Define proof(?)

God is the beginning.  He is The End.

Satan is a wannabe God.

God says "No, we can't BOTH be the beginning"

Satan says "Well, IT and PET SEMATARY both their own separate beginnings"

God says "No, they both have THE SAME beginning; me!"

Satan says "But everything has a predecessor!"

God says "I AM Everything!"

Satan says "Waaat?  No, you're not!"

God says "Are you calling me a liar?"

Satan says "So what if I am?"

God says "Then PROVE it!"

Satan says "Alright I WILL!"

God says "Ok then"

Satan says "Ok!"

God continues reading

Satan says "Well?"

God looks up "You're still here?"

Satan says "Don't you love me?"

God rolls his eyes

[99 in 1]

I could be in a car on my to Seaside, California

It would indeed be faster, especially coming all the way from Marietta, Georgia

Than this hanging on for dear life to the bottom of this here giant red balloon

I had to make 8 stops just in the first day so I could regain my strength

It does sure beat walking; I cover more ground with this balloon than I would've if I'd walked instead

And I do declare, my arms are a lot stronger now than when I started

i made it, woooh!

Actually got the p.o. today anyway
And I didn't actually send that email to my sister b/c while I was getting ready to plaster it all over the interweb, I noticed several things of issue that I needed to fix, mostly issues of clarity -- less casual bro/sis speak and more coherent speak that would make sense to those who didn't share the same roof as us for 15-17 years and then some.  Yep.  You know it.  We speak in code.  Mmm-hmm.

So yeah...uh...
I got groceries
**and** --- dig this --- oh, yeah, I already said that.  Ugh.  Well, I *did* finally take my damn psychosubsideries.  I missed 4 days last week so I didn't even bother filling my bill box.  I don't care enough to do the math to see what the means at this point.  I have pills in Friday & Saturdays' slot.  I took my pills today, like I did just say, and there was one day earlier in the week.......I think.....;don't know which one.......so if (insert wicked Stepmother eye shadow and malicious laughter......) I take them tomorrow & Saturday ---- I will have taken in more than I left out.  Like The Ghostbuster that Mayor Lenny loved..."I'm happy to report to you that almost 50% of us voted for you in the last election."  Film scholars believe it was Peter, but no one will ever really know. 

I have new business to address.
Need to hit FYE.  I would imagine that'll have to wait til another time.  I had like 20 items to ship to SecondSpin.com but after examining the discs, I realized that half of the CDs were pretty darn scratched and that the overall weight of the box would make the shipping cost $1+ more than it needed to be all for a *possible* increase in revenue.
My first thought was CD Warehouse, but truth is they're well stocked on just about everything for now and I'm sure they could use more customers than suppliers and I don't have any damn money (!!!).  FYE is always ready to buy stuff from ppl.  If they can't use it, they can always post it online and a good plus for them is they sell on Amazon, so anyone who ventures into the sketchy market of used CDs can choose to buy from them & most likely will not even leave negative feedback so long as the disc itself plays.  The cover-art could be half eaten by a mouse that proceeded to spit it back out and attempt to piece it back together like it were a puzzle and the buyer would be like "WOW -- Thank you SecondSpin.com!  I thought I was just buying a $6 Metallica CD, but you sent me a rare Picasso painting with it!  My friends can't believe it!" Seller response: "Neither can we, Ted."

footnote[FYE is a chain of entertainment stores mainly located in malls, who also operates a website, FYE.com.  SecondSpin.com is a different store, but their inventory is also available on FYE.com, and I would presume FYE's brick & mortar inventory is also for sale on FYE.com and SecondSpin.com, but it's possible the logistics behind that are too cumbersome to keep up with and thus are not the way it is....I just buy crap I don't want b/c I'm crazy and use them instead of the city dump to dispose of the evidence...and then brag about all the money I wasted on sites like this....harharhar...
  I don't work for the company in any other capacity.]

ANyWAY....
Need to ask my mom for a ride to CDWH b4 it gets much later.  Rush hour traffic, you devil.......

Ok!
Um...
Uh....
ON CUE / CUT

Theme song for E.T. Returns

"If You Ever Need A Friend" by Mariah Carey.  Here's looking at you AMBLIN Entertainment.
Ok, I sent this to my sister and I've covered all this in my previous blog posts, I think.......maybe....
Except my sister is probably never going to actually read this and since it's an email, nobody else will either.  So -- BLOG, how are you, so nice to see you, come on in!  Always glad to post my two cents (even if I might be brainwashed, too as the New Radicals of 1998 once suspected and probably still do, now more than ever EEK!)



I don't think Mom's up to going anywhere today except a quick stop at the post office.  She seems out of sorts this morning.  I was hoping you could stop by the P.O., tomorrow(?)  If not, there's no rush.  It'll take at least 4 days, if I'm lucky, of waiting pins & needles minute by minute, for the whole transaction to complete after it gets shipped.  I need the money preferably early in May, but even that's a half truth.  I can make do w/o it, as one would make do w/o toilet paper -- not well, but O-K.

For the time being, I need the following groceries

1

GRAPE NUTS (generic is fine but I think WalMart is the only one that has generic grape nuts; they're called "crunchy nuggets" unless something has changed since I last picked some up and/or observed them first hand...)

2

COKE-A-COLA -- size of can or bottle is not important.  I would like at least 12 cans, bottles is fine if they're cheaper.  Two of those 7.5 oz packs of 6 cans or bottles is fine by me.

3

whole grain - whole wheat sandwich bread loaf x 2.  ALDI has it for no more than $1.79, might even be marked down to less.

4

sliced meat, ideal for sandwiches.  BLACK FORREST HAM please.  ALDI has it for $3.19 I think.  Just one is fine.

And...I think that's it.

I have $20 and some change I think on my FS card.  I can give it to you to use for the items above if you think you'll use it.  I would be a little irritated if you happened to lose it or "misplace" it...not that I think it's likely to happen, but if you don't intend to use it, then it seems counterproductive to lend it to you...  If you disagree, let me know.  I can give it to you if you think you might need it to cover a potential shortage of funds that you weren't expecting.....(?)

If nothing else gets bought, GRAPE NUTS!  Brand name is fine, even though they can run almost double the generic.  I have no interest in any other cereal.  All of the cereal ALDI regularly stocks is basically a potato chip substitute.  A lot less fattening, but if letting go of a bag of potato chips were not such a chore, mankind would never have felt the need to elect a 555 trillion dollar federal budget shortfall for POTUS.  Of course, he may have still won the election if he wasn't talking up health care coverage reform...As dumb as it is, and as much I hate to admit it, I voted for Obama b/c John McCain's campaign did not address the unseamly appearance of having George W. Bush being succeeded by someone of the same political party and he made an ass of himself by taking Obama's remarks regarding taxes on the rich being so minimal as being indicative of some intent of becoming Robin Hood.  It's almost like he gave up on conveying a worthwhile message to voters and decided to sum it up with "vote for an American or vote for Robin Hood."  The last 3 months of the election were pretty much that same TV ad & nothing else except for what Obama had to say, which was a lot, as hollow as much of it was ultimately, even the good ideas he had.

But yeah --- one serving of potato chips & an apple --- That's a whollop of healthy fat & then, ya know, fruit...It's not a complete diet by any means.  But if that's all a person ate twice or even 3 times a day, heck, obesity would not be the pandemic that it is.  But alas, you give someone 5 potato chips, you really need a shot in the head to keep it from becoming 50.  ugh.  And by that point, you have no idea how much you've eaten b/c the bag changes shape before you've started paying attn, and it looks like it's half way empty, so you think "serving size IS 15 chips after all...." but then...idk.  Potato chips just aren't satisfying unless you don't stop eating them, which is impossible.  Bill Gates could do it, he would have no trouble paying someone over time to rush to the store and get them even!  Me?  Yeah......I'm, uh, not Bill Gates... :/  Bran flakes are not quite as bad, truth be told, but I need a serious decrease in calories.  Bran flakes or HNCs are not the answer.  Even regular cheerios are not the answer, although they might be closer to it than bran flakes, but -- not close-enough.

Ok, this email is way too long and I don't think you're still reading this and you're probably put off on me trash talking famous people as if they're just cardboard stand ins that apparitionize on TV or whatever.......Yeah --- demons are people too!  xD  Yeah, yeah I know.........playing poker with the devil doesn't make you a demon....true, true.......ugh........

DISCLAIMER: MY SISTER IS THE ONE WHO SUGGESTED TO A SUPERSCATTERBRAINED ME AT AGE 12 THAT "ANYTIME YOU NEED A FRIEND" BE USED AS THE THEME SONG FOR A POTENTIAL SEQUEL TO E.T.  THE REFERENCE IS RANDOM AND WHIMSICAL -- **NOT** INTENDED AS RACIST OR ANTI-DEM.

Seriously, I have nothing against the Democratic platform, in general.  I am pro-choice and not against gays being allowed to marry.  However, that doesn't mean I support homosexuality or abortion.  I think those things should be discouraged, but the sinners should not be hated for their choices and the impact of those choices should not be a degradation to the church.  If you claim to be a Christian, you should not be going into church with pornography on your phone, nor should you be going to church as if on a date with a same sex partner.  Ideally, such sins should be fled from and cast out of your life altogether.  And abortion should not be needed if you follow that line of thinking.  However, many democrats are either deliberately or subconsciously waging war against God and that is a culture which I myself detest.

And yes, both Mariah Carey and Obama are not fully black.  That's an observation, nothing to really say further about it except Obama kind of exploited his black-ness......at least it seems that way....maybe I'm just too steeped against Obama to think anything good of him.  idk.

"Mommy doesn't know because doesn't care"

it amazes me how narrow minded people can be about issues of racism and everything else.  Someone brought the idea of intersectionalism up in an article I was reading in response to the white heterosexual women's rights she spoke of at the Oscars a couple years ago.  Some one posted a comment that expressed nothing except a lack of interest in the entire subject.  Yeah -- women do deserve equal pay.  They're required by law to receive equal pay.  So problem solved.  The KKK aren't lynching black people and being lauded as heroes the next morning anywhere near as often as they once were (almost never, more or less).  So MLK Jr's dream for the future is now a reality.  Just like a multi-millionaire who gives $300,000 to charity every year and thinks that's enough to end poverty if people weren't so lazy.  Just like people who keep their windows open with the A/C running and put recycling out on the curb and think global warming must be a myth if combating it requires spending a few extra dollars on their utility bill...On one hand, you got multi-millionaires who want to hoard 1.5+ million dollars of their annual takehome pay, presumably for the sake of their great great grandchildren & then you have others who are so obsessed with money that they're OK with the dystopia their great great grandchildren will inherit to the tune of $155 annual savings on the electric bill.
In many cases, it'd be nice if people quit pretending to care about things.  Admit it already -- you don't care!  Like that guy in I HEART HUCKABEES after his exwife was trying to defend buying some excess clothing after he pointed out that someone had to be thrown in jail without just cause or due process so that someone could make that clothing without paying as much for labor, and his daughter started crying and she was like "I didn't know!"  Brutal but ultimately true --  "Mommy didn't know because Mommy doesn't care."

So yeah -- something ELSE we have to think about; INCLUSION.  Yeah, some of us get it.  It's so simple how could you NOT get it?  We all want respect.  We all want dignity.  And we all want kindness.  But at the very least basic respect and dignity since kindness is a little much to ask in a world where you don't even have to light a fire to have heat.  Kindness is much like fire.  You need two rocks chipping away at each other to create fire.  Your hands get tired, and the two rocks lay down and hope for a fire ceases.  With kindness, you need people being mindful of each other and in continual service of one another.  It can happen, and in small pockets of society throughout the globe it often does.  But then someone gets tired and someone else gets offended because they're NOT tired and nobody is there to serve, which means you're idle and your hands become the devil's playground.
There's more to being mindful of someone than not being anti-woman or anti-color or anti-non-color or anti-male or anti-atheist or anti-religion or anti-other-religion.......You have to realize the distinct possibility that someone sitting standing or laying not far from you is not as innocent as you are and someone, possibly a legion of bodies, have been injured in that person's wake.  You may not be racist.  But is your co-worker?  Your neighbor?  Your old friend from high school?  Some guy on Comedy Central from Texas, I can't think of his name, was joking about homophobia, saying he had a friend who was a homophobe.  He was conveying to the crowd something like 'I have this friend who is a homophobe, which I bet you think is weird huh?  Didn't you think they'd all just kind of died off?'  [Not an exact quote; probably better than I didn't include his name :/]  I don't know if he was talking down to his California(?) audience or if he was trying his hand at surrealist humor or something...Obviously homophobia is on the decline.  The old dogs don't catch on quick, but they do catch on, or they die trying.  The youth of today are part of the rest of the USA, which more and more wants less and less input from God or His people.  It's easier to understand the validity of an opposing argument when your desensitized to it.  I think a large reason for the decline in KKK approval is the desegregation act of the early '60's.  How can you remain intolerant of someone when you're constantly in their presence?  A lot of people, even to this day, try to justify the idea that black people are inferior, but there is simply no justice in that concept.  there is nothing different about black people except the style of their art and of course the fact that they are black.  The lack of technology in many/most/all(?) African tribes was, I would guess, a result of their religious beliefs that encouraged them not to venture far from safety and discouraged them from venturing into the unknown.  I don't even know if any of those religions are around anymore.  Something I can look up tomorrow when I'm a little more awake.  I need to look at my budget again but I'm REALLY sleepy and I'm just kind of babbling about.  I haven't read my Bible in a few days at least.  It wouldn't surprise me if I sound like I'm just talking out of my ass.  Please Lord God, Jesus my savior, Holy Spirit - Please give me a good night's rest and drive me forward tomorrow headfirst into your word.  Thank you God for giving Your Word a Pulse so that we may live out your word in deed.  And thank you for Your Holy Spirit, so that we may do so as if we mean it.  Sorry to any readers who feel like they just wasted their time reading all this.......stuff.

Deletion

I posted some bunch of something that started with Margaret Thatcher and ended at some random point after several detours, one of which was cut off prematurely, and when I realized that -- after publishing it -- I tried fixing it, and added several other detours, some of which were interesting but ultimately misguided and excessively off topic *and* trite, and one of them I saved in an email thinking I'd post it later.  Then I got summoned for dinner. Meanwhile, I don't remember what I was trying to edit or what the original post consisted of.  Whatever it was it had 9 views.  So there you have a limited edition of Trying To Reach You - The Blog you lucky 9 viewers.  You now know something about me that I might not.  Just remember you're lying if you call me out on it.  IT NEEEVER HAPPPENED  SSSHHHHHH
Ugh.

this dase

Sunshine is piercing bright, like a globe of thunder for the senses to absorb.  It's at its peak or close to it now.  3 or so hrs ago I took some pain relif - acetomphn sp...????
got paid for gift cards I sold to RAISE.COM a few days ago, finally.  One yesterday and one today.  One of them I sent to my Capital One card so I can use that to pay for postage for a package that's worth almost $20.  I spent some of that 1st payment on a $2.99 CD.  The rest, $0.89, I think, I wasn't sure what to do with.  I went ahead and combined that & the $0.35 that was sitting in my acct for no real reason other than a lack of $0.35 merchandise worth paying for, to my Capital One card as well, so the postage, unless it's way more than I'm anticipating for a 4lb(??) Media Mail pkg, will be apprx $4.50 and I have $4.80 --- $0.30 + $1.24 = $1.54.  $1.54 ain't much more than $0.30 or $0.35, but it's almost enough to rent a Netflix movie(!).  If the USPS pkg weights less than 4 lbs, and that brings the cost down to $0.50, then I can potentially rent a movie, either an older movie online or something @ Redbox's vending machine(one of[x??])

The 2nd Raise . com payment ---- get a load of this
It was $8.70.
minus $0.25 to get the money in my bank acct A-S-A-P.
I used an associated debit card, actually my Mom's, because her account & mine are linked, anyway, and so the money wouldn't take Xtime and I'd have to wait until apprx this time tomorrow for the money to arrive.
Ok, so aside from the virtual $0.25 W-A-S-T-E, seriously, GET THIS!  Ok, I'm getting to it -- prepare to have your mind BLOWN!
Ok, so I'm down to $8.45
I use that $8.45 to buy a $10 gift card to FYE, who is having a sitewide automatic @ checkout sale on used media.  Their prices aren't generally all that bad unless you go to the mall & end up finding the impression that you need more money than what you have to make it worth even looking around.
Their prices are a bit higher than Amazon and Walmart etc.  They are not a "discount retailer".  Take that as you wish.  Anyway --- like I said, their used merchandise is not too bad as far as price goes.  It's a little pointless to go to FYE or their sister site SecondSpin.com and just buy ONE item.  You get a better price per item if you buy 2 or more items. 
I got 3 used CDs for $8.33.
Ok, so I paid $8.45 for a $10 gift card and didn't even use the whole thing.  So what was the point?  you might say.  I'll tell you --- I re-sold the remaining balance -- $1.62 to ABCGiftCards.com for a $1.20 Amazon.com e-giftcard code.  "So you lost $0.42!  How does that make sense?"  I'd say it doesn't make sense and you're just making stuff up, but thankfully my sister's as bad at math as you are, so I can see how you'd say that; I paid $8.45 for the gift card.  In exchange for $8.40 I got 3 CDs that would have cost me $12 or more had I bought them elsewhere, and a $1.20 Amazon ecode.  Even if I could have found the CDs as cheap, give or take a few nickles and / or dimes, I still got a good price on the CDs, plainly speaking, to the tune of $8.33 PLUS a $1.20 Amazon gift card.  So that's $8.45 + the $0.25 spent for internet's sake ($8.80) in exchange for $9.53.  So I saved $0.73.  And I think, not totally certain, but I think I'll be getting 4.5% cash back via Coupon Cabin.
SO HA!
YOU TELL ME SHE DOESN'T NEED AN EXORCISM!  YOU TELL AN EXORCISM WOULDN'T DO HER ANY GOOD!  YOU TELL ME THAT!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
uh...
I'm a little unmedicated.  Shh...don't tell EVERYbody............

aagh can't quit get it all in

Discogs shopping cart
KISS - CRAZY NIGHTS (1987) -- $4.95 NEW
KISS - ANIMALIZE (1984) $4.95 NEW
NIRVANA - INCESTICIDE (1992) $4.95 NEW
GENESIS - ABACAB (1981) $3.95 Used
Seller name BLACKPLASTIK

Amazon shopping cart
Hopefully a seller from somewhere in Missouri named Surf Brothers CD Emporium, which I'm thinking is an independent record store that also operates on Amazon's "Marketplace" (weird how the word "marketplace" suddenly means something different now that everyone's copying off of Amazon's business model in that regard) will be able to respond with a "YES! WE CAN!" in regard to a question on their inventory -- or rather their lackthereof.  I'm trying to find a U.S. based seller who has NIRVANA - FROM THE MUDDY BANKS OF W. (1996) NEW/FACTORY SEALED **and** has a copy of KISS - CRAZY NIGHTS (1987) NEW/FACTORY SEALED.  For some odd reason, I'm wanting to buy them both and have them in the same pkg.  Amazon does have them both, but their stock level on one of them is suspsect, I guess?  They **supposedly** have two in stock, but can only ESTIMATE a shipping date, whereas with the other, the date is virtually set in stone "or else"...so I'd be ordering them together, but they wouldn't ship together.  RRg.  I might have to order FROM THE MUDDY BANKS by itself.  CRAZY NIGHTS, even if I order it by itself, is still cheaper @ BlackPlastik via Discogs than it is from anyone offering it on Amazon.  And BlackPlastik's s/h costs for all 4 of the above items is a nifty $3.99.  $22.79 grand total for all that seems like sweetness on silver :)  I don't know if I'm emulating Frank Underwood's Georgian accent out of Georgia pride or b/c I have some subconscious tick..



Vented like a madman (get it?  Mad?  Angry?  MY ANGER IS A FORM OF MADNESS --- gotta hear "Love Steals Us From Loneliness" if you like poetic yet loud melodic rock music).  I think my neighbor might've been trying to avoid eye contact.  But then again I AM A madman  Beeewwwwwwwwwware.
Was pissed off.  Didn't really feel better about it.  I wasn't sure what was going on.  My mom was half the reason for it.  The other half would be the things that caused my mom to be the cause of it.  Actually, mom herself was probably less than 10% of the cause, since she can't help being half braindead when she's tired and she's got a ton of emotional issues that get in the way of any form of self improvement or even basic thought processing in a lot of cases.  She couldn't just tell me there's a snowball's chance in Hell we'll get out and do something but nonetheless that does qualify as a chance.  She had to leave me thinking there's a 25% chance of going to do something and wondering how she doesn't know more than that.  She's just now on her way home from a doc appt.  She took an hour getting there, having left before 1pm.  She'll be driving for at least 1 hr and 30 minutes given the increased traffic this time of day (3:30PMish).  She was telling me at 10A.M. there was a chance of going somewhere and she wasn't even dressed.  I treid pointing all this out and her response is 'I don't need you to tell me anything, OK?"  She keeps telling me that like there's some kind of universally understood translation of that sentence that makes it actually mean something.  At a layman's literacy level, that sentence "literally" translates into "I know everything so what could you know that is worth imparting?"  If she knew everything, she would have already made the deduction that I was in the process of making out loud.  Maybe she did and she just didn't care to do anything with it other than hoard it.  Ugh.  Feel sick just talking about it.  It's absurd to the Nth and my feelings about it are not helping.
In any case --
I guess I'm down to the aforementioned snowball in Hell's chance.  I need to convert something I bought into a tangible form so it can be used by someone other than myself.  Not sure it's safe to go into more detail than that or to even tell why it's potentially not safe.  In time, maybe...if anyone has any Qs, bring them to be A'd

I was going to say I feel much better now.  I don't know if ranting / venting did help or not. 
I do need to get a grip on things and get back into cracking open God's great words of wisdom etc.  I was doing mostly sorta OK until, idk, yesterday? maybe...not sure.  I wasn't totally out of shape yesterday but I can see a declination of my mental and spiritual health.  Me and my mom did pray together, more or less, this morning.  Half my mom's prayer sounded like a sermon or something.  I don't know why she tells God things he ought to already know.  "You are God, the only one, righteous, Holy..."  I don't think God is flattered hearing that but even if He is, I can't imagine how red His face must be at the sound of all that.  I'm still confused as to why it's such a GREAT! thing that God is Holy.  Holy simply means SET - APART.  We, by that definition, are instructed TO BE ALSO Holy.  God is always going to be set apart from us humans.  Our existence in Heaven will never enable us to be the all knowing & all powerful entity that God is.  We're not going to be Our Own Father
  (now sing along folks!  Seriously, go somewhere online & rent that movie THE STUPIDS with Tom Arnold if you enjoy clever shows about the enigma of stupidity, e.g.: THE SIMPSONS before it dried up). 
  The fact that He is THE Father and is Love is a marvel to behold in a world that is bustling with hate and anguish.  I think we should recognize that and seek out what he offers, simply for our own sake for that is what is best for us all.  He can and has lost many of His sheep.  That fact will never rectify.  God shows absolutely no interest in that matter except to instruct us humans on how to minimize the chances of it happening.  I don't think He would designate Hell for souls that have not been saved if He was really devastated by them being there.  But then again, maybe I'm wrong.  I don't know.  Love is a two way street, or at least it should be.  God may Love the sheep that he's lost, but just as a person loses a loved one, life goes on.  Happiness and joy do have their day, regardless of who and / or what has been lost.  I can't imagine the King of Kings and Lord of Lords being the King of HEAVEN and being unable to enjoy it if he's perpetually crushed by the absence of however many people have gone to Hell that might've potentially been able to enter if someone hadn't guided them into a distrustful attitude toward God or painted an ugly picture of God through their actions.  Case in point -- my uncle by blood, who I've never met, btw, very well may go to Hell because my grandfather is a full on AS*hole and so happens to be a very diehard Christian.  I'm sure my uncle might perhaps be keen to compare my grandfather alongside the statement that a top ranking infamously crass politician of recent time made at least once at some point: "I've read The Bible more times than anyone but have never apologized to Him or anyone else"  (might be a paraphrase, I heard this secondhand from my mom and I don't know which news outlet she saw this on, thus the omission of his name). True, seeking God's Love and His Mercy are of utmost importance, since everything else is nothing you can depend on.  If my grandfather did apologize at this point, it very well may be too little too late.  I don't know any details about GFather and Uncle ___'s relationship, except from what my mom told me which is that he treated him like crap.  God's forgiveness a promise that actually means something, because it's a promise from God.  If you repent & ask for God's forgiveness, you shall receive it, without hesitation or delay & you will also receive The Holy Spirit to help with the repenting process.  People, myself not excluded, are liars.  We have no authority to even be making promises, much less ones that we have only a slight interest in keeping to begin with. 

YOU KNOW!

The pastor somehow got the idea that if the congregation stepped up their game in pursuing God, his sermons would improve.  He said it was a fact.  He didn't say how he came to that conclusion.  But it seems his preaching has improved.  It started on Easter, the end of Lint.  It's continued today.  I really feel like he's dispensing practical and encouraging information.  I'm starting to piece together, albeit loosely still, why I fail and where I can improve.  Today he said repentance is when you "get real" and see your sins as an offense to God and out of sorrow "change your mind" (I'm not sure if he attempted to explain "change your mind"...I might've gotten too busy thinking over what he'd already said to pay attn to what he was continuing to say......it happens).  he also differentiated between "worldly sorrow" and "Godly sorrow"...The descriptions he gave for the two kinds of sorrow, neither of them really fit the kind of sorrow I feel, which may be a symptom of "a divided heart", and of course "get real" is a thing I have trouble with.  I can't even explain how I know this and live it every day.  It's not intentional.  It's like my eyes are physically honey ham glazed and if I think too hard about it, I just fall asleep.  Ugh.
I'll just have to keep on keepin' on and hope for the best.  As the pastor emphasized on Easter -- it's out of my hands.

OH -- speaking of last Sunday's sermon...(??)
@ my last blog post --- the end of it ------- I got a confirmation @ "Verse Of The Day" from Bible Gateway
     (Or BibleHub...not sure which it is that delivers those; they don't say anywhere on the email, it just comes from a service that one of those two co's offer called "YouVersion")
   
Basically it talks about there being no greater love than to lay down one's life for his brothers and sisters.

Alright.  Got a moving vehicle to try and catch.  Later.  Na, j/k, but....I think that sums up this week.  Idk.  I guess I could talk about what music I've been listening to and such.

I've been going through my CD collection a bit the past few days.
Spotify on my phone I've noticed doesn't allow one to listen to albums.  I don't know if that was a feature that I was once able to use but was deactivated or what.  I have to sign up to Premium to do that, and I don't have enough money to be wasting on that.
I convinced my sister to loan me my half of $60 to buy my mom something for mother's day  Turns out it doesn't do squat.  It was used from some garbage collector.  He insists it worked when it was last used, whenever that was.  The guy openly contradicts himself, as if to avoid being sued.  Idk.
Anyway, so now I owe my sister $30.  Plus my half.  $60!  $30 was a little tough, but...rrg.  I found a cool combination of FOUR items @ Amazon that would make a nice pkg to rcv in my mail box, but I'm seriously going to need to QUIT BUYING STUFF!  I already overspent on my CC, partly to pay off some of what I owe my sister and partly to take advantage of this deal on Swagbucks.  I'm supposed to get 850 points ($8.50 in gift card, basically -- altough Swagbucks doesn't offer an $8.50 denomination for any of their available gift cards, which is fine b/c you can easily earn Swagbucks by simply doing internet searchs for x and y and sometimes z) for a purchase that, in my case, amounted to $9.30 with tax.  So I basically spent $9.30 and will at some point get $8.50 of that back, so I'm "out" $0.80 and I'm "in" the products I bought, which are wood cleaner and wood polisher.  By PLEDGE no less (!)  I don't know why they were offering that incentive, but they were.  I guess with the recent real estate boom, they figured people with wood furnishings need to realize what they've been doing NOT USING(!) PLEDGE wood polisher and cleaner.  Maybe....it's just a hypothesis, not like I've researched the matter....
anyway.
My sister gave me steak for an early dinner.  I apologized to my mom that I was not quite willing to share it with her and she told me "You know, it would have been better if you just hadn't told me anything about it."  She makes a good point.  Yet another sin I must ask God to cleanse me of.  I don't know if he'll take away the guilt associated with it.....sucks when that happens.  She sounded really saddened by her absense of steak.  I really wish I had shared it with her.......but...she gets loaded baked potato for dinner and I do not because I'm freakin' weird and don't like potatoes.  It's a weirdness my mom and I do not have in common.  So, not quite a steak......but....what would I eat for dinner other than PB&J sandwiches or pancakes if I had parted with the two small pieces of steak?  I mean, it's still not really "dinner time", but......idk.... igh.

Aaanyway
So..............
Hmm....
ugh....I'm seriously drawing a blank...seems like I had more to say but I can't think of what it is.  Ayg.  I swear, I was on my way to saying something before I started talking about steak, maybe...i guess it wasn't important. 
(pffff)
Ok, I'm done for now.  Might come back and edit this, or post something today in addition - separate - from this.  GGGG
~xx

Pluck out my eyes

...so I may live for Christ

The pastor at my local church says that the "word" used for "Jesus saw through their duplicity" in the original text was "Jesus saw no faces".  That makes sense, if you understand that Jesus has supernatural powers that human beings do not.
However, the pastor used that as a segue to detour from that passage of scripture and talk about "seeing people as Jesus sees them" -- say what?  Jesus was a mind reader.  And I'm supposed to look at a person's soul instead of their face?  And what do I say to a person who is sad or happy or angry?  "Jesus loves you"?  Seems like it'd get old after awhile.  It would get old after awhile, even if it just so happens to be the only thing a person I hang with frequently needs or wants to hear.  I myself would no doubt be left with a desire to say more.  The Holy Spirit may even prompt me to say more.  But I'm not supposed to see faces.  Nooooo.  Faces are forbidden! 

I really wish there was a way to figure out when to believe what The Bible SAYS and what it MEANS to say. 

Jesus is quoted speaking as if The Holy Spirit was an emerging thing, something never experienced by the world.  Jesus is talked about as if his purpose as mediator between God and humanity was an upcoming Gospel rather than one that had already been around for a long long time before he physically stated "It if finished".  God is written of as being intolerant without Jesus.  If the last part is true, and there is - and ever was - hope for people other than King David and the 0.01% of the population - in and/or out of the Jewish community - that are likewise men after God's heart, then you have to believe that Jesus' mission was a promise that, being a promise made by God Himself, the rock that He is, was already fulfilled before mankind ever witnessed it to declare to others.

I can be fully capable and even more willing to carry out a promise that I make.  But to believe any promise that I might make leaves you a risk of being wrong.  If God so wanted to, He could do something that I and most other people even would perceive as utterly insignificant, so much so that it wouldn't even mentally register as a factor into weather or not I can keep my promise, and that one thing may hinder my ability to carry out this hypothetical promise.  God may not even be trying to humble me by doing it.  He may simply be keeping me from getting in His way carrying out His own promise that he made to some descendant of some family that He swore an Oath to back in the 1700s.  That's not to say that that God doesn't care if I'm humble.  He tells anyone who reads The Bible that humility is an important trait.  But even if there's some piece of The Bible that I either haven't read or didn't notice where God promises to make every promise maker a promise breaker for the purpose of humbling said promise maker(s), it still doesn't take away the fact that He knows what we as humans -- individually and collectively -- need more so than we'll ever.  Some pizza delivery company may re-introduce the idea of a 30 minute delivery promise.  But God's delivery schedule just may cause pizza orders to arrive late.  We can't know what God's delivery schedule is because we do not have untethered access to God.

Speaking of which, it occurs to me that some people on this Earth have probably achieved a level of success with their attempt at Christianity that allows them to hear God speak.  Those people didn't achieve that success without Jesus, but I think while a level of restraint is important when admiring someone's walk with God out loud, it is not necessary to take what they have accomplished and give all that credit to Jesus.  Jesus died a death -- willingly -- that was very painful and horrific.  He did so for the benefit of mankind because that is what mankind needed.  The only alternative to Jesus' crucifixion and subsequent resurrection would have been to just abandon us and set sail for some other part of the universe or kill us all.  More likely he'd kill us all and we'd be in Hell.  Instead he made a promise to The Serpent out of Love for His creation, as tainted as it had already become.  God didn't just do what He did selflessly.  He did what He did because that's WHAT and WHO he is.  We on the other hand don't even understand ourselves because we are so entrenched in this internal power struggle between Good & Evil.
Maybe this perception is just Me being Weird.  Most people, I take it, don't have a hard time following The Directions to reach The Consequence.  The Apostle Paul wrote as if he thought so, and my sister seems to think the consequence and the actions that lead to the consequence are the exact same thing (assuming her brain hasn't metamorphed into some other thing in the course of the 8 years or so its been since this conversation I'm recalling with her took place, which she seems to insist is a possibility I need to be mindful of).
If that is true, then the selfishness and cowardice that would prevent me from taking Jesus' place on the cross are indeed worthy of condemnation and the farther I can get away from that, the better off I'll be sooner than I deserve.

post-Easter daysiness

Ok, well...
The weather has been surreal, to the point of exhaustion.  SPRING  !!!  My sister was noting how beautiful the day was Sunday.  It was nice, but I felt like I'd been boxed up and shipped to Mars.  Hard to explain...

Easter sermon was interesting.  "Seek first the Kingdom of God"  That was basically the gist of it.  There's no specific actions one needs to take to be saved.  I do reckon that reading The Bible is helpful, as I know from experience, despite the experience of NOT reading The Bible that tends to play out more so than I'd like, but I do feel a little less panicked about it.  I need to get my head on straight enough to know where my heart lies and follow the trail that leads to righteousness.  Much of the time I feel the trail I follow just leads wherever, something between the rock of God and a more stony place.

Hmm...

I'm already out of money.  Good news is I don't really want anything.  Bad news is that makes me confused and feeling somehow disappointed.  Weird.  Or is it?  I don't know.

I took my medicine every day this past week that preceded Sunday, although the timings were a little wonky.

I feel like I have something more to say, but I can't think of what it would be.  Might say it later.  I don't know.