"In the Name of Jesus"

Well, guys, here’s an intermittent post for you. I have so much on my mind now that if I actually took the time to unload it and explain all the different aspects of the situation from which I’m speaking, it would likely overwhelm you and make you want to beat yourself in the head without pause. But I thought in the meantime, I would throw you a bit of a curveball and write something specifically about Jesus. A relatively short one, but hopefully thought-provoking nonetheless.

It strikes me in these days, that is, those days where one of our supposed Christian leaders calls for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, that one's efforts at emulating the life of Jesus as a witness to him are perhaps ultimately futile. I realize sometimes that on a daily basis (despite all my efforts to the contrary) I end up emulating the life of Jesus in many ways (whether it’s work, friendship, and...well, I guess that’s all right now). This is not a matter of pride, I hope you all know, but more a matter of reality. I can’t really credit myself with something when I’ve been trying to run away from it. I’m really not so much running away anymore but I’m still not connected. Connected with...well, that’s still to be known. I would love to say Christianity. I would love to say Church. I would love to say a lot of things but it simply wouldn’t fit. That’s beside the point. What I’m trying to say is that I would love to be in a conversation with someone and then say something like “see, that’s the kind of thing Jesus would do.” It’s funny because as soon as I write that very sentence, I hate it. And I’m sure a number of you do as well. Hell, I might as well jump in the Christian business of marketing bracelets with acronyms or whatever the latest fad is. I haven’t had any exposure to the Christian contemporary culture as of late so maybe there’s something newer that would be more pertinent. Pardon my obsolescence.

Anyways, there’s a certain fundamental level of understanding the person of Jesus that I think many don’t get anymore. Maybe they’ll only understand when they’re looking at their friend who they’re disagreeing with on a certain point so badly that they want to punch them in the face and yet they love them enough to lay down in front of a train for them. Maybe they’ll only understand when they have to hurt someone they love in order to get them to wake up and smell the damn coffee. Maybe it’s when (to use a popular, readily accessible example) they read their Bible and they look at their church or “church-goers” in general and they see the difference between light and day. (I myself have grown tired of even using that last example but when I have a handful of people fresh out of church come to Applebee’s and order premium sirloins and treat me like I’m a piece of shit, then I have no choice but to come back to it). In some ways I’ve become perhaps what many should want to become: an honest person who tries to live an honest life. A hyper-simplistic version of the Christian life. The only reason I don’t feel truly “Christian” is because I’m not connected. I have my friends, too many for me to even return a good friendship, but I regularly feel really fucking alone in just trying to fight the simple, honest (what some would call Christian) life of a good citizen of humanity. I’m not trying to be condescending, anti-intellectual, or even redundant here. I’m just stating where I’m coming from.

We’re just not getting it anymore and I often ponder whether we ever will under conventional circumstances. Sometimes I just want to be able to think that I’m doing something “in the name of Jesus” and it somehow mean something different than the connotations of which it carries. Fuck Pat Robertson and all that he says and stands for. But fuck me too for not trying hard enough. (Dante, I’m not trying to put him and I in the same boat to hell here, just trying to mark my culpability).

Throw some ideas my way, folks; it’s just a conversation right now. Much of this post is rhetorical (partly meaning that I have already predicted most of how anyone would respond) and not argumentative but I wanted to say it nonetheless because it’s on my mind and I’m way too damn late on posting something new. So, yeah, there you have it. Anyways, I hope all of you are well.