Friday - Sunday --- woah

I re-swapped my RokuTV (TCL)...mistake.  I knew it was a mistake, if I recall accurately.  I just ...idk...didn't care, I guess...then my conscience grew....I had it for...a week?  Two?  idk...  I got rid of it Friday night.  Listed it on FB Marketplce Thrs.  Rather good turnaround.  I in turn picked up a pretty basic monitor for $20.  It works, and I had $40 remaining.  Using the rest for a DVDNETFLIX subscription and bought a couple $10 CDs.  Goes fast.  Anyway....  

Then my sister got all crazy about something I had said a week or two ago...she sent me this accusatory tude laced email and then I responded without gentleness, and my brother in law spent like two hours exchanging texts with me, essentially "You're wrong and why are you thinking otherwise?"  After telling him everything I had to tell him, the last 3 or 4 texts I'd sent him basically consisted of "Quit texting me."

Then an hour after that nonesense he offered me a ride to the grocery store.  He picked me up and took me over there as if nothing was wrong.  My sister is still apparantly refusing to speak with me.  :/

And now I'm awake.  Just sitting here.  Trying to figure out what music to listen to, I guess...checking email waiting for Google to respond to a refund request for some movies I'd rented and haven't yet watched.  

I saw GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE Wednesday (finally).  I think I might have to watch it again.  I wasn't terribly impressed.  I liked it more than the 2016 reboot.  But it seems like it was missing some of the magic of the original.  Honestly, I don't think Ghostbusters is an idea that has much to it.  The comics and cartoon series are OK, but as far as a movie goes, the 1989 sequel had more of the magic of the original, albeit miniaturized.  They didn't HAVE to make a sequel, but the demand was there, so that was that.  I think my enthusiasm for Ghostbusters is pretty much gone.  Sounds really sad...it kinda is...I spent so much of my life thinking it was a part of who I am....It really sooo isn't.  

UGH The Ventilation....did I do that??!?!!!

 Ayg.  Sorry for my downcastness a few days ago.  I don't think I've ever met a single person that I can't say in some way or another is not an asshole.  Some people are less assholish than others.  But I don't think anyone is exempt from that description.  Not to my knowledge...well, I take that back....my friend who sits in during counseling I wouldn't describe that way.  I really wouldn't.  And, my pastor, and the 3 other pastors I've had while attending other churches, I would not describe as a--holes, but that's only based on what I've seen of them.  I'm sure they have their enemies.  Or, at least, I wouldn't be surprised if they do.  I've certainly caused a lot of hair raising myself.  I'm a thorn in the side of my sister and I'm a pain in the ass to my brother in law.  My mom is physically disabled, so I'm for the time being on fairly good terms with her, since she decided to be nice to me 2 or 3 months ago..  if she were able to do anything, I'd probably be driving her bokers too, asking her for help and being nitpicky like I am...

But anyway...
I really don't remember spcifically what I said in that blog post on 11.26, and I don't claim any of it was not true.  I implore anyone who thinks poorly of my example of Christianity that it is not about The Christian that you / we should be grateful and rejoicing over.  Hope and Joy do not stem from The Christian, but THE Christ!!!  HE is our hope.  HE is our calling.  We are BEING molded to fit HIS image, but we are not HAVING BEEN molded to that fit just yet.  I sure as heck haven't been

The unseen forgiveness

 I feel like I've been punished for not packing up my stuff and saying "bye" to my mom years ago, same way she did to the people who abused her for her whole childood.  She "forgives" this scumbag brother she has, but she hasn't set eyes on him in years and she's still afraid of him.

  People insist that you need to forgive people that do wrong to you, or else, as one of the elders of the church I attend puts it, Jesus doesn't even know who you are.  I sent my mom an email telling her, in common modern day English, that she was a stumbling block to me, and continues to be one and that I can't be expected to be following an example that she nor anyone else has ever provided.  GoshHELL!, I got my ass torn out good for over an hour on that.  I got accused of breaking like 9 different commandments in the New Testament.  My mom was guilty as FUK but nobody cared about that.  Nobody cared about anything except the fact that I was opinionated and felt like I deserve love.  "No", I can just hear it "Nobody deserves love or anything good!  You deserve what Jesus got!"  Which is?  3 hours of Hell?  Followed by an eternal stay in Heaven......uh....sure....yeah.  I don't even know why I'm typing all of this.  Nobody reading this cares more than the people I've encountered in real life do, I'm sure.

The f''d up case of Jack & AZZ

 ARG!!

I KEEP FLIPPING BETWEEN BEING THE EPITOME OF BLASPHEME AND BEING A HALFWAY ACCEPTABLE MEMBER OF THE BODY OF CHRIST.
I managed to go a couple days w/o sinking AS FAR as I'd been, then today, I'd been just CRAVING, mentally dripping pornographic imagery......finally am over it, mostly, but not without clawing my way into the devil's lair.  I cancelled the Accountable2You subscription.  All that service does it keep me from wasting time on porn..then some days like today I find myself mentally and physically insubordinate.  This booklet claims that sex drive isn't the issue, and I suppose if I'd have thought of it, I could have opted to take a cold shower...in the middle of winter....I'm not sure I would have.  I wasn't seeking a way out.  Wrong or right, my body feels at home in these states of appetite.  Ug....

Anyhow.  I still got a good stretch of road ahead of me.  (sigh)

I'm sorry for any discouragement I'd been in my previous posts talking about this like there's no hope or whatever.  I know there's no hope for the past.  But there is always a possibility for a brighter future.  And whatever lay ahead, Jesus is greater than anything I will ever do or abstain from doing.

Oh the wonder

 SanctusReal singer man says in his song"These Things Take Time" "why eyes when faith is how I see?"  Yeah WHY THE HECK do human beings have eyes???  Surely faith alone would keep us from stubbing toes and falling off cliffs and tripping over ramps and rocks....

discourge

 I really hope to God I did not overtly discourage anyone with my posts from a week or so ago.  I'd talked through some of this stuff with my pastor and basically realized I just need to keep eyes looking toward the Goodness of CHRIST JESUS, and quit letting doubt storm up my mind.  He didn't exactly say it that way, but I just realized how pointless it is for me to even be consumed that way, raging on and tossed about.  I do need to, for my own sake, at the very least, quit engaging with sinfulness.  I do hope forward to Jesus and The Holy Spirit enabling me to find motivation to do that.  A large part of it is I just don't feel enough.  I have a mild dose of it when I'm NOT tempted, and sometimes when I am tempted I fight it, but that's usually only because the temptation is only just beginning.  I was telling a friend from church after he brought forth some maybe kinda sorta helpful audio recordings for me to listen to, that, in conjunction with what the pastor was telling me as we were going through all of this, that I need to ASK Jesus for strength / power to fight the sin.  Because I've been noticing intermittently that it tends to build up as the day goes on.  I also believe that asking Jesus is a form of praise to Him, for the power that He gives us to TRULY be more like Him, where it actually matters.  I just need to pray also that I keep these things in my mind and that they marinate in my heart through the night so I can conquer this weekend.

 

Please Jesus, help me to keep The Beauty of Your characteristics and Your deeds, the essence of what I know about You, to be a strength to my feet, a lamp to the path before them.  Please remind me and please continue to persuade me to ask YOU for help and to PRAISE YOU for Your promise to be our help in a time of battle.
Thank You, Jesus, for the VICTORY that You've prepared for us.  AMEN.

Kicking and flailing

 https://ghostbustersnews.com/2021/10/29/ghostbusters-afterlife-was-secretly-being-developed-in-2016-same-year-as-the-franchise-was-rebooted/

 

I really have to scratch my head when I hear people give apropos to the 2016 GB reboot.  The director of Ghostbusters: Afterlife seems to think Paul Feig did something monumental just by casting females as Ghostbusters.  He says Feig "broke down the door".  The sexist trolls who hated GB '16 before it was ever released are not gone because of Paul Feig.  And I do think the movie would have done better had it not been for them but I don't think it would have been a "success" per se. I think the film would have made another $100 million had sexism not been an obstacle for many people liking the movie, which on paper would be the same #s as the first Ghostbusters film.  That's more than what the OG made, but that's in 1984 dollars.  The amount of Ghostbusters grossed at the box office with inflation factored in is closer to a billion.  GB '16 would have had to make at least $500 million -- roughly half -- to even compare to the original in terms of box office performance.  It didn't make half of THAT.  GB2 made apprx $500 million which would have been enough for a sequel a lot sooner had the owners of Columbia Pictures changed.  Between Bill Murray's bitterness about GB2 and Sony not wanting to pay as much as The Coke-A-Cola Compnay had promised in the contracts that they had drawn up... it just took a really long time to happen.  If Harold Ramis were still alive, I'm not even sure GB3 would even be happening.  Jason Reitman even acknowledges that the story of GB:AFTERLIFE solidified in his mind after Harold Ramis had passed.  If a GB3 were ever going to happen, it'd have to be without Bill Murray, which is fine by me but a lot of people would probably refuse to see it based on that alone.

I'm not meaning to say that box office performance necessarily proves a movie to be good.  Certain genres of film are naturally going to have a very low performance.  A movie like BASKET CASE or HEAVENLY CREATURES is not going to plow through the records book.  At least not any significant records book  You might see some bizarre personal plea to the world such as those films were breaking records for like most tickets per screen on such and such weekend...but nothing like Top 10 of x year or whatever.  Exceptions abound, obviously....it's hard to say why a film like BEETLEJUICE can be so successful yet A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE was a box office bomb.  Surely, the subject matter of A.I. is more relatable than that of BEETLEJUICE.  ..
  And then there's just plain oddities like THE POSTMAN, which I think, being a futuristic "what if" kind of movie, is going to have naysayers because of a variety of things that people just don't see eye to eye with.  Videohound's review indicated a sense of befuddlement over the idea that a mail man could in some way be interpreted as a symbol of patriotism.  That's just one example. I could probably think of more if I looked harder.
I guess it's quite possible that GB '16 is in its own way on par with THE POSTMAN.  I just don't see it.

Brighter

 !!!! 
Had a counseling session a couple hours ago and was reminded that JESUS CHRIST paid for my sins and that my PRIMARY FOCUS SHOULD BE ON HIM!!!!!
How sweet it is.

FEAR some God, idiot me

I don't know what to do.  I feel myself constantly falling back on God's grace, being disobedient and swaying to my own inclinations and not submitting.

I'm not even sure I understand how this whole dynamic is supposed to work.  Am I supposed to FEAR God, like, "I'm gonna kill you if you don't quit this nonsense" or is sexual sin just like any other sin i.e.: you can be forgiven infinitely?
Hopefully The Lord takes this confusion in consideration before He decides on the severity of the consequence.................

gratitude at the grill

 So far, I'm aware of only ONE cure for sexual immorality --- and that is, gratitude.
I don't know if this is unforgiveable or not, but if I were being cut into pieces while alive, I would not be thanking Jesus.   I would be EXPECTING that something better than it lay beyond the horizon, in the after-life, but the pain would not be something I could FIGHT.  "You have to fight the pain!"  Paul lived exclusively for God, even before he was an apostle.  He did out of self righteousness, basically taking whatever pent up sexuality he had and replacing it with violence.  He met Jesus, and saw how beautiful He is, and his sexual desires were the last thing on his mind.  Also, Paul was not lazy.  He didn't have time to be lazy.  Between his devotion to God, and his very physically demanding life, he was able & willing to do everything it took to pursue holiness.  And I realize there are lots of other people in modern day Earth who for whatever reason love God more than I do and are eager to serve Him, regardless of the cost.  I don't understand how "The chains are gone".  Every time I hear a song that talks about that, I just go "WTH?"  Versus in The Bible that talk about that, I'm just like "Ok..", and just keep reading, because there's usually information that's at least instructive and comforting, or at least one of the two.  I'm going through counseling regarding this, and I just don't forsee this being something that talking over is going to help.  This is not a theological term paper.  This is the reality at hand and much of The Bible deals with reality secondhand.  We know that objects fall when not held by anything.  The Bible isn't a means to figure out the fabric of time and space.  The Bible isn't a means to diagnose and cure mental illness.  There is some very good instruction in there and if followed will lead to a prosperous life, overall.  But the stank of humanity, which varies from person to person, my stank being especially foul given my ungrateful brat self, JESUS CHRST DIED FOR ME TO LIVE LIFE ABUNDANTLY and I just reject it, what the foul is wrong with me???  That's how it is.  Instruction only goes so far.   And there's a little snippet somewhere in The Bible, proverbs, I think, that talks about the kind of person I am, who has instruction and it hasn't changed anything.