this is a long one (for me)

i hate insomnia. it doesn't hit very often, but when it does, boy is it annoying. tonight is especially bad, because i was very very tired at work today. so i went to bed early. silly me, i thought this would help. well, beth was still up working on a book, and whaddya know, when she came into the room i was juuuuuuust falling asleep. i was asleep, but just in that first stage where it's easy to be woken up again. guess what happened. yeah. that was over an hour ago, and i'm still wide awake.

so hopefully i won't get fired tomorrow for sleeping on the job.

so, while i'm here and i have your undivided attention (yes, you) i would like to pose a nifty little theological question that has been keeping me up at night. (not like insomnia, just making it hard for my brain to slow down enough to sleep)

NOTE - I SAY THEOLOGICAL, BUT IT'S ALSO SOMEWHAT PSYCHOLOGICAL, SO ANYONE AT ALL WHO READS THIS, PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS, RELIGIOUS OR NO.

present day Christian teaching (at least protestant, can't say for sure about catholicism) and sermons and whatnot focus mainly on 'being saved.' or 'taking Jesus as your Lord and Savior,' or a host of other phrases that mean basically the same thing "admitting you suck and asking God to forgive you and help you be better." might be an oversimplification, but that's the basics. that's all you really hear about in church these days (other than the latest offering drive... which, don't get me wrong, i agree with tithes and giving money to the church and charities in general. not saying this is wrong, just making an observation). i kinda think this stems from paul saying "by grace you have been saved, through faith; it is a gift of God, and not through works, that none should boast."
--DISCLAIMER: forgive me if i misquote slightly, i don't actually have a bible in front of me, these passages are from memory. i know the main point is right, but i may mess up a few words.--
which is where luther got his 'by faith alone.' and thus lutheranism, and the whole of protestantism worldwide. yay.
personally, though, i can't help but constantly be reminded of Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats. "I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me" and all that. this illustration makes it sound much more like the things we do are what include us in or exclude us from salvation.
because the bible also says "faith without works is dead." and "i will show you my faith by my works." so, personally, i think luther was kind of an idiot. ok yes brilliant theologian in some ways, but really ready to overlook things he didn't like in my opinion. anyway, back on topic...
we are obviously, and quite bluntly, told that to say 'i believe' or 'Jesus is my savior' or 'i've allowed God into my heart' and to think that means we're 'saved' is complete nonsense. unless we have something to show for it. i've been reading (or listening to, as the case may be) an awful lot of C.S.Lewis recently, and he talks quite a bit about christians putting their faith into practice in whatever it happens to be that they do. that for a 'christian society' we need christian economists to do their best on wall street, christian lawmakers to work toward passing laws that are good and just and not wasteful, christian grocers to be honest and fair in pricing, whatever a christian happens to do, he or she should be applying their faith to that to make the outcome of their job better. this is, of course, in addition to making ourselves better. (not gonna go into this more here, if it doesn't make sense, i suggest reading Mere Christianity)
i've been reading all this, thinking about this, pondering this as pertaining to me. and i find that i am a useless, self-centered, whining, lazy, slothful, utterly worthless wretch. i give to the church and charity, but barely the minimum 10% God asks. i serve on the board of trustees at my church, but that basically means sit down with people once a month and decide the obvious: "that needs fixing" or "we should put salt on the sidewalk in winter so that people don't fall" and the like. i don't do anything outside of church that can be pointed to and called 'christian.' i have friends in africa working to translate the bible - wait, no.. .working to create written languages for languages that have previously been spoken only... THEN as if giving whole languages the power of the written word wasn't enough, translating the bible into those languages. i have another friend who spent last summer and now this summer working for a charity that builds houses and fixes houses and a slew of other construction jobs for those in need. people from my church a few months back went to new orleans, where they're STILL rebuilding after katrina and spent a week helping 2 families rebuild their homes. i could go on. and i sit here on my butt surfing the internet for fun games, or reading the news and thinking 'wow that sucks' or watching tv. i used to be really smart. brilliant actually (not trying to boast here, it's true). and what do i do with that? be lazy in school, don't finish in 4 years, and have banks want their money back so now i can't even finish my degree, because i didn't care enough to work hard and use what i had. i used to be really, REALLY in shape. not now. for various reasons, now my left knee, my back, and my left wrist all hurt continually - could this have been avoided if i had kept myself fit? possibly, with a leaning toward probably. i love music. i play guitar. sometimes. usually now i'm too lazy to do that and it just sits on its stand in the studio. i've always wanted to write a book, but i'm too lazy to even start. what good am i? what decent expectation do i deserve to have about continuing to live, let alone expect to go to a place of reward and comfort when i die?

EDIT: maybe now i understand why calvin came up with what he did. it's a whole lot easier.

sometimes...

...life sucks.

my wrist has hurt for about 2 months now
my back has been hurting constantly for over a week
i haven't slept well enough to wake up rested in over a week
my mower has developed a transmission problem
my (new) bike has blown up and decided it no longer wants to run
my truck's starting problem is getting worse
my truck needs an alignment
beth's car needs an alignment
we have a wedding to go to this weekend (which, weddings are good, but since beth is IN it we have to drive to cincy separately, on separate days, which means i'll have to sleep alone, and when i do get to see her we'll have to sleep on the floor of her old bedroom, and all this costs money because beth will also be going out for the bachelorette party (haha, google doesn't think bachelorette is a word) and the rehearsal dinner and all this means lots of money)
we currently have in our account... umm, ok i won't tell you that but not nearly enough to cover half the things listed.

now, stepping away from my life and looking at it from the outside... from a "christian" perspective, i know we're supposed to have "trials" and "tests of faith" and all that... but HOLY CRAP! CUT IT OUT! I'M TIRED OF BEING PISSED OFF, WORRYING, AND NOT GETTING TO RELAX AND BE HAPPY WITH MY WIFE!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

i want to walk outside and start swearing at the top of my lungs until my throat is so sore i can't continue.

psychology is dumb

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Very High
Schizoid:	High
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Moderate
Narcissistic:	High
Avoidant:	Moderate
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Information --

what happens when people come over:

Mark Sutter on "Mr. T on 'Doing Cocaine and School Shootings'":
"I pity the fool, who gets shot in school."

remind me again why i invite people to my house?

this just in...

i give off Magical Sparkly Armpit Dust.

beth is a Magical Sock-Rolling Faerie.

...thought you ought to know.

what dreams may come...

i've had several very strange dreams in recent weeks and i figured i'd post them...
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i landed at the bottom of a slide/lift platform that was made of neon light (pink i think, and a bit of yellow and blue). everything else was complete black. i noticed a small hole in the wall (this by way of seeing some light through it) and crawled through. i realised i had a baby boy in my care... he wasn't mine but for whatever reason he was my responsibility for the time being. when i got through the opening i saw a room with several small men in it. and i mean really small...less than a foot... like tiny gnomes or something. anyway, they seemed nice and wanted to help me get back up to the top of whatever the neon thing was i had come down (i remember knowing in the dream that my closet was at the top). so i layed the baby on the floor in front of me and was squatting/sitting talking to the gnomes. (baby was asleep) i was chatting with them and shaking hands with them (ok they shook my finger) and handing stuff back and forth because they were helping me. all of a sudden i looked at my hands and realised there was bits of red all over them. i was confused for a few seconds until i realised that i was bleeding. looking around i suddenly knew that the gnomes were eating me. (each time i touched one of them, they had bitten a tiny bit of flesh off me, small enough that i didn't even feel it) then i realised that if they were eating bits of me, they'd love the baby. i looked down and he had disappeared. i started crawling through various openings and doorways (they looked like mouseholes and were barely large enough for me to crawl through) looking for the baby. i found him and he was crying and wailing and bloody. there were gnomes all around him. i nearly had to rip them off him and started throwing them against the walls and smacking and throwing them as hard as i could until i got him and on my way back to my starting place. i finally reached it, knowing that the baby only had a few minutes to live without medical attention and realised that due to all the bites i had received (and possibly something to do with their saliva) i was extremely weak and close to passing out. the platform/slide had become the shape of a bathtub and i struggled to get in with the baby. i knew that if i could just get in we would be safe and taken back to my closet above where i could get help. i struggled and struggled to get in, got the baby in, and then felt that there were gnomes all over my legs and arms chewing. i started throwing them off and still trying to get myself into the tub, because it was the only way to safety, but it was getting harder and harder to move, to even stay conscious...

and then i woke up.

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the second one is possibly even weirder, but it will have to wait because i'm too tired to stay sitting up and typing.

on improving Tyranus...

so think about this... Darth Tyranus should have been female. here's how the script would have looked for the fight at the end of attack of the clones:

(Obi-Wan and Anakin run into the room)
(Darth Tyranus enters. The first thing we see are black boots, the camera pans up to show leather pants that appear almost as if painted on. Camera continues rising to see she is wearing a black, skin-tight babydoll with the word "Angelus," surrounded by a heart. She smiles.)

Obi-Wan and Anakin: (In shock) "Countess Dushku!"

[From here the fight progresses basically the same as in the original, except Tyranus appears to find it amusing to grind against Anakin during the fight, while Anakin seems somewhat perplexed by this and finds it distracting.]

(Anakin falls to the ground in pain.)

Countess Dushku: "Aww... Whatsa matter? Did I make it hurt? ... Too bad... I was kinda hoping you'd join me in the dark side..."

(Yoda enters, things get thrown, lightning gets shot around.)

Countess Dushku: "I can see that this fight cannot be decided by our knowledge of the force, but by our skills with a Mʔ!"

(Tyranus pulls out a wicked-looking axe/stake/polearm and stabs Yoda in the heart with the wooden end. Yoda falls to the ground off-camera.)

Countess Dushku: "Yeah baby! Five-by five!"

(Yoda stands up, pulls the Mʔ from his chest and stabs Tyranus in the stomach.)

Yoda: "You missed."

Countess Dushku: "Damn, shorty!"

(Tyranus pulls big pipe down on Anakin and Obi-Wan, distracting Yoda. Tyranus flees.)


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Come on now...isn't mine better?