Kick Drum Heart

It’s too late in the day for me to do anything but wait around for the guy to come trim the horses’ hooves. Michelle and Dad are going to run errands and visit the library, and I could go there. I wanted to go for a walk in the woods with the laptop and write, but I don’t know if I can now. I just don’t know.

I’m having thinking problems. Ha, what’s new? But there’s so much running through my mind. It’s like having that talk with Brendan and then reading some disturbing things have gotten the gears and cogs churning, and now they won’t stop. I cleaned stalls today, and all I could think of as I shoveled and wheelbarrowed away giant loads of horse shit was my own judgemental tendencies. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say “my own.” I thought of everyone else’s judgmental tendencies as well.

Brendan says that so many concepts of God and faith and Christians are distorted nowadays, and I can say from firsthand experience that it’s true. For me, church has rarely (if ever) been fun. My faith in God was a singular, lonesome thing. Powerful, strong… yes, okay. But I guess (or I’ve learned) that you need fellowship, a bond with others, to have a really motivating faith and strength in the Lord.

I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’m shaking somewhere between real worship and hesitating. Wanting to touch that fire but afraid that if I do it will burn me.

I remember riding down the road last summer thinking, why do I like God? Why do I need Him?

It wasn’t some angry outburst or denouncement of faith, I was simply and innocently wondering. I’d believed in Him and tried to serve him since before I could remember, and in what I’d thought of then as one of my greatest hours of service, He craps out on me and I’m left with a church that politely is confused and disapproves and a child with a bitchy family and a temper tantrum.

So I rode down the road in my mother’s SUV and wondered to myself why I needed God. I closed Him off. I told Him that I was really sorry but our relationship wasn’t working out and I needed a little time to see how I could function on my own.

In that time, I’ve learned innumerable lessons. Rejuvinating lessons that brought me to the peak of pride and also humbling ones, that cut me low and forced me to see other perspectives and learn. Really learn.

I realized that, in this sabbatical, this vacation from God, that He really never left me alone at all. I just blocked Him out.

Okay, and this wasn’t intended to be a personal narrative of my hazy and far-between travels with God. But now I’ve been reading this book Brendan gave me, and I have another one to read, which is why I didn’t go to the library (I want to read this book instead of being sidetracked like I inevitably would be). It’s really opened my eyes to a great many different views. And, strange as this might sound to some, so has Brendan.

Yesterday we gave out free hot dogs in front of Jesse’s Toy Box. So many of the people who took one just stared at us and asked, “Why? What are you doing this for?”

Answers ranged from “Just because,” and “We wanted to,” to “It was Brendan’s idea.” But the fact remains that a single act of spontaneous kindness shocked the hell out of the bits and pieces of Gowanda that floated through.

I’ve gathered, from reading these books and watching Brendan actively demonstrate unconditional love for his neighbors, that it doesn’t matter who does what or who does who or who cares and who doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things if you swear or drink or smoke or hate it all. (As long as you’re not driving drunk or stoned; that is Bad.) But liberals and gays and partiers and prudes (and mystics and Republicans and hobos, and so on) make up the world. It doesn’t do any good, for me at least, to get angry or judge those who do differently than I do personally.

For example, my cousin– who I’ve referred to as my sister hundreds of thousands of times– is a pothead and a partier. That was hard for me to accept.

But because I love her, because she’s my family and because I trust her to continue to grow into a wonderful and beautiful person regardless of the things she gets into as a teenager, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not my job to judge her. I might not smoke, and I might only drink recreationally and rarely, but it’s her decision to do it. She’s a smart girl. She’ll do what she wants, and as long as she doesn’t get hurt or hurt someone else, it’s not up to me to interfere. It is my job to care about her and (if not necessarily support her) be there for her.

On the other side of the spectrum sits one of my friends. Yeah, okay, I doubt she’s reading this anymore (ha) but she recently posted a blog about parties and drinking that was highly brutal. It made me frown and laugh in the same measure. Firstly, jell-o shots have vodka in them and not beer, so that was funny and kind-of cute. But then, I didn’t like so much being referred to as an “old friend”– no longer worthy to associate with because I’ve indulged in a few drinks maybe three times this year. Details don’t matter, though.

The facts were there. Some people do get so wasted that they don’t remember what they did the night before. Hell, some people are still drunk the next morning.

Even though I told myself not to get angry or feel insulted, and that she really didn’t hate her thrown-away alky friends as much as it implied, I had to comment. My fingers were itching. I felt rejected and stupid, since her blog is one of the websites I frequent most, and although I hadn’t talked to her in a while I wasn’t aware that I fell so short. Apparently she doesn’t care, but that’s neither here nor there and I can say without bitterness or temper that people are people.

I was judging, too, by critiquing her thoughts when I should have just left them there and quiet. Now they’ve knocked what seems to be a hornets’ nest, and I can’t keep my thoughts from swarming noisily. I’m afraid I’m going to get stung.

I had thought immediately of the offense I could take from that scathing post as soon as I read it. What can I say, I fumed, to make her rethink this? She hates me for my choices!

And so I was stupid and commented and replied and now I sure as hell am going to leave that alone. But again, yet again, here’s a lesson for me.

It’s not up to me to kick aimlessly at opinions that are obviously unkickable. I could be a bitch and a hypocrite and blast her for intolerance– she’s pro-gay and fairly liberal, but hates teenaged drunks? How silly– but that would only cause more controversy. And as fun as controversy can be sometimes, it’s definitely not the goal. The same stands true for my cousin, as well. I don’t smoke, so I could rail at her endlessly about how horrible it is and how she’s putting holes in her lungs and doesn’t she know that grandma knows? But it wouldn’t do any good, and would just hurt her, and me. And poor grandma.

And there’s where it ties into God. I’m not preaching here, either.

Everyone lives differently. We are all raised differently, see things through different eyes. Who am I to tell my cousin she has to stop killing her freaking brain cells, idiot, or to tell my friend that she’s too big for her britches and since she’s never experienced drinking or being drunk, how the hell would she know?

I could just as easily be told similar things.

From my cousin: Look, dumbass, you’ve never done it. Don’t bitch at me because you don’t like it, you really have no idea. You’re not my fucking mother.

From my friend: You’re wasting your time talking to me, you’ve already made your decision to drink. And because you did, you’ll contaminate me by association. You screwed yourself over by doing the stupid thing.

And they’re both right. I’m right, too.

This is why my head hurts.

I’m pretty sure what I’ve been driving at circles back to God. I have to get this straight. It doesn’t matter what people think or believe or do. What matters is having love (the pure and true kind) blaze for people. The good and the bad and the ugly, all of them. Regardless of habits or opinions or bitterness. I’m not giving a shout-out for Christianity everywhere, either, because the church has made so many mistakes and intrinsically is rotting. (That’s my opinion, anyway.) But if nothing else, that’s what God stands for. That’s the point. To love others and keep that love from fading out to nothing.

So, I’ll feel love for the oddballs. And the normal ones. Straight-laced or tipsy, obnoxious or appealing. I’ve been thinking all day and all yesterday on this, and finally, finally… I’ve reached the conclusion that I will try to spread unconditional love.