A Little Of This A Little Of That
I’m working on three essays right now, but I’m having a hard time narrowing my focus to a tight beam these days. My writing pattern has been to let a self-imposed deadline bring me to a kind of manic, hyper-focused state. I think this new medication does nothing to my creativity, but is causing me to find some new tricks to get into focus. For some reason, I’m not the least bit anxious about it. That in itself is a miracle.
So today and tomorrow are writing days. We’ll see what comes of that. I thought I’d just drop in and chit-chat. Sometimes I like to "talk to you" without feeling like I'm producing some work of art or something.
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
I’m back from the CBF General Assembly, the yearly gathering of Baptists with whom I feel some kinship. This year I had a chance to build some new friendships with a delightful group of younger Truett Seminary graduates who met regularly during seminary for poker games.
One of them, E., told us a hilarious story. He’s a young minister in a church in Houston, and he went to the hospital to visit an elderly man. E. stayed by the bed offering words of comfort and even holding the man’s hand. The whole time he was there, the man kept trying to say something. His oxygen tubes and lack of strength were making it hard for him. He kept clawing at the oxygen tube and trying to speak. E. would try to listen, then push the oxygen tube back under his nose. Finally the man became agitated, pulled down the tube, took a big breath and managed to say what he had been trying to say all along, though he could only speak in a hoarse whisper.
E. leaned in close, only to hear the man say, “GET OUT!”
Menagerie News
The little menagerie is still in place at the church. A lot of the people at Covenant read this blog now, so I wonder if anyone will ever take them away. Soon their colors will fade in the blazing, South Texas sun, turning the colorful little collection into just another pile of old toys.
There’s something kind of funny and precious at our church. Since I’m the only paid minister, and I have a another job, most things at our church are done by volunteers. Things remain undone for long periods of time until someone “gets the spirit” or whatever and decides to do them. We’ve been talking about painting lines on our parking lot for, oh, four years now. This week someone finally decided to get it done.
This is not a church for people who are anxious and in a hurry.
So Covenant is the kind of church where a little pile of toy animals might sit on a rock for a few years. I suppose I’ll have to be the one to put them down someday, so to speak, when their colors have faded and it’s time for this eccentricity to go away.
I feel the little animals would want it that way.
Hate Mail Takes a Turn for the Worse
I had a rather spooky email exchange yesterday. My hate mail tends to come mostly from people who are very conservative, theologically speaking, and are outraged by something I’ve said somewhere along the way. Sometimes they’ve dredged up something from my archives that may be two years old. I hardly even remember it. It really is amazing how much energy and concern people can have for some stranger and what he is saying in a blog.
But I get the occasional angry email from someone who is an atheist or an agnostic. These are very rare, but they come now and again. There was this woman who sent me a series of “Please, you can’t be this stupid, can you?” emails. All of them were very condescending, suggesting that I'm ridiculously stupid for believing in God. I’m not sure what she expected me to do with that information. I mean, if I AM that stupid, then I’m probably going to continue being stupid, right? I'm either not stupid, and will therefore ignore her and continue to write, or I'm stupid and will continue to write out of rank ignorance.
I’m okay either way, really, as long as I get to keep writing.
So anyway, this email was short and to the point:
Fuck all preachers and the shit they are poisoning humanity with!!!!!!!
I stopped feeling bad about these emails about 6 months into Real Live Preacher. I mean, eventually you just have no emotional energy for this kind of thing. Yesterday I was in a particularly good mood. Church was nice yesterday morning, and it was over and I don’t have to go back to church for awhile. I hate to admit it, but I have a kind of love-hate relationship with church.
So in my joviality, I fired back a little reply that I thought was silly, harmless, and might even diffuse things a bit:
Really? Fuck ALL of us? Every last robe wearing, communion wafer munching, bible reading sonuvabitch on the planet?
Damn, something made you mad as hell. I'm happy to take a shot in the chin for you, so to speak. Hope you feel better.
rlp
Admittedly, that reply has a little bit of an edge to it. The sarcastic "Hope you feel better" is an underhanded way of suggesting that someone is being emotionally immature. I really didn't think much about it when I wrote it. I certainly didn't stop to consider every nuance. That same day I got this response:
yes. and i do.
no, i'm not mad as hell...just pragmatic.
i'd rather you took a 38-caliber hollow point for me.
asshole.
See, this is why you don't respond to emails like this. Maybe that one woman is right. I'm just stupid. Anyway, this guy's IP traced to another state, very far away. By the way, if the person who wrote that email is reading this, YOU WIN. I've been shut up and put in my place. Hell, I'll even promise to mostly stay on my side of the Mississippi river if that will keep the peace.
The Return of Disc Golf
My disc golf playing has really dropped off over the last couple of years. To be honest, being depressed really prevented me from wanting to get out of the house and excercise. While Disc Golf isn't an aerobic excercise, there is a lot of walking involved and that's better than sitting on the couch.
So I've taken my disc bag out of storage and started playing again. My most frequent disc partner is John M., a member of our church and a good friend. I watched John progress from a 25 over par player all the way to a 5 or 6 over par player. In the meantime, I've pretty much stayed the same. I can usually finish our home course in around 3 over par. My best game is 3 under par.
Yesterday we played the Universal City Course, which is a little harder than our normal course. It was very windy, and I finished at 8 over par. My tee shots were terrible. I had to salvage a lot of pars with a good second shot.
Regardless, it feels good to be out and getting some excercise. My doctor seems to think this is probably as important as medication when dealing with depression.
"Excuse me, doc. But did I hear you prescribe disc golf as a part of my treatment plan?"
Nice!
rlp
10:43:30 AM 
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