The rat-bastard is he? The rat-bastard is thee.

#LentUnEdited < I want to roll my eyes right now but the doctor said if I keep doing it, my ocular muscles might spasm and eject my eyeballs. ~ Liz Lemon >

Know how some random or specific asshat gets up your nose? And you recognize it, you're good, you do your spiritual exercises, especially since you know that half of THEIR problem is you see YOUR OWN ass-hattery in their behavior and it's the behaviour you detest most in yourself that's bothering you? sure, the other half is stuff you'd NEVER pull, but you still just wanna throw a book at their fat head or give them a karate chop to the throat so they might shut up for two seconds so your eyes get a break from rolling so hard?

then, have you lived long enough for this one? you think you've done all your spiritual work and they glide gently out of your life and one day you realise you can hear the birds again, singing more sweetly than ever before and you realize in that quiet, the asshat has gone away ... your movement through the world is unencumbered and life is light and gay. Then SOMEtimes you turn around and the rat-bastard is BACK, or a reasonable facsimile in the form of a different human, and it's like C'MON ! god, I thought we went THROUGH this already ...

Then you gotta double-down on whys and wherefores and a whole new round of self-examination ... EEEEHN, c'mon, SERIOUSLY? nicely, though, for me? it's JUST in time for Lent, thanks. I've been up half the night with this and realized that lately? I've been talking AT god and not WITH god. I guess I HAVE been talking TO god, but it's more like as a teenager with headlines and reporting? and not waiting for an answer, just like I've been leaving God voicemails, telling God my thoughts, and hanging up before God answers, you know?

The other thing I THINK I've been doing is going down YouTube Rabbit Holes instead of seriously working through things with God. I'll flip from topic to topic while I'm sorting my problems, and not thoroughly cleansing my spirit, just taking a series of whore baths out of a Marine's helmet. I know better than this, so it's no surprise I almost hurled this morning mulling over this kid whose back in my face again.

And srsly? listen ... "be sweet," "you're bigger than this," "judge not, etc.," I get it, kay? very pretty stuff there, very nice, all well and good, and I AM ! encouraging bumper sticker spirituality right now ... but this particular meme of this particular personality type comes back over and again so it must be a cancer inside of me that needs to be cut out.

I tackled half of this personality type last year, you'll remember, under the topic "There Are No Grown-Ups In The Room. Ah, WE'RE ! The Grown-Ups Now," and that's been going great for me, and has brought me a great deal of joy and peace. (HIGHlights: I was expecting certain persons to rise to a higher standard of inhabiting their role in my existence than they were capable of achieving let alone maintaining, and while it is worrisome, it's more a no-harm-no-foul sort of thing, the Bad is all on me, because MY understanding of their role has little to do with what OTHERS expect and it's just, my definitions of things don't exactly line up with The World's. I am from a different generation in my head, and there aren't enough southern women around me patting my hand and shaking their heads in silent agreement with me. In that regard, I'm alone up here, so it's hard to keep reassuring one's self. Praise god for ice cream.

I think what I've been wrestling with this morning is the other shoe of that same pair which needs to fall: The person who HAS no authority who CLAIMS all authority and can't recognize that they're a bloviating prig with no self-realization, filter, or sense of remorse. ((a) see how easily this describes me, but at least I have the decency to contain that hideous personae to my online life (shuddup), and (b) there's so much judgment wrapped up in this and so much SHADOW of Completely ME in this, that I'm the guilty one, one finger pointing out and three pointing back at me. blergh.) It's just that, when EYE do things it's with a completely pure and gentle and giving heart, but when THEY do it it's all for show and aggrandizement, I'm so much BETTER than them and no one every points THAT out ... ohmuhguh, get off the cross, honey, somebody else needs the wood !

[[ UPDATE: Since writing this? It happened again last night and I was looking at this kid and complaining to God about it? and I heard God plain as day say, "Why are you looking at him, why aren't you looking at ME." ... Got it, okay? I GOT IT ! !  ]]

You know, it would be SO (!) MUCH (!) EASIER (!) if I could just be that miserable bastard we all knew when we were growing up who always just flat out read people to filth, basically just saying out loud what everyone else was thinking ... but that's not life-giving, that's not even Correct, so I gotta figure a different way out of this. Problem is, I just want everyone to be sweet and act right all at once, and that isn't gonna happen in this life, is it. 1. No matter where you go, there you are, and 2. The world is a people-ie place.

"The rat-bastard is he? The rat-bastard is thee."
Tee Hee. xoxo

#ThereIsPrayer #LentPrep #iLoveLent