Rahab

I was feeling so much better before and now it is like a depression cloud is coming over me.  It is fast moving in that I can feel myself slowing down and becoming unresponsive.  I think that before it was more gradual.  I am hating the onset of this struggle.  It is like feeling walls close in.  Before long, if I don't get help, no matter how much I struggle I won't be able to move.

It may be because my mom died recently and that has me really upside down.  It may be because her death led my brother to depend on me more than before.  It may be because as I look at the house where my mom lived, there is just so much work that needs to be done there it is depressing.

I also attempted to make an appointment with an escort.  I think this is the real reason I am feeling so badly.  God is unhappy with that decision and I think he is letting me know it.  Right now I am thinking that I will keep the appointment because I hate dithering over issues especially once a decision is announced.  But then again many years ago I announced that I would serve God and here I am doing something directly against that.

I told the escort that I didn't want "full service" that this would be a social visit.  Yet it still costs quite a lot.  I may even need a new coat since it will be chilly but not too cold.  I have a heavy jacket but not medium weight formal outerwear -- a pea-coat is what I perceive I will need.  This is a provider I engaged previously and described in an earlier post.

Anyway, I think God is highly displeased that I chose to make this appointment.  I think it is like I said:  "yea, yea, yea, I know what you say about bad association (1 Cor 15:33)  but this is different, I need to talk to someone."  As If God didn't already know that!  If he wanted me to talk to someone he could make that happen.  But by making an expensive escort appointment to have someone to talk, well that was just foolish.  It is like I don't trust God to help me out.

Now maybe he wants me to ask for help more explicitly, or more fervently or more frequently or more something.  Maybe he doesn't think that I have really asked for help at all.  Maybe I am fooling myself in thinking that my previous discussions with the censorship committee was me asking for help.  Actually this is all just immaterial.  It is wrong to go to an escort for anything but to tell them about God.  Yes you can preach to them, but employing their services is just not correct.  Hopefully, dear reader, I don't need to spell that out.

Actually let me be more clear.  It isn't that escorts are some "untouchable" class.  It is just that their primary profession, what they usually do (aside from "social" appointments) is explicitly labeled as incorrect 2 Corinthians 6:9,10.)  Also King Solomon (right, the wisest man) actually talks about watching someone getting seduced by a prostitute (Proverbs 7:6-21.)  He labels it negatively.

So what's wrong with "social" appointments?  Well now we are back to 1 Corinthians 15:33.  Especially if you need help.  Actually there is explicit instructions if you need help James 5:14.)  And, of course if this isn't working then you must be doing something else wrong.  And taking another unwise step is a thoroughly stupid thing to do.

So, what to do.  Well the escort hasn't responded yet.  So it isn't like we have made an appointment.  So I suppose I could just send her a note and say:  "Never mind."  I feel like such a heel doing that though.  But I guess in retrospect it is what God wants.  Actually he wants me to not meet with the escort and it is up to me to take positive steps to make that happen.

So the challenge is to cancel the appointment but not take anything away from the escort.  I mean anyone who read the earlier post regarding her can see that I really like this person.  But I can't think of any other way to do it.  If I send a long note about why, it will sound self serving.   I am poor socially and just don't have any ideas about how to do this politely.  I suppose I can pray about it.

I will be feeling bad about this for a long time.  But maybe it will make God less displeased with me.  There seems to be just so much I need to do to make him happy with me. The best I can hope for is "less displeased."

Actually, and for the record a prostitute and here family was the only ones selected by God to survive the destruction of Jericho.  Rahab was her name.  (Joshuah starting in the second chapter)  She survived for exercising faith in God.  I say that because if someone selects an occupation that is not in line with social norms or biblical norms, that doesn't mean they are "bad" people.  I guess I still like this woman.  I hope God doesn't think she is a "bad" person when her judgement day comes along with the rest of us.

Diving Back Under the Covers of Depression

10 minutes 'til showtime today.  I have a plate full of meetings and there is no way I will survive clear headed.

I hate being in charge of a team and I can't manage it well.  I am motivated to be a good leader but it seems to be beyond my skill level.  I hate what I have become.

Bitch leaked out the death of my mom to my current congregation.  I got a couple of texts so far expressing condolence.  I really wish that they just did not know my business.

I am thinking about responding something like:

Thanks for the kind words but the person who told you had no business doing so.  Don't tell anyone else!

But these dudes are just doing what they know to do.  They don't understand who I am, (or maybe they do and I don't understand myself.)  In any case there is no malice so I will probably just leave it alone.

After all, maybe they will feel better if they tell me how sorry they are for my loss.  They can check the "poked Mark" box for the year and feel good that they positively know even the edge cases in the flock.

On Sunday they asked me (during the meeting) if I wanted them to announce my father's death to the whole congregation.  I said no, of course.  The last thing I need is a bunch of insincere people telling me how sorry they are for my loss with me looking back at them saying, "If you are so sorry my mom died, why do you choose to stand back and say nothing as you watch me die?"   That wouldn't be polite though.  I wouldn't really say it, but I would get mad at them because that is something like what I would be feeling.

One elder did come up to me and express his sincere condolences.  He was kind and nice.  Not at all like the texts from the other two people.  (Of course if it was me I wouldn't have even sent a text.)  I didn't say anything to Smith when his wife died.  So I really shouldn't be complaining.  I don't know why I am complaining at all.  God could rightfully strike me dead here and now and be completely justified in doing so.  He has graciously offered the people he does to help me through difficult times in my life.  No they are not perfect and they don't claim to be.  They do what they can to help and are sincere in their efforts.

I am just being a blackguard, a contemptible scoundrel too proud to accept much needed help.  I am so ashamed of what I have grown up to be.  A person of no value and no worth to God.  I keep thinking, no maybe not.  Maybe you are worth something. Maybe you will get it right next time, but I don't, I fail every test of faith.  I am nothing, just nothing.

FII

You fools, you idiots, aw you imbeciles. (Cruella DeVille: character in Disney's 101 Dalmatians)  I feel like those words should be addressed to me personally.  It's a bad time to be me right now.  I am unable to make progress on my diet, my spirituality or my work.  I need medication management but won't find a physician willing to offer it.

I realized that Satan is behind the rift between me and the congregation.  I wish I could throw off the bias I feel against the censorship committee and those who are/were on it.  I wish I could undo the rude things I did and focus on being a nicer person no matter how I feel wronged.  I wish I could just see that it is me that is wrong, not them.  I wish I did not feel the jealousy I do.  I wish I was not bothered by the joy they feel and by hearing their expressions thereof.

Then I need to get off my posterior and do what it is that God requires of me.  Now, just how am I gonna do that???  The only practical answer I can think of is drugs.  Of course I could offer a prayer, really I would need several such.  I know it works, but perhaps drugs are the answer to my prayers.

GIJGTKM

God is just going to kill me (GIJGTKM) when he brings an end to this world for all its corruption and failure to do what he asks of us.  I have seen His counsel and commands and turned my back on them.  I have failed to heed His advice and recommendations.  I have become addicted to the filth of the world and smile with approval as certain of God's laws are flouted.  The best I can hope for is a peaceful end, but it isn't likely to come that way unless .  .  .

So why don't I just change and serve God with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength?  A most excellent question, one to which I have no firm answer.  I'm depressed, I can't, I tried and failed and am too tired to try again, I don't like the elders, my censorship committee is mean to me, I'm too stupid, small, weak, my parents didn't love me enough, teach me enough, show me the right example, My exwife was too mean to me, she broke my spirit, and on, and on, and freaking on it goes.  The bottom line is that none of those things, real or imagined, are too much for God to help me overcome.  He did help me.  I just didn't take the help he gave or I simply chose to do bad when I could have chosen to do right. 

So it seems that I will be getting my just deserts when God decides it is time to mete out my punishment.  Me thinks it won't be long, but for now it hangs over my soul.

Dead Rents

In college I learned to abbreviate pa(rents) thusly.  My mom died suddenly last week.  But then she was in her late 70's so it wasn't such a shock.  The turn out for the funeral was very good and the congregation she attended (not the one I usually attend, of course) was  tremendously supportive.  I have never been so amazed at how nice people in this organization can be.  Then again it was for my mom and not for me.

That sad sinking feeling that I am not worthy continues abated only briefly as I stood in amazement of what the congregation can do when they put their mind to it.  And it isn't like they really had to think about it that hard.  They just did it.  Kudos to that congregation and to my mom for a life of faithful service to God.  I hate myself so much that at times I feel like I can smell it or taste it.  It seems and feels palpable.  I have always loved beauty and nothing more than beautiful women.  Some of my earliest memories are around very pretty women (or girls when I myself was just a boy.)  But they could always get, and wanted, someone better than me.  I can rent them but I will never own one it seems.  I always thought it was just a matter of time before I would marry a beautiful woman.  I did marry someone I really loved but that worked out horribly.  Now I am old and fat, and beautiful women have no interest in me.  I am poor and all but broke.  Being an obvious minority doesn't help.  Being socially inept is a killer.  It just isn't happening, and probably never will.

I have tried to come closer to God in recent times but, as is typical, other things are getting in the way.  Watching nrop is fading a bit, but that is just the ebb and flow of interest.  It will come back and I feel powerless to stop it (even though I know God is not powerless to stop it if I were to rely on Him,which is a tremendous source of frustration.)

Thursday: I think (well actually when I think I have done something silly, I usually have done something monumentally stupid) that I missed another opportunity to chat up a woman.  In the fitness room at a hotel and met ran into the same woman working out the second day in a row at a hotel.  She spoke first.  I responded while looking down at my phone.  Dugh!  Actually I was trying to be casual, not showing too much interested.  In reality I was must have actedlike an *sshole.  Humpf, I guess the shoe fits.  There seems to be just no way to improve my social skills.

Friday: I am getting cycled through a series of group activity opportunities.  One came across that looks good, an intellectual chat group.  I signed up but I know that means there is now a 5% chance I'll go, (up from 0.5%)

Monday: The weekend was a bust.    Didn't go to the meeting.  I spent the night (actionless) with my ex.  She wants to get back together.  I want my son to get along with her and that's all.  At one point I could see myself getting together with her but not anymore.  When we are out together I am usually aware of any other pretty woman walking by.  That tells me that I am just not into her.  So I want to just stop seeing her unless there is an obvious benefit because of the son.

I looked at nrop twice again (after 4 weeks sober.)  There appears to be no stopping this.  Oh well, God hates what I do and will kill me for it as far as I can tell.  I wish there was a way I could enjoy myself in the knowledge that I'm not trying anymore, but there isn't.  The world hates me too.

I can tell I am not ready to start another work week, but hell, its Monday and time to go to work.

I keep wishing I can start over.

I guess the biggest thing I miss is having any friends.  Even some "friends" would be nice but I don't have any of those either.  The principal source of either such style of acquaintance should be the congregation and they continue appearing dead set against having anything to do with me.  Maybe if/when my son is reinstated they will talk to me again.  

In any case now, not only do I have myself to get organized, I have to help my siblings get organized since the death of my mother.  What a classic jerk I am.  IHMS, ISFHMS.

A Lesson on Why Never to Leave God

So I am still here bloated belly and all.  I still HMS, no surprise there.  I feel like I might after a very long workout.  Yes you can drag yourself into the shower and do the perfunctory business, but you feel exhausted; raising your arms is a chore.  I feel mentally exhausted with working for a living.  I know that I need a long break.  Looking forward to that.  Much work to do in the meantime, though.

I was up at 2:00 AM today.  couldn't sleep due to an impending deadline.  Feeling the pain of such an early rise right now.

I guess I don't have too much to say now.  I am OOC on my diet.  Spirituality is at a really deep low.  Spending fast and loose.  Cars breaking, needing tires and stuff.  What a mess.  I am afraid to mention other things that seem to be going not to badly for fear that I will break that as well.  F*ck!! IHMS.

I don't like using language like this.  I prefer to express myself more eloquently.  Using the correct word that expresses my sentiments precisely.  However I am not a writer, not one with broad vocabulary such that the precisely correct word animates my fingertips as the emotion rises.  So I resort to street language.  A poor choice, but it gets the message across.  Of course another message comes right along with the intended message.  Oh, this guy is just an ignorant street thug.  Well ignorant may be correct, certainly ignorant of a better choice of words.  "Street thug?"  Hardly.  I wouldn't survive 2 1/2 minutes on an inner city street.  Enough of that SOC.

Back at work on Saturday.  Still can't develop the motivation needed to get myself working productively.  Oh well.

Big leap forward to Thursday.  I feel like I am just falling again.  Loosing all the things I tried to work through, spiritual progress (and all the meetings, prayer, study, etc  .  .  . ), eating too much, watching nrop, not working hard enough, living like a pig, derelict houses.  It tears at my psyche.  Everything drags me down.  Now my kid is living with me.  Trying to be a good pattern for him in some ways helps, and it feels like more pressure/pain.  His mother has just thrown up her hands and said, you handle it.  In some sense that is good because she is so awful at it.  Of course she allowed him to fall as far as he did and then she hands him back to me.

I even stopped trying for a while, but it is like a walking motion.  You keep striding in your sleep.  Even when presented with obvious chances for sex, I refused or somehow screwed up the opportunity.  But I am coming to realize again that this situation is all but hopeless.  God wants more than what I am willing to give.  He wants exclusive devotion.  Certainly that's reasonable.  He created us, so he gets to set the standard for what is acceptable to him.  He wants us to be happy; He wants what is best for us.

I continue to decide against God's standards and do things that are diametrically opposed to his measure of correctness.   So when I run to his congregation, I bounce off.  All Satan has to do is just put a small object (doesn't even have to be very bright or shiny) in or along side and just off my intended path and I take that tangent as it arcs rapidly away from the one God would have me follow.  It goes down rabbit holes that are murderously hideous and complicating.  My life is like a labyrinth of missed opportunities and failed chances.  The rest is a complicated web of left over attempts at careers that failed or stalled.  Nothing ever works out well.  I am just so thoroughly ashamed.  But shame is a selfish emotion.  I just have to get over that.  But how?

Every solution is a long and complicated path.  Several things have to go right for a long time before I get back on a good and decent and reasonably correct course, even if it includes, as I anticipate, paying back a 300,000 dollar debt.

I just hate what has become of me.  I can't help but realize my problems, but I can't overcome them either.  There seems to be only one constant solution that gets me out of this with a level of complexity that I can really handle.

I hoped that it would work out with the "truth."  But the committee is just so intent on not opening that stinking festering box which my case has become.  I think that they just want to keep ignoring it, replacing it with other important business, of which there is a superabundance.  So the box remains closed, stinking and festering further.  So far 3 separate CO's (Read: super elders such as those who sat on my censorship committee) have tipped the lid on the case at various stages of putrefaction.  In most cases they didn't know what they were dealing with and never got the full sense of the problem before they started dispensing the "general" advice:  "read your bible, go tot he meetings, study for them and go out in FS."  Of course if all I needed was this advice, I really wouldn't need their help.  I have known the magic formula "study, meetings, prayer, service" for decades.  As any long term reader knows, the issue is to put it into practice.  How do I get myself to actually do it.  And how do I avoid the pitfalls that are carefully positioned along that path?

I am concluding that I am just not what God wants.  It is not that He doesn't love me.  He loves everyone.  It is just that I have disqualified myself due to my own error.  My addiction to badness precludes the level of assistance that would be needed to help me overcome this.  God has forgiven people who have sinned deeply.  However there are two outstanding factors that make my case severe.  1) I know better.  Having known the "truth" for so long, I know when I am screwing up and choose to do it anyway.  2) I am addicted to the badness.  3) I repel other people.  Most never get to know me.  It isn't a known and conscious thing.  It comes naturally.  It isn't just as respects people in the religion, the same thing happens at work, even though I don't want it to.

The thing about these voluntary committees is that the people on them often don't stay in the same place.  Of my original committee 2/3 of them have gone.  Even of the replacement members (there always have to be 3), 2/3 of those replacement members are gone again.  This case has been alive so long that there is more information forgotten about the original issues than can be reintroduced at any given meeting.  So they sit around and look at the current situation, guess at the past and come to conclusions, that can me made before getting tired of talking about it.  I'm there for part of the meeting.  But based on the overly general questions they ask, they themselves are not focused.  They do ask some specific and focused questions, but they don't seem to respond to the answers.  It's just OK well you know you need to read your bible and study more.  Usually that means kicking the can down the road (unless one of the CO's just scolded them for the age of the case.)  I feel a sense of injustice being done against me, but I also know that if these people have errored, it is not intentional.  They are really doing the best they can in the context of the rest of their lives.  And if, maybe, they are taking short-cuts and aren't giving adequate consideration, who am I to judge them.  God lets it happen, quite possibly because he doesn't want me back anyway.  Bad fruit may be automatically rejected for the wrong reasons, but the decision is nonetheless correct.

It reminds me of the double error that resulted in coming to 1914.  It was the right year, for two of the wrong reasons, but does that matter?

So why don't i just give up, give in to Satan and just totally abandon the desire to do God's will?  Well, the reward is pretty awesome if I could myself operating correctly.  2) I would be happier now if I did so.  3) my kid would benefit from a good role model and would quite possibly die from a bad role model, as is currently happening.  On the other side of the coin, what I am doing now is so freaking painful.  Every day I wake up to my failures.  I can't get even two steps in the correction before failing again and incurring all the frustration that brings about.

One of the reasons I can't seem to get of my posterior is that I am in depression's deadly embrace of despair and hopelessness.  As you can see the situation is pretty hopeless.  Yes, I know, "with God all things are possible."  But this has been going on for almost 8 years now.  I am not moving forward, rather, I am receding from the goal of returning to God.  Is this an elaborate test?  Yes and No.  It is a test, and as it is happening, it is allowed by God.  However God will give us the strength to endure tests if we are faithful.  I am not enduring, hence I am not faithful.  I am being further damaged as time goes on.  I am failing the test.  I have been looking for ways to pass the test and I am failing.

I reach out to little known friends in the hope of building relationships.  The reach is pathetic and fails in all cases.  But God wants me to use that energy reaching out to his organization.  I haven't abandoned the attempt.  I do go to meetings frequently.  I study to varying levels of intensity but less rather than more.  The point is that I have not given up entirely.  I just don't try hard enough.  I know part of the reason I don't try hard enough is depression.  But that's not the whole story b/c If I gave this my best effort I would succeed.  God wouldn't allow Satan to suffocate me for 8 years unless I was complicit.

So I have managed to strike that balance where I hang around this religion, sucking down the resources of its senior staff (elders) and giving nothing (except money, which I won't give to the local congregation choosing to send it to NY instead) in return.  I wish there was a way to bring this to a close.  But, I don't know how to make that happen.  It's all so complicated.  But then again, it really isn't.

What it really comes to is this:  I don't want to do God's will.  When I don't I get mad and look for others to blame, and there the elders are.  So my life is forfeit.  There's no ransom left for me.  The longer I live the more I get in the way of my kid, who seems to want to  do God's will.  Or in the way of my ex.  I should clear the path and stop stumbling them.  It's time for the final solution.

Options

Given my last post, the Easy Button takes on a whole new meaning.  I'm not ready to press just yet, but d*mn I am so tempted sometimes.  It is of course concerning because I really don't have a tough life.  I am soft and untested.  (Not successfully tested that is, I have failed many such, and I continue to do so.)  When a real test comes along I am afraid I will fold like the proverbial house of cards.

I also mentioned earlier that 1 out of 3 is kind of bad.  Well now it's 0 out of 3.  I am at this very moment munching on crackers not intended to be part of this diet, and swilling coffee with powdered creamer.  (The latter is part of my regular diet but certainly not irreprehensible.)  I suppose that I will start again after the new year.  I actually intend to take several days off (5) and try to relax a bit.  I haven't planned it at all and I really need to do so or else it will turn into a nrop fest leaving me again begging forgiveness and very possibly in front of another censure committee.  A df decision could lead to the death of my surviving parent.  It isn't like Christ with the weight of the world on my shoulders, it is just like me with more than I can carry even though it isn't a heavy load at all.  I continue to be so ashamed of myself.

So there are a number of options, 1) visiting my surviving parent, 2) visiting my house down south, 3) visiting my house way down south, 4) a staycation, 5) a location (local vacation - staying in a hotel near several points of interest) 6) a real vacation.  The latter is likely too expensive especially planned at the last minute such as it is now.  #5 is also pretty expensive especially with the transportation bills I recently incurred.  I visited my surviving parent recently (#1) - a good visit, but it was enough and longer visits become really uncomfortable.  #2 is a must.  That has got to happen but I could make it largely perfunctory and not a working time at all.  I do need to get it ready with phone line and cable.  Just being there is stressful.  #3 is worse still.

Finally I could do a staycation and maybe focus on come clean-up and do something "fun" on 3 or 4 days locally.  The only images that come to mind harken back to the days of my earliest posts.  Not good, very expensive and again in a situation as mentioned in the second paragraph of this post.    So #2 & #4 it is brief visit to my house down south followed by a staycation focusing on 3 fun things and working around the house.  Fun things might include going out to eat or going to a museum.  None seem really doable.  That is affordable and fun enough to actually plan.  I know the feel of this.  Spend a lot of money to have a nice time or spend nothing and waste your time off.  That is what this is boiling down to.  The result is just so d*mn predictable.

Life, it just isn't so easy at all is it.  Hence the label attached to the final option.