Pros and Cons of the Single Life

PROS.

1. You can do the dishes whenever you want, not when your spouse wants you to. This also goes for taking out the trash, doing the laundry, and changing lightbulbs.
2. No more fighting over the remote control. You watch what you want on TV when you want to. This also goes for internet time, bathroom reading, radio stations, CD selection and video rentals.
3. The fact that you get to drive everywhere and not be bothered by your spouse's apparent ineptitude behind the wheel.
4. I am always on time.
5. Sleep is more natural without icy feet touching you somehow. And I can choose the side of the bed I desire to sleep on, and sleep there
6. You no longer have to go to the store 100 times a day. You can actually make your list and THEN go. And not have to go back 99 more times. If you remember that you need something else that you forgot, you can go tomorrow, without guilt.
7. You can get up an hour before work, shower, eat breakfast, drink coffee and drive to work without talking to anybody, the natural way any human male was meant to get up in the morning.
8. You can come home from work, take off your shoes, eat your dinner, and read the newspaper without having to answer 100 questions about what you are going to do for the evening, the weekend, the month, and without having to listen to anyone else tell you the answers to those questions (because you dont really have a choice anyway).
9. If you are annoyed with certain members of the opposite sex, you dont have to call them. you can stop seeing them. You can opt out. You can find someone else. You have that option. Everything is optional.

CONS

1. You actually have to do the dishes, clean your house, change your TP and do your laundry. YOURSELF.
2. Most of the time, your only company is the television you are controlling, or the book you are reading.
3. You can't drive too far for fear of falling asleep at the wheel.
4. Being on time isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
5. Instead of parts of my leg being cold from feet, now the whole bed is cold.
6. You have to remember to buy things that you need. The things you used to buy for gratification don't actually nourish you. Now you have to remember nutrition classes from middle school to remember what you need to buy at the grocery store.
7. There is something to be said for an annoying nagging voice in the morning to get you out of bed.
8. Making your own decisions isn't all it's cracked up to be.
9. Everything is optional. Nothing is definite.

Americans Mysticism and Music

I am a music lover. I love music more than many of my friends. For example, If I had to choose between keeping some friends over my U2 collection, the U2 collection would win.

Why do I and many others love music so much? I feel a connection that I don't get from everyday people. I feel something. It moves my heart. It connects on some primative emotional level. I hear the words sung in a certain way and I feel in that moment that the songwriter or singer understood me for a second. And for me, that is rare--to be understood.

So I love it. The feeling of being understood and connected is vital. It helps me go through hard times. It helps me feel like I am not alone in feeling the way that I do. I am always impressed by the amazing efforts to keep time and harmony so efficiently as musicians do. The more complicated the effort, the more amazing. The simple purity also reaches me in places I haven't explored.

Churches have played on this for as long as I can remember. If you sing long enough and emotionally enough, it seems, the presence of the Holy Spirit will come into a room full of people who are worked up into an emotional frenzy. A church that doesnt work its people out this way s considered to be spiritually dead because people can't feel the presence of God working. We all know what a reliable litmus feelings are!

We get going and we jam and we dance and clap and raise our hands, hoping for a prayer that God will connect with us somewhere and give us our emotional orgasm. Pick us up. Get us High on Jesus for a few minutes. Give us our fix for a week or so.

Don't get me wrong. Jesus is way cool. The Holy Spirit is a spirit, and that is so cool. But God does not serve us. He is not our pusher our dealer or pharmacist. He isnt our pimp. Church is not a way for us to legitimize getting off. Nothing wrong with getting off, but lets remember what getting off is for--marriage, not church.

Music is great. Its one of my favorite things in the world. But just as mistaken are the people that believe that demons inhabit the music of the world, the Holy Spirit isnt compelled to arrive at the beat of a righteous musician. There is no spiritual power in music. None. It is simple repetition and melody that the human brain and heartbeats identify with. It stimulates the brain to create a mood. It connects with your physical and chemical composition to help aid you in your meditation. But spirits are not controlled by musical beats or notes. Good or Bad.

Whether you felt it or not, whether you knew it or not, whether you got off or not, or whether it felt dead or not, the Spirit of God is always with you. Even in a room full of Satan-worshippers beating their chests and cutting themselves, the Spirit of God is there (e.g. Elijah, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego).

That is why you can never ever tell me that there is such a thing as a dead church. Just churches with different ways of expressing life, mistaken or correct. But death is up to God.

I've been wanting to write but I have been having a hard time being honest, so I just haven't posted. The intent for this blog was to be honest. I have been trying not to cheat the readers. So I have the nerve to talk about what I've been meaning to talk about today.

Today's subject: Broken Heart.

I've been really down the last couple of weeks or so. I've been missing the nice parts of being married and in a relationship with a woman. I miss sex. I miss comfort and friendship. I miss it all because I keep reminding myself of how great it was. I miss Jodi a lot, but that's not the point of this blog.

I miss my friend. Since Jodi and I split up I had started a passive dating relationship with another woman. It went on and off for a few months. It was never serious. It was just a great friendship that filled the void I had for a while. In retrospect, I guess if I were to label it, it would be the REBOUND.

I knew the whole time that it was doomed. But I wanted something so bad and desperately (and no it wasn't about sex) that I just let it happen. I wanted to be loved and I wanted to love. I told myself to not get involved. Not to feel. Not to experience that pain again. It was too soon.

I couldnt help myself. I could seriously just have been friends with this woman. She is still my friend, but not the way I had intended. So I'm a little disappointed.

As I said it was passive, and not too serious. She was seeing other people and I was intending to, but it never happened. I got attached. Now that I think about it, I was more attached to the idea of her than her. There were many exciting aspects to being this woman's friend. She was smart, beautiful, funny, and so different from anyone I had ever dated before. We got noticed wherever we went. People always stared and pointed. It was shocking. The whole interracial thing was something new and novel. But in the end, she chose another man over me.

Not a hard thing to do. I mean, come on! Look at Me! So I am determined to chill out for a while. Get by with a little help with my friends. (are you out there?)

I promise, lighter subjects are gonna follow. I am thinking of starting a new blog reviewing music. Not to end this one but a separate entity altogether. let me know what you think.