So… Couple things on my mind tonight…

I realize I don’t blog much these days — perhaps it’s true that blogs are dead — but it feels like I should at least make some effort, here, before the thing withers and fades like the grass that is all flesh…

So… couple things…

1) My husband has advised me that the book situation is again out of control and it might be time for me to get rid of a hundred or so of them from four different rooms of the house.

And for once…I just can’t think of a single book I can possibly do without.

In the past week, two New Bibles have arrived. Husband: “Really? You have (counting…) 12 different translations.”

“I need them all! I’ve been asked to write an introduction to a Gospel, and I’m ignorant!”

“Oh, wait! 13! I just found the Vulgate you NEVER use! Can we get rid of that? Even Jesus only needed 12 Apostles! And 13 is a bad number!”

“I need all of them,” I insisted.

He is silent. For now.

2) I am convinced that very nearly 90% of what is presented to us, (collectively), anymore via major media/entertainment/social media etc is utter illusion offered by people enthralled to their own agendas and wanting me to stop thinking for myself and just feel stuff. Those of you who know me well know I am disinterested in feeling stuff beyond a certain reasonable point and distrust enthrallment of any kind. This is stuff you learn by doing. I have done enthrallment badly in the past and have decided it is a land with too many idols, so I am practicing detachment. Except apparently not as regards my books.

3) Therefore, I’m not listening to many people beyond my varied employers (who tell me the truth about what they expect and what I may expect from them in return, so that’s good), my family, a few trustworthy writers and wise religious, the people I count as friends, and the Constant Reality of the words “Jesus is Lord” — and maybe “Paul is Dead” just to be different.

Pithy 3-word statements are the new me. Beyond that, scroom-all sez I.

4) I thought alarms were supposed to shut off after 15 minutes. A car alarm has been running out my way for 20. Everything seems fine. I poked my head out the window. Ah…there, it’s stopped. No one seems to be dead, so I’m going to assume everyone is alive. Except Paul.

5) I have lost my taste for “sweet” and now prefer “salty/savory.” It’s good to be a grown up, sort of. M & M cookies are disgusting, but suddenly Cheez-Its are da bomb!

6) Truest words Auntie Lillie ever spoke: “You come in with the face God gives you, you go out with the one you’ve earned…”

Except I look like hell. I hope I haven’t earned hell.

But maybe she wasn’t right. All the broken people, the people stomped on by life…perhaps they’ve not earned those faces. Or if they have, it’s been earned through suffering, but perhaps through no fault of their own?

Some folks lives roll easy
Some folks lives never roll at all
They just fall…
They just fall…
Some folks lives…
— Paul Simon, who is a Paul, but probably not dead.

7) But what if the broken people — sorry, Paul (McCartney) but we’re talking broken, not lonely people (although most broken people probably are lonely on some level, and lonely people probably are broken, too, since we all are, anyway…)

Sorry let’s reloop that thought: What if the broken people are actually all beautiful images of suffering, even if we’re generally thought unattractive? What of Auntie Lillie’s facial discourse, then? Or, what if some folks are very attractive, but so consumed by their jar-preserved exterior perfection that they’re mere ornamental zombies, ugly from the inside out due to being dead inside? Then what is the face they’ve earned?

What are the faces any of us have earned for the lives we’ve both been born with and had thrust upon us?

And anyway, can anyone be dead inside when “All things are alive in the sight of their King”?

Hey, then…I guess Paul really is [not] dead.

8) John is dead, though. He was a man with many issues, broken, like all of us, and if Auntie Lillie were not also dead she would be pronouncing her Irish chestnut over his many and varied images, showing up in social media. But when John Lennon smiled, he looked like the very fine and sweet boy he probably was, before his parents and life in general (and probably all available Pauls) broke him.

Anyway, may John Lennon, broken man who seemed on an upswing before having his life unjustly ended — and all the souls whose lives were similarly taken, including those whose faith was known to God alone — find the perpetual light of Christ shining bright upon them, and may they rest in peace.

10) No, I have not been drinking. But as Auntie would say, might be a good time to start! This message not sponsored by Tullamore Dew, but I’ll show the ad anyway because the singing is fine…