Losing the Fight?

Every time I forget to keep it down and I speak in a normal voice, it hurts. My voice goes to a painful whisper.

I’m losing my battle.

Lately I sleep day and night. I’m exhausted. Depression weakens me further, takes my energy away and leaves me in helpless despair.

I don’t want you to pity me, I have no need for sympathy. I want you to look back on my archives (they go back to 2019) and learn from me. About mental illness. About heartbreak. Betrayal. Of my outrage at the state of my country (United States)and how we have alienated allies and trade partners by letting a president be a boob and a bully.

Looking back, you’ll see my brushes with real evil, something people like to refer to as “the supernatural,” which is really a part of our natural world that we can’t understand.

I don’t think we’re meant to understand everything. Sometimes, God wants us to trust him for help and guidance. Without God, this existence makes no sense, and I have yet to hear one argument by an atheist that was able to shake my faith, or, for that matter, make any sense.

I want you to read about mental illness from one who has endured it all his life. Learn where you can, what you can, and give me the benefit of the doubt. Don’t close the link too fast; there’s something here for everyone.

Humor, demonic encounters, being an Army “shitbird,” child abuse, great tragedy through loss, heartache at a life I should have lived, but never had a chance to, and more. I’ve done movie reviews, videogame reviews, talked about dumb criminals, and more.

I’d be honored to have you stop by and see me in my raw, unplanned posts that reveal my mental illnesses. Before I go, please take advantage of what I’ve been through and learn. If nothing else, at least see where I’ve been and the horror I’ve known. Please sign in and “like” (hit the little star at the bottom so I can know you were here. Share links. I’ll gain nothing but you may gain a crude understanding of what happens when children are beaten and raped by their own parents. See how I climbed out of the pit of racism, taught to me by my parents. How I had to choose to climb that ladder.

Most of all, see what smoking has done to me. I’ve killed myself.

My life wasn’t always a nightmare. There were good times when I know someone was praying for me, and God answered those prayers with miracles.

I’ve lived a hard and bitter life. I don’t want anyone to trace my steps. I don’t hate anyone enough to wish that on another.

And remember: hating someone poisons your soul, not theirs. Hate will drag you to Hell.

I’ve overreacted to the news lately. As I’ve said, it’s a trap, the figurative equivalent of quicksand. I said I hated someone. Left comments I regret. Ugly ones.

That’s the only way I can truly lose this fight.

The battle to save my body was over before I was aware that it was this bad.

The fight for my soul is another thing. I don’t plan on losing it.

I’m not losing the battle. No, I’m not going down there.

A Poem to Make You Think

“You lived next door to me for years;
We shared our dreams, our joys and tears.
A friend to me you were indeed,
A friend who helped me when in need.

My faith in you was strong and sure;
We had such trust as should endure,
No spats between us ever rose;
Our friends were like – and so, our foes.

What sadness, then my friend, to find,
That after all, you weren’t so kind,
The day my life on earth did end,
I found you weren’t a faithful friend.

For all those years we spent on earth,
You never talked of second birth.
You never spoke of my lost soul,
And of the Christ who’d make me whole!

I plead today from hell’s cruel fire,
And tell you now my least desire –
You cannot do a thing for me;
No words today my bonds will free.

But do not err, my friend, again –
Do all you can for souls of men.
Plead with them now quite earnestly,
Lest they be cast in hell with me!”

— John Masaitis

I Faced Her and Listened

A neighbor just returned from a trip to Italy and Greece. I saw her near the mailboxes and greeted her, and asked how her trip had been. Right away, I point out the title to show that I not only was interested but that she had my full attention.

That’s the only way to keep a valued friend. Face them, look at them, and then listen.

I suppose I got this way early in my life, working around truckers who had tall stories to tell. Some were just lonely from too many hours spent behind the wheel, driving along in the dark hours to keep early morning delivery schedules. Sometimes, back then, even a CB radio could offer no distraction from white line fever. Drowsiness and using speed (Dexies) are mutually destructive. One never beats the other; they compete all night long, every mile a driver could endure.

There was another battle, and that became sleep. Driving drowsy but awake, dependant on speed, was just the way it went. But when it came time to sleep, too much coffee and “black beauties” would keep them tossing around in their sleeper compartments, never really getting to sleep.

When they came into my father’s terminal, they had idle time before going out again. For distraction, because they might not be able to sleep, or they had managed to sleep with a little bit of help from some downers, they’d be chatty. I liked most of them and was always ready to hear a tall tale. They told the best and worst stories.

In a trucker’s life, little things mean a lot. I was a kid, but being able to talk to another human being was one of those things I thought was small, but now I realize it meant a lot to them.

And to me, too: they got me through some tough times.

I wanted to give my neighbor the same kind of attention. She’s not merely a neighbor but a good friend of ten years. And, I really wanted to hear about Greece, one of the few places on earth I’d really love to visit. She had seen the Parthenon, the Acropolis, a statue of Zeus, a museum with ancient busts. Visited a few of the islands and sampled some of the finest Greek cuisine and wine, and being on a cruise, had met some good people who, I’m sure, she will never forget.

After playing AC Odyssey, an open world game set during the Peloponnesian War, I was smitten with Greece. What beauty that game held, with dynamic storms that tossed the ships in the Aegean and transitioned the seasons, was unlike anything I had ever seen. Riding a horse is done every bit as well as RDR 2, or the Witcher 3. And my friend had been there!

Well, we talked until dark. I had the odd question or two, apologized for interrupting, and mercifully let her get back inside: these mosquitoes! Is it me, or do they get more vicious with each passing year?

There are benefits to giving someone your full attention. Big ones. They remember why they enjoyed your company. They grow fond of you and will often approach you even if it’s just for a quick greeting and to inquire as to your health. That is priceless to me.

I, like my trucker friends of so long ago, also get lonely. At times, I can feel it dragging me down.

That’s when I tend to stray from my path. Distractions ease loneliness. But then again, every one of them takes me away from the Lord. I ought to be praying, strengthening my faith, and seeking to restore my heart with the Holy Spirit. But I instead get weak. I go to other things, and they never do anything but take me further away from God.

That’s worse than I thought it was. In the following short clip, I learned that some distractions are worse than others. The price for those is much more than I could ever bear.

I don’t mind recreation. I spent an hour yesterday sharpening and polishing my Crocodile Dundee knife. That thing is sick. The blade length is 12 inches. It’s over two pounds in weight with a thick 440 stainless steel. The reason I bought it was because every tree surrounding this area is dying. A sickly-green fungus visible on the bark is attacking them and leaving them open to attacks by insects as well. Huge, dead branches are always falling during high winds and storms. If a large branch falls, I may need to chop it into smaller pieces to move it. It was this knife or a machete, and I’m going to skip that in favor of a cordless saw. But that’s down the road, and I don’t want to be distracted by wanting things. But using whet stones seems to be a lost art, and the distraction was fun. I’m still learning.

Even a history book is fine, and movies are sometimes okay, depending on content. I’ve come to hate nudity and sex scenes in films because they’re always awkward and gratuitous. They subtract from an otherwise good story. Even violent content is going overboard.

When it comes to distraction, though, the cell phone is unequaled. It’s too bad and far too late to stop it. I’ve seen people have accidents that way. Kids and adults alike walk around with their eyes glued to the screen, oblivious to everything around them, even danger. I get worried about women doing this, unaware that they’re being stalked by someone about to cause them harm.

In this short lesson, we hear what distractions do to our faith and why Jesus hates them.

Let’s take a look:

I pray that those listening will take this to heart. I pray we will face Jesus, listen for our names to be called, and accept whatever He wants us to do.

A Troubled Heart

That last post, the one about pornography, was difficult to write. My thanks, iOLANDEMELODY of YouTube, for your frank discussion on pornography and its destructive power. (She’s an extraordinary person and is blessed with a kind and giving spirit, and that’s how I want to be).

The essay I wrote took research and the exposure of my guilt in engaging in the sins of the flesh. While it’s true that I worked hard and suffered from the post, I have been left with a troubled heart. I’ve dwelt so on the horrors that Linda Boreman (Lovelace) and so many others endured that I have felt helpless and hopeless.

Sometimes, we think we have learned something, and we find that we learned nothing at all. Other times, we learn a truth that will stay with us forever, something good… or something terrible.

When it comes to porn, all of it is terrible.

Slavery, open adultery, and all manner of sexual sin should make us sick and repulsed and leave us never wanting to see it again.

Everything that is not of the spirit is of the flesh, and everything of the flesh that is a sin harms the body and the soul.

I learned things I dared not print. Things far too horrible to inflict upon you, my brothers and sisters. Sometimes, the less said, the better I get through. Now, I don’t get likes. Nor do I expect them. I don’t get many views. Well, I don’t expect those, either. All that I can hope to do is to help others. And so I felt moved to write that post. I didn’t spend much time editing. I wanted to post it and put it behind me.

But I can’t.

Learning that it’s already like the “days of Noah” was a revelation I was not ready for.

Regarding that, I don’t want you to worry. If you are saved in Christ, you have no need to fear.

It’s just that so much of what I endured as a child came back to me, heavy and heartbreaking.

However… I am here to remind both of us, you and me, that no matter who hurt and abused us, they ³sßwill face God and The Son one day and, on that day, they will suffer.

That means it’s God who will repay. Not us. It is our duty to God and ourselves to honor Him and confess our sins to him. And to not be weasels, blaming our parents or attackers, but speak of our sins later in life as if only we are to blame. Because that’s the hard, cold truth. The acts of those who hurt us must be dealt with in counseling both with a therapist and a trustworthy pastor. We must get rid of anger, blame, and hate. Those things become fixations, obsessions, and, ultimately, lead us away from peace, from closeness with God, and to the seeking of revenge, which will never help you but is a terrible sin.

I used to hate my parents. But we’re not to hate. The Bible tells us to love those who hate us. God gave us a spirit of peace and love, not of fear and hate; the latter being inspired by Satan.

That blog truly hurt me. Ever since, I’ve been dissociative and distant, not just from myself but mostly from reality. I can’t control that. When I left my card in the slot of an ATM machine, I clearly dissociated, somewhere I can’t remember, reliving bad things. I walked away from the machine while it was still beeping.

But it’s okay. Even that taught me a lesson: proceed with caution. You and I want to change the world. Then reality creeps in, leading to doubt. We have forgotten our mission and yielded in defeat.

Are we really going to give up so easily? I’m not.

Mental illness makes life very difficult. When I asked my doctor to change my diagnosis from PTSD to CPTSD, she didn’t even know what it was. She looked it up. It was a telehealth appointment, and I could see her searching and reading. As I began to tell her some of the things that I was going through, she looked as if she was torn over whether I had been holding back or if I had made it up.

Clearly, United States health care is way behind.

But in the following video you can see why mental health is very important to your spiritual life. Trauma gets in the way, like it does with other things, but worse. It gives the powers of evil a means and a weapon to tempt and torment a Christian in many ways.

Pornography is one. Committing sins of the flesh are some of the most deadly ones. Husbands here in this country have been found out by their wives to have been seeing another woman for years and even fathering children with her. Adultery violates one of the Ten Commandments. Worse, Christ told us not to even look at another with appraising, lustful eyes. Doing that is still like sinning in real life.

I was drowning in porn. My posts were riddled with expletives. That didn’t make them any less true, but people do subtract points from your presentation for it. I claimed that I was a Christian, but not a very good one. I’ve come up with some excuses in my time, lies to cover all sorts of things. But that one was particularly evil. It came from the knowledge that I was a believer but not a walker in faith or truth. It showed that I was unwilling to turn away from sin. I wasn’t even going to try.

What a harsh judgment awaits we who profess faith but act contrary to the scripture?

It would be too much for me.

People play with evil. They believe that witchcraft is harmless and a legitimate religion. Some say they only use “white magic.”

Well, there is no white magic. It’s all drawn upon the powers of darkness. People play with ouija boards like they’re harmless. Until something gets inside their house that makes them regret it.

Demons are real. They’re everywhere, although on the spiritual plane, but they are allowed to afflict us. If you don’t believe in them, you’ve made a mistake. They are never to be underestimated. Satan is real. His favorite trick is to make people not believe in him or in Hell. People let guilt not interfere in their sinful ways because he isn’t real.

Except, he is. He knows already what he’s doomed for, but he won’t give up. His goal is to get between us and the Lord and make you his cell mate in Hell. He knows he can’t win. He’s just so purely evil that your soul is a prize to him. He will stop at nothing to pull you down from grace.

Too many people indulge in sins of the flesh, ignoring the consequences. I don’t want to be one of them. Do you?

There is, at the end of this day, however, hope to mend a troubled heart. Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” because we have the final decision and power to handle temptation and all the challenges life throws at us.

He also said, “In this world ye will have tribulations, but be brave; I have conquered the world.”

It’s up to us. I will pray about what happened to me during and after writing that porn essay. I can’t stop porn, and that’s not my fault. But I can speak up about how evil it is and about addiction and Hell. As for the victims of the industry, it’s too late to pray for the dead, but the living, they can be saved.

What you don’t see

I sit, waiting for a cardiac workup, convinced that I had a heart attack, trying to take it easy. But I can’t. I know that things are getting scary, and I wish I could help you. I wish I could comfort you. But I can’t. I am trying to scare you because things look bad. Israel continues war crimes in Gaza. Then comes news that Israel sortied F-35s to attack Iran. And Ukraine is losing its war with Russia.

Reports say that Chinese youths are giving up on life because of the repressive government committing human rights violations. They declare of their country, “Let it rot.” That’s an incentive to shake things up and start a war. So, yes. Scary stuff.

What I haven’t been seeing is that underneath any headline you care to pick, there’s something more evil. Something slimy. Vile. For all of you fans of Joel Osteen, Madonna, Taylor Swift, and thousands in entertainment and evangelism, I’m asking you to rethink what they do and say.

I finally got sick of the gender nonsense. You’re not gender neutral. Not binary. You’re one sex or another, and that’s it. I’m going to ignore those who look like a certain gender but harshly correct me when I politely call them “sir” or “ma’am.” I’ll do my best, but I’m not taking bullets for anyone’s misplaced identity. I’d be a hypocrite to say I’m a Christian and take the sins or mental illness of others as normal behavior or conditions.

I won’t be hateful or angry. I will not mock nor preach to them. I will remove myself from the situation. But I’m not playing that game anymore.

I oppose sexual sin as it is defined in the Bible. And that’s another game I won’t play: “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality.” Yes, but he did read from the scrolls of what’s now The Old Testament, and he fulfilled the prophecies about himself, and as he preached the New Covenant, he didn’t change it. All he said was, in Matthew 5:38-48,

³⁸Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

³⁹But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

⁴⁰And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

⁴¹And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

⁴²Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

⁴³Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

⁴⁴But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

⁴⁵That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

⁴⁶For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

We are to love each other and give, and forgive; we must not hate people for what they do.

You can hate the sin, but you must love the sinner.

We all have trouble with this. But the point is that this is the only Old Testament quote he made that changed.

Of course, he did say that if, on the Sabbath, an ox stuck in a ditch should be rescued because farmers depended on their beasts of burden. I tend to view this as common sense, not a major change.

Maybe Christ didn’t condemn immorality by each specific name, but he did condemn it, going so far to say that if a man so much as looked at a woman with lust, he had already sinned with her in his heart. That’s far more specific than “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

One question before I get back to my recess:

If you die tomorrow, are you sure that you will be welcome in Heaven? Do your actions, habits, or interactions with others really strike you as righteous and the things of a truly repentant person?

Think about it.

Joel Osteen says, “You’re already forgiven.” He leaves the part about true repentance and stopping your sins. In so doing, he lies. Everywhere I go, I hear people saying, “I know that if I sin, all I have to do is ask forgiveness.”

But will you be forgiven? Because God will not forgive a sin that you will not stop repeating, but will only forgive habitual sin that you truly regret and see as something evil and damaging, separating you from the Holy Spirit. This…is the most important decision you will ever make. So please think on it.

My life is not the same. I regret my words. I regret ugly thoughts. I regret my sins and fight temptation with God’s help. I don’t even use the F-bomb anymore. When I’m certain that I’m weak, I pray. It used to be hard to pray. I believed wrong things like Joel Osteen says. My life has a new normal. But I’m not haughty. I remain steadfastly more humble. I’ve lost friends and after this I will lose more. I’m sorry for this, but I don’t care if I lose every friend I have. I’m not going back to my old life.

Don’t mock God. Believe in him, and only him, the one true God, creator of all we see and hear and know.

Above all, be nice. Be a good example of a Christian. I do not believe that John Hagee, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen and most people in the entertainment industry are Christians. They have enough money that they have no need of nurturing the spirit through God. Taylor Swift is not a Christian. Madonna is doing everything that she can to mock God and work for Satan. Look away from these people and pray for them to see the truth. In the meantime, look after your own heart and soul. The way to Heaven is narrow and not easy to stay on. Guard your faith with all that you have. Don’t let evil people make you give it away.

A world war looks more likely all the time. Scary things are happening. You can live in that fear or have the peace that comes only from God. It’s up to you. But Jesus must be accepted first.

John 14:6King James Version

⁶Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

ALL FUCKED-UP

And when he gets to Heaven,

to Saint Peter he will tell,

“One more soldier reporting sir,

I’ve done my time in Hell.”

***

Don’t believe, or even pretend to, that everything is going well. Because the truth is, nothing is going well.

Nothing is.

***

In World War Two, there were two acronyms, “FUBAR” and “SNAFU”, which meant the same thing: “fucked up beyond all recognition” and “situation normal, all fucked up”.

By the late 1960s, the soldiers and marines in Vietnam had altered the wording and the meaning. It was somehow worse by then, and the shortened “All fucked-up” was used to convey that a troop was dead.

It could alternately be used to describe one who was severely wounded, usually a casualty with his face shot away, missing a limb or having head wounds so obviously serious that if the man lived through transportation and surgery, he was still a dead man.

Mostly, though, it just meant dead.

Back home, nobody but the families of those fighting the war or those who served, then rotated back to the States, knew this expression, and war correspondents who did know it couldn’t print it or repeat it. Yet far too many men and women in the service went over to answer the draft or a call to aid, and they, and far too many civilians, ended up being “all fucked-up”.

On the home front, two general factions emerged to march in political protests. One was the Antiwar movement, generally but erroneously associated with hippies, when in reality the movement was mixed with hippies, college students and faculty, moms and dads not unlike TV parents, and even clergy.

The second hated those protesters with a mix of bile and venom. They too carried signs, but they were often filmed in parades with convertible automobiles, god-knows-who sitting on the deck lid, feet on backseats, with hat, tie and the constant waving at the crowd. Most had nothing more to do with politics than being in the Kiwanis, Lions or Jaycees.

Misguided by White House hype, full of the terror of communism and the lingering hatred of Asians from WW II and Korea, they did their fair share of twisting the minds of teens with guilt until they volunteered. Or were forced to outwardly oppose the war.

The change did not happen in any fast or dramatic manner. It was gradual at first. But as the evening news showed the casualties of the war for the first time without heavily edited newsreels for theaters, folks began to think that perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea after all. And when a POW being “interviewed” blnked his eyes in morse code and spelled “torture” things became less bearable.

That interview took place courtesy of a Japanese crew. It was 1966. And Jerry Denton was a U.S. Navy admiral.

At the time, a wider public wasn’t aware of it. Like so many things about the war, no one was always getting informed of some events later.

But that was a different time, a different generation. You’d have thought, from old movies, that some brave commandos would have been sent to kick commie ass and rescue an admiral. You’d have been wrong, too. Admiral Denton, who would one day become a senator, spent the better part of a decade faced with some of the most vile acts human beings can imagine.

Men and women in Vietnam and Thailand had to live with what they saw and had to do: a tanker crew (armor) burning kids out of the Bush because they were Victor Charlie and laid booby traps for infantry; watching a villa get torched while the residents cried; having to watch close buddies die in the grass calling to God or Mommy. Nurses and doctors had never seen or smelled what faced them coming in from the Hueys. Bowels completely sprung from the body, bandaged to it like a huge child hid beneath; faces missing, no sound ever to come from it again; septic infections already spreading from wounds caused by VC booby spikes coated in dung… they who survive to this day cannot, and never could have, recovered from those kinds of sights, smells, the sounds of screaming and weeping.

***

On Memorial Day we’re supposed to honor the soldiers, marines, seamen, pilots…who never came back alive.

The ones who got All Fucked-Up.

But it has never been that way, has it?

A stupid, disrespectful parade in a one-traffic-light town where the main street is completely dark at night. The mayor smiles and waves and thinks nobody knows that he dates high school girls. The pastor gives a benediction which means absolutely nothing. The high school girls plot revenge on the mayor; their ex-boyfriends plot revenge on the girls for letting that bloated, disgusting old man get between their legs; and nobody ever thinks about the dead who did not run from serving their country, but answered the call and paid the ultimate price for it.

They used to mean something. They used to stand for something.

The surviving veterans see this in complete comprehension and awareness of a petty, ungrateful community who will soon be firing up grills and cracking open bottles of Pabst and Budweiser.

A wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns: depending on the serving president, it could be an act of the most severe disrespect (Donald Trump) or the highest and most emotional regard (Clinton, the Bushes, Obama, Biden, Carter).

In the bleachers a crowd watches and laughs at the guards, the elite of the elites. The guards order silence. The crowd quiets but does not understand. “Respect” and “honor” are mere words without meaning.

Blogs are posted. Editorial pieces written. John Wayne marathons on AMC and others. Except John Wayne never served. We’re All Fucked-Up. Steaks at 40 bucks a pop (not kidding) will sizzle over charcoal while community swimming pools open for the season. They all might as well go piss all over Arlington National Cemetery. But hell: they do that every day. Just by the stupidity in their lives, the pettiness, the hatred, the shooting of mass civilians in stores with guns that should be illegal…

The Supreme Court has been bought and paid for. What used to be the republican party is trying to bring on the Fourth Reich. Global warming is unchecked, out of control and facilitated by a greed, a lack of restrictions and renewed zeal by petroleum conglomerates to keep finding new sites to drill.

The war in Ukraine has made even infamous neutralities-Finland, Sweden, for two examples-begin to take NATO membership far more seriously. I warned months ago that Finland was in jeopardy; but I’m glad that I was not the only one to see it.

Because no matter how bad Russia looks, it will not stop. To save face, it cannot retreat, and even if it does, it won’t take long before it comes back hardcore.

My Time On Twitter Was A Waste

I think I lasted a month. After a post went sub-viral, I heard story after story from people who lost family to fentanyl because prescription opiods have been suddenly denied. It’s horrific enough that some, suffering more pain than they can bear, kill themselves. A prescription would have stopped that. But as bad is the street drug problem. Heroin, morphine and counterfeit percocet are loaded with fentanyl and, sometimes, carfentanyl, both of which arrest pulmonary function and kill you in minutes. An antidote, called Narcan or Narcalone, can save an OD victim. But in the fucked-up country we live in, it’s harder to get than prescription opiods.

This is a nation: death all around us, the United States dying more every day. There’s no respect to be found. If I go outside wearing my Army boonie hat, one of my neighbors spits. Not aimed at me, but meant to show hatred, disgust, disrespect. He certainly does not have any time in the military. I served, motherfucker. What’d you ever do?

She was all happy yesterday, this neighbor, telling me she was going to the store and asking did I need anything in a syrupy-sweet voice. But She rarely even comes out of her house and doesn’t say shit most of the time. As soon as I saw the unfamiliar vehicle on the lot this morning I knew the reason for her false friendliness: fuckboy was coming to town.

Fake is everywhere. Words, offers, greetings. I know who I can freely love, and whom I dare not. I don’t hate anyone, but I might have nothing to say, either. My words never do any good. My offered friendship becomes hurtful and shames me when I learn that it was falsely accepted and then scorned.

I had one follower on Twitter who found out that I’m a Christian. Now, mind you, I’m not a very good Christian. I don’t go to church, nor would I, not even for a fucking wedding, not that I ever get invited. I’m that one guy you’ll never invite, not to a wedding or a wake. And I don’t even give a fuck.

But the Twitter guy literally created a thread to insult me. He kept going, because he couldn’t think of insults fast enough. He probably had to Google “How to insult a Christian” and came up with “You’re not interested in expanding your knowledge” and told me I was a delusional “magical thinker”.

He then left another tweet “No longer interested in your ideas”.

I’d told him up front I have respect for all religions, or lack of any, considering they’re not harmful. I did not feel moved to repeat it. When insulted in a flurry like that, I simply leave. I blocked him but kept seeing where a fellow “Christian of solid faith” practically chased after him saying he respected him. I thought, Why don’t you ask him if you can lick his ass, you idiot?

I deleted my account. I went to my petition and closed it. I no longer knew how many stories were true or false, and besides, with 101 signatures, it had no chance of being anything I could use to fight such a cruel health system such as we have.

I did not mean to make an issue out of religion. However, once it becomes an issue, I will not back down. I’m not renouncing my faith to anyone for any reason and wouldn’t even do so on threat of torture. I don’t care if it costs me friends or my life, and I still call out assholes like Franlin Graham who’s on Twitter hawking his Samaritan’s Purse, but is rich enough to brag about his material possessions, like a Harley Davidson. What a dick. He doesn’t even know he’s as fake as a street percocet. He’s lost his way. His daddy taught him well.

And the poor woman next door is shallow. She probably doesn’t know it. She’s a physicist. Even her absolutes, maths, observations, all of it, are something she cannot argue with me. Chaos physics says underlying patterns will always be scribbled over as any closed system gets less predictable. Like weather forecasts, for example. Beyond 48 hours, anything becomes less predictable. Storm fronts can change tracks in minutes as variable after variable is encountered.

We get a severe thunderstorm watch. I go see the radar: a line of storms is coming east, alright. I see it, it’s there in red, yellow, purple….wicked stuff. But it’s yet to complete the crossing of the formidable Appalachian Mountain range, and I know from many years of observation that storms can get split into segments, which then lose energy, and my area gets a few sprinkles while in DC, miles away, I hear thunder loud and clear. You cannot predict that sort of thing. Sometimes the clot of storms comes north. Sometimes it splits to go north and south of my area.

People think themselves clever. But truly wise people never believe that they are wise and never even think it. Because wisdom is counter to all vanity, however slight.

The timing for the “tipping point” or point of no return, I suppose, to stem global warming has already passed. Yet I’ve read articles that say it will happen in five years, or ten years, or, as I read recently, 20. Corporations own media outlets, so of course it changes. But we’ve been out of time for quite a while.

That’s okay. Right? You still start your car from inside your house and let it idle to warm or cool the interior while you’re putting on your makeup or having coffee. No big deal, it’s only one car. Your Dasani is only one more bottle. If you toss it in a trash can as you’re walking down the sidewalk, it doesn’t get recycled. But it’s just one bottle. How can it hurt anything?

You may gripe about gas prices and the interest rate, but you’re still borrowing money and running about in an SUV. And you buy a new cellphone every few months because you simply must pay attention to what’s trending. And the old one goes where?

We don’t care. About anything. We’re divided: black and white, religion, rich and poor, the stalkers and the stalked. There’s a dangerous mix coming together, a volatile one that this country will not survive.

And by that, I mean: we will, every one of us, become All Fucked-Up.

This essay is dedicated in gratitude to the men and women who gave their lives in service to their country, to their surviving families who had no choice but to share in that ultimate sacrifice;

On behalf of a forgetful and ungrateful country, I give you thanks and pray that God has welcomed the brave souls into His care, and that He watches over their children.