty clear. In the song “Papa was a rolling stone” they say “All he left us was alone” Some thought this meant a loan, to be paid back with interest. ~ You can’t post this because it has a blocked link ~The content you’re trying to share includes a link that our security systems detected to be unsafe: steaming.com Please remove this link to continue. If you think you’re seeing this by mistake, please let us know. steaming.com/ WARNING!! THIS SITE CONTAINS ADULT MATERIALS OR MATERIALS THAT MAY BE CONSIDERED OFFENSIVE IN SOME COMMUNITIES. YOU MAY NOT … ~ You don’t have to shout. ~ At one time, “Howl” was at the center of an obscenity trial. Today, it is “unaddressed white privilege” and “NEGATIVE BAGGAGE TO CARRY AROUND .” ~ 1- Do you have a link to a version of “Howl” that includes the word that rhymes with trigger? I seriously doubt that Mr. Ginsberg would use that word in a poem. 2- If the reader included a crude racial slur in “Howl”, then a beloved work of art was misrepresented. 3- Bernard that rant says more about you than it does me. ~ Is #joetheplumber coming out as #prochoice? “Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights” could be the new motto for keeping abortion legal. ~ useless filler to make text block look better ~ Pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
Positive Attitude Prattle
Somewhere along the line, the boss decides you have a “negative attitude”. From that point on, you are not allowed to complain. It is almost as if it were a gimmick to keep you in line.
A lady named Barbara Ehrenreich agrees that there is entirely too much positive attitude required of people. She wrote a book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. In one interview, she says “And again, you know, don’t worry about the world. Don’t ask the question about where the cancer comes from. Don’t ask why so many people are not employed, even in good times in our country. And it was the same sort of thing. And that’s when I began to think hey, this kind of operates as a way of quelling discontent, quelling dissent, you know, when you can’t say I’m mad about -whatever. You just have to swallow it and smile.”
Ms. Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000. She found herself in a pink tsunami of cheerfulness. The pink teddy bears did not do anything for her spirits. The whole culture of happy talk, about a life threatening illness. grossed her out.
At one point, she was given a tote bag. In it were some crayons. I said, “This is really nice, but what’s with the crayons?” And this woman said to me, “Well, that’s in case you want to write down any of your thoughts.” And I said, “I’m a writer. I don’t use crayons.”
The promotional interviews quoted here were conducted in 2009. This was before the Susan G. Komen foundation hired Karen Handel. During the Planned Parenthood meltdown, some unflattering things came out about the SGK foundation. It probably did not help Ms. Ehrenreich’s attitude.
So the book happened. PG has not read it, but has seen a few reviews and interviews. The New York Times has a great review. It says “America’s can-do optimism has hardened into a suffocating culture of positivity that bears little relation to genuine hope or happiness.”
One interview has a stomach churning comment. It should be noted that this is the lady talking, and that there is no confirmation of this. “Yeah. And here’s something that really horrified me that I learned recently and put in the book, is that some breast cancer support groups expel people who go into metastasis and who are clearly going to die. You can’t be in the group because just your presence might bring other people down.” (A google search of the phrase “breast cancer support groups expel people who go into metastasis ” shows little support for this story. Two front page results involve Barbara Ehrenreich interviews. Skepticism should not be limited to positive motivation.)
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Overcoming Our Hair Issues
Another name for this is negative attitude. It is a form of prejudice that is encouraged. ~ @fieldnegro Owning the last place clippers was his punishment when something really wrong went on now he has a first place team ~ This one set the BS detector buzzing. I find it tough to believe that “Peter” is in the first grade. Also, he is a kid. Being worried about getting into college, instead of playing with legos, sounds like a kid trying to learn how to think. However, there is one thing about this post that I find encouraging. No where in the thirteen items do you say to wonder what will happen to your soul when you die, That is definitely something that small children should not be taught to worry about. For that matter, adults need to get over the obsession with life after death. Maybe there are two things good about this post. You made it all the way through without a cheap shot at abortion. That is another subject children, of all ages, don’t need to have pounded into their head. ~ I think the letter from “Mom” is made up. “Peter” is in the first grade. First grade. I might have believed this if he was in junior high, but first grade? How many first graders read blog posts, let alone call the author by a cutesy poo name? There is a fourteenth item for the list. Students should learn critical thinking. Don’t believe everything Mr. Matt says. ~ Add thirty years and you have my opinion of the sixties ~ For once I agree with you. I could probably find some nits to pick here. However, there are plenty of other targets for snark on the innertubes. Has anyone commented on your new format? It has a lot more ads than before. There is also a connection to something called the Liberty Alliance. Have you sold out? I seem to have gotten a popup ad after coming here recently, but cannot be too sure where it came from. I find the authority angle to be interesting. People don’t seem to be confident of themselves, and so need to cite an authority. The authority argument is up there with screaming hypocrisy when it comes to cheap shot tactics. ~ Thank you for thinking of me, but 13 miles in North GA would probably be too much for me. Move the decimal over to the left one notch, and I could do it. ~ With a bit of editing this can be a poem. There are lots of words that rhyme with shithead. ~ It is tough to know what the truth is here. Huge amounts of money are involved. It is possible to create research, and tweak the results, to show whatever you want to show. ~ His name is pronounced TY bee, just like the island ~ There is already too much talk. What people need to do is Listen. ~ I would like that quote a lot more without the name at the bottom ~ The Third Commandment is about the proper use of a sacred name. Using the name of a deity to open a government meeting might not be proper. ~ oh my. that cat has been out of the bag for a long time. we can avoid making it worse, but it is too widely known by now. as a former parking attendant, i can vouch for the unsustainability of the whole shebang the community that cannot be named might need to get out of the gathering business ~ “plenty of those who DO get angry are still acting from a place of naive personal entitlement” People who call out others on their “privilege” and “racism” are often sensitive when you call them out for their attitudes. ~ Maybe the adjective should be turned down two notches. Instead of “the best sign,” say “a sign.” This is not always possible when using other people’s graphics. ~ This article will fire up those who are opposed to abortion. Few minds will be changed. The debate over abortion is mostly preaching to the choir. This toxic rhetoric (i.e.” the self-worshiping death cult known as modern liberalism”) about abortion saves few, if any, babies. ~ Theoiyr’re makes it about G-d. ~ Podcasts have an advantage over text based posts. You can listen in the background while you do other things. ~ This is equal opportunity fun. There is one with FLOTUS Michelle holding a sign… nothing will bring back the children murdered by my husband’s drone strikes ~ Is racism about goofy things said by famous people? That is more fun to discuss than institutional systems of oppression. ~ The ice cubes have a subliminal message. The one on the right clearly spells out X, and the one on the left seems to say S. It is close enough to make you want to buy the whiskey. ~ What about the uncles? ~ The study in this report INDICATE that things are not ideal. The study PROVES nothing. The headline writer at HuffPo should tone down the rhetoric. ~ When urine falls on the ground, it is absorbed into the earth. When urine lands on concrete or asphalt, it sits there until evaporation. ~ anticipation – pigeons await arrival – the george bush statue ~ If people were as proud of their ability to listen as they are of the clever things they say ~ Sheryl Underwood stopped being funny when she called black hair “nappy” and “nasty” on “The Talk” while the audience laughed along. We have enough trouble overcoming our hair issues without Sheryl backpedaling on progress. ~ pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
Adding Text With GIMP
This tutorial is about using gimp to put borders around text. If you are making graphic images, this step allows you to use almost any image as a background. This tutorial is based on the embedded video. There are a few things different in the version in this post. The video has some jivvy music, which some of you will enjoy. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
This process does not always make sense. It is not always logical. Just follow the instructions. If you make a mistake, and something does not work, just close out the window and start over. Keep these instructions handy the first few times you do this. After a while it will be easy.
This tutorial uses GIMP. If you use photoshop, you probably already know how to do this, or how to find someone to show you. If you need to download GIMP, use the link. PG learned how to do this on GIMP 2.6. The latest version is GIMP 2.8. There are a few differences between the two versions. This tutorial will provide instructions for both versions.
01 Open the picture you intend to use as a background. Make sure it is the correct size. On some versions of GIMP, you need to open the Toolbox, and the Tool Options. This is in the Windows menu. You also need to open the Layers dialog window (ctrl+L).
02 Compose the text in a word document. Copy the text.
03 Select Text (t). Draw a rectangle on the picture. Try to start the rectangle as close to the left edge as possible, and go all the way to the right edge. Make sure it is tall enough for the letters. Paste the text into the rectangle. Before pasting in the text, hit the space bar one time. When you make this image larger, it will need room to grow.
04 Choose a font. Choose foreground and background colors. See how big you can make the text before it starts another line. If you have a specific font size, enter that size in the tool options.
05 Before performing the next few steps, click on the status bar of the background picture. You want this to be the selected window. Click on this window before every step. This is important. If you choose a command, and apply it to the wrong window, it will mess things up.
06 Select text from path. In GIMP 2.6, there is a tab on the tool options window, “Path from Text.”. In GIMP 2.8, you choose “Text to Path” from the Layer menu. (alt+L, p).
07 Select “From Path” from Select menu. For GIMP 2.6 use (shift + v). For GIMP 2.8 use (alt + s, o). The two versions use most of the same shortcuts from now on. The text is now coated in flashing dash marks. This has something to do with being selected.
08 Select “Duplicate Layer” from Layer menu. (ctrl + shift + d)
09 Select “Grow” from Select menu. (alt + s, g) The “Grow Selection” window will appear. Type 3 in the highlighted field. If you want to have a bigger border, put a larger number in. Click OK.
10 Select “Fill with BG Color” from Edit menu. (ctrl + .) The Text Editor window should go away now. If the Text Editor window does not go away, something is wrong.
11 Select “None” from Select menu. (ctrl + shift + A) As we mentioned earlier, some of these steps don’t make sense. This is one of those steps.
12 Click anywhere on text. The “Confirm Text Editing” window will appear. Select “Create New Layer”. (alt + n) A layer will be created. It will be a duplicate of the original text. In GIMP 2.6, you will need to manually center the new layer of text. To do this, you will want to enlarge the text 400%. (alt + v, z, click on 400%) (On PG’s machine, the keyboard shortcut 3 will give you a 400% enlargement.) To center this layer of text, select “Move.” (m). Under Tool Toggle, you need to select “Move the active layer.” Choose the drawing option on the left, next to the word “Move.” This is the “Layer” option, as opposed to “Selection” or “Path.” If the Move tool does not work, make sure the right option is selected. This can be confusing.
12a In GIMP 2.8, the new layer of text is automatically centered on the enlarged layer of text.
13 Once the new layer of text is centered, you need to “Merge Down” the layer. Select “Merge Down” from the Layer menu. (d) You will need to do this twice. Where you once had four layers, you will now have two. With GIMP 2.8, you need to select the toolbox. before you hit d twice. (cntrl + b)
14 Move the finished text into place. If it goes at the bottom of the picture, move it to the bottom right hand corner. Place it a few pixels off the bottom. (Most of PG’s images are 720×447 pixels. The bottom of the text is resting on 431 pixels.) Enlarge the view to 400%. Position the right edge of the text flush against the right edge of the picture. Scroll to the left side of the text. Place the cursor over the left edge of the text, and see what the pixel counter says. The first number will be width, the second number is height. Note the position of the left edge of the text. See the location in pixels. Divide the first number in half. Move the edge of the text to this number. Scroll to the right side of the text, and confirm that the distance to the edge of the picture is the same on both sides.
15 Go back to 100% (1). Are you happy with the way this text works with this picture? If you are happy with this look, anchor the text by clicking d. For GIMP 2.6, “Save” the picture. (ctrl + shift + s, type new name) For GIMP 2.8, you will want to “Export” the picture. (cntrl + shift + e, type new name) Note the folder you are saving/exporting the picture to.
15a If you are not happy with the results, you can try another picture. Go to the Layers dialog box. Select Background. Click on the garbage can in the bottom right of the window. Find another picture. Drag the file into the picture. Go to the Layers dialog window. Highlight the layer with the text. Click on the arrow pointing up. If you are happy with this look, “Merge Down” the text (d) and “Save”/”Export” the picture. (ctrl + shift + s, type new name) (ctrl + shift + e, type new name.)
Responsible For Jesus
It was a sunday evening, and there was nothing good to say. Rather than not saying anything at all, PG decided to go into his archives. This post is from May of 2007. It is about responsible behavior, and a religion that does not encourage it. This repost might be hypocritical, but no one forced you to read it. Part two is another rerun. It is written in first person. The pictures, from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”, need text between them.
It all started when a girl went to a back room with a former boyfriend. Her current bf stormed out of the party, and flipped his car when it went off the road. Being a star quarterback did not prevent the fatal consequences. The local radio whiner had a few things to say. Since alcohol was a suspected factor, the question became, “how do we teach teenagers to drink responsibly?”
PG is a retired drunk, and has a few dozen opinions on this issue. His wandering mind settled on a related subject…Jesus. G-d’s love baby is similar to alcohol. Both are legal, both have potential for good and ill, and neither works for PG. The thought occurred “How do we teach Teenagers to Worship Jesus Responsibly?” Now, this may be the first time those two concepts have been paired like that…Jesus and Responsibility…but it should not be the last.
A central concept in the world of Jesus Worship is the avoidance of responsibility…”Jesus paid the price for my sins on the cross”. While you may feel better to think you are forgiven, that does not help the person who was hurt by your actions. If star the quarterback had run into someone, G-d might forgive him, but this does not help with the medical bills.
Today’s seminar is about the Worshiping Responsibly. It is about having respect for your neighbors who do not agree with you, and do not want to hear about your “salvation”. It is about not creating ill will for Jesus with obnoxious behavior in his name. It is about not dragging Jesus into your personal quarrels, using his name in anger to hurt your neighbor. It is about Responsibility. Your actions have consequences, and just because you are doing it for Jesus does not eliminate that reality.
There are two big reasons why PG is not a Jesus Worshiper. The first one is, he simply doesn’t agree with the teachings. The Bible is not the word of G-d, Jesus was killed because he was a troublemaker. The death, and reputed resurrection, of Jesus has nothing to do with what happens to people when they die. If you don’t agree with the dogma regarding life after death, the Jesus worship church has little to offer you. Christianity is more a scheme for life after death than a religion.
The Second reason is the sorry behavior of Jesus Worshipers. This prevents PG from having a cosmetic, social oriented membership in a church. He does not want to pretend to worship a spirit which causes him misery.
Responsibility is not valued in the Jesus Worship community. Respect for non believers is seen as a sign of weakness. And, while not all Jesus Worshipers are fanatics, many admire and support the loudmouths who give their faith a bad name.
When it comes to belief, moderation is not valued. Fanaticism is admired. There is little responsibility taken. It is just the Jesus talking.
Christopher Isherwood once said, in a magazine interview, that the doctrine of a religion is not as important as the person who tells you that doctrine. (If anyone can find this quote on the internet, please leave a comment with a link.) It is a common belief that religions are about beliefs, but many find that it is the person who draws you into the community. A corollary of this is when you have a bad experience with a person who represents a religion. This person can drive you far away from wanting to have any participation in a religion. The idea that G-d would send a person to hell because he knew an offensive Jesus worshiper is tough to believe.
So much for world affairs. It is time to tell a story, with no moral and no redeeming social value.
In 1980, I was staying at a place called the Sea Haven Hostel, affectionately known as Sleaze Haven. This was in Seattle WA, as far as you can get from Atlanta, and still be in the lower 48. I was working through Manpower, and staying in a semi private room for $68 a month.
There was a Christian group that met in the basement on Sunday Night. Now, as some of you may know, I am a recovering baptist, who hasn’t been to church since 1971. However, the lure of a free meal was hard to resist, so I went to a few meetings.
One night, after doing quality control work on the local beer supply, I cheerfully joined in the discussion. This was the night when I realized that the Bible is not the Word of G-d, a concept that has been very handy in dealing with the clumsy efforts of our Jesus-mad culture to convert me.
They seemed to like me, though, and welcomed me back. Maybe it was the southern accent.
One Sunday, after the dinner was finished , it was time to have a prayer to begin the meeting. I raised my hand. Now, Jesus Worshipers enjoy prayer as entertainment. When they bow their heads, you see them stretching and deep breathing, in anticipation of a good, lengthy, message to G-d.
My message was a bit of a disappointment. Instead of a long winded lecture about Jesus and the magic book, I said what was on my mind. Lord, thank you for letting us be here today.
Chamblee54 
3 comments