Last night I got on the elevator and I felt the floor drop out below me. All around me were swirling images of products, services, and merchandise I needed. Things I couldn’t live without, things that would make me cool and accepted. Their message was plastered everywhere, and as the elevator plummeted to the floor, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a bad thing. When you allow money to control a venture, someone else’s interests always take over. Objectivity is lost and it makes you wonder if can you do anything objectively and make money at it. The elevator keeps plummeting, but that’s not what the advertisers tell me, so apparently that’s not the way it is. I just hope this is a really tall building.
Ignore Jesus
Lately I’ve been realizing how very little we pay attention to the Bible. Who did Jesus hang out with? The prostitutes, the tax collectors, and the lepers, we all answer very smugly, as if we understood. That’s the way I always answer, but the truth is I’ve never actually hung out with the modern day equivalent. I’ve never talked to a prostitute, I’ve never met anyone with HIV, I’ve never even seen cocaine, let alone someone using it. If Jesus were around today I get the feeling he’d be hanging around with these kind of people. I also get the feeling that we understand that conceptually, it’s just that something doesn’t fully click because we don’t do anything about it. I’ve never heard a church announce a weekly “Hooker Hour” where they go wherever the hookers hang out and share the love of Jesus. Maybe that’s a bad example, but very rarely do I see sign up sheets for those activities. I know I’d never sign up.
Then there’s Paul. We ignore him, too. At least Jesus won’t feel lonely that way. Paul talks about marriage and he says it’s perfectly okay to stay single. In fact, he encourages it. Yet what do we all do? Get married. I’m getting married on December 29. Perhaps it’s odd of me to bring this up, since I myself am getting married, but I’m just trying to prove my point. We don’t really do what the Bible says. We read it, we understand it, and we ignore it. Paul says be single. That’s great. Thanks Paul. But no thanks.
Like the Knight in The Seventh Seal
I feel like the knight in the movie The Seventh Seal who drops to his knees on a Swedish beach to pray but can’t find the words. His hands come together and his eyes close, but nothing comes. His hands drift apart, his eyes open. He pauses for a moment, then shakes his head, rises, and walks away. He is confronted with Death in the next scene.
I feel like that knight, not just in my pathetic attempts at prayer, but in everything. Finals are next week, the computer ate my disk, and it feels like the alarm won’t stop blaring. I could really use a break, but when I get one it’s not for long. I slept in this morning, and although I really needed it, you couldn’t tell the difference. This evening I spewed out a paper without rereading it and then took a nap. I’m okay mom, it’s just May.
Just May with the moon so hazy and the long shadow before me. I used to get up and run and now I ask myself from what? I’d run tomorrow, but that’s forty minutes of sleep. I’d take a shower tomorrow, but that’s ten minutes of sleep. I’d shave tomorrow, but that’s five minutes of sleep. The bare minimum to survive, that’s all a college student really needs. There’s nothing like a 5 o’clock shadow at 9 am. But the real question is why am I still writing this?
Cold Tortellini
My mind is splintered in a dozen directions and I don’t even realize I’m eating cold tortellini. My mind is playing tricks and so is the monitor, neither wanting to show me reality. The wind blows cold on my bare arms but I don’t complain. Later the rain falls slowly, calmly, washing the dirt and grime away–but I still feel so lost in a maze of I don’t know what. I want to wake up tomorrow and hope it’s all gone. Hope everything is better. My mind aches and I yearn for something better. I yearn for a tomorrow. I yearn for another time and another place. I yearn for another situation. I yearn for something other than what I have right now. Is this just afternoon apathy, or a headache that won’t go away? The responsibilities assault my mind like an army and suddenly I’m out of ammo. Maybe I can wake up tomorrow in somebody else’s shoes. Then I realize just how foolish I am.
What if Jesus came to your church?
What if Jesus came to your church? Of course he wouldn’t come with flowing robes and nail pierced hands. That’d cause quite a scene. He’d show up incognito, haven taken on the form of an innocent looking person. I think he’d come as a child, but only because he’d want to go to Sunday School and make a craft for his dad. He’d laugh with the other children and sit next to the boy nobody likes. He’d lean forward in his chair and his feet wouldn’t touch the ground. He’d be smiling.
Instead of joining the other children for Children’s Church, I think he’d stay for the sermon. He’d sit next to the really old guy–the one you expect to show up under the Sympathy section of the bulletin any week now. Incognito Jesus would plop down next to this old in his blue suit, off-white hair, and big rubbery nose. Incognito Jesus would smile at the old man and say good morning. The old man would smile back and pat little Incognito Jesus on the head. Somehow the old guy would know who it really was.
Going Back
In the sea of elementary school faces I knew I’d be able to recognize at least his. But where was he. It’d been over a year since I’d been here, and I desperately wanted to see at least one of the children I worked with last year. I didn’t expect them to recognize me or even notice me, I just wanted to see that they were still here.
Skimmers
There was that song on the radio again. You just can’t get away from it. It’s like a friend who won’t shut up.
Then there’s this guy typing on his computer and you just don’t know where he’s going. He doesn’t know where he’s going. You try to blink the sleep from your eyes and wonder if he was doing the same thing when he wrote it.
The internet is a crazy world. Is anyone actually sticking it out long enough to get to this sentence. Or this one? Can I drag you along for one more sentence? I know if I was reading this I would have left by now and found something more worth my time. The internet is perpetuating the scavenging skimmer, the reader that never really digests anything, just chews here and there. You can’t really call them a reader. It’s what’s happening to our society. Blame it on technology or the internet or whatever.
The scariest thing is that it’s not someone else’s problem. I find myself doing this. I was looking through a web zine the other day and the editor had posted a medium length tirade about his editorial philosophy. I started reading the first few paragraphs. Being an editor myself, I was pretty interested to see what he had to say. But three paragraphs into it he lost me and I started skimming. I didn’t actually read anything, my eyes just scanned a few more sentences, and I skipped to something else. It’s scary to think that people do that to your own work.
How long will books last in such a society? Or will they just continue to be published but never read?
The Lifestyle Statement
The air was thick and heavy, weighing down the room like a fog. It was an exceptionally warm, spring day, and the air conditioning was working well. A little too well. I shivered slightly, but tried not to let it show. I couldn’t believe what was happening. She was sitting on the other side of the desk, her blue eyes awaiting an answer. I thought I saw a sly smile on her lips, but it wasn’t there. I only hoped it was. I looked again to the ceiling to avoid her gaze. Then my eyes scanned the photo-lined walls of my office, the rich, dark wood trim, and the shelf of books and knick-knacks from my assorted travels.
Rules
“I don’t know,” she said, “It’s like driving circles in an empty parking garage.”
With that I frowned and looked the other way.
“So is this the college you’re going to?” I asked, pointing to a slick looking folder that was lying on top of a stack of papers. The name of the college blazed across the front, just above a picture of a metaphor that was trying way too hard. Tracy just nodded. I leaned over, picked up the folder and leafed through the contents, noticing that she had filled out the full application–except for one part.
Guy from that Band
She couldn’t sleep. It’d been a rough night and that six page paper was due at 11:00 a.m. She’d written more than enough tonight. She decided she’d wake up early enough tomorrow and finish it off. Right now she needed something else. It was a quiet and still night, and the sidewalk was even quieter. Everything was dripping with the silver glow of the full moon. The buildings and the street looked oddly lit, but she didn’t care. Her paper was almost done, and that was all that mattered. The fresh air helped. She breathed it in slowly, forcing the air through her nostrils and feeling it fill her lungs. It cleared the clouds that hung in her mind. It’s amazing how fresh the city air can be at night.