I made a horrible horrible oversight last week in not giving proper credit for one of my song discoveries. The Arcade Fire song, “The Suburbs” was something I discovered on my awesome friend Fauna’s blog, http://laisthenewny.com/ You all need to go there every Friday to check it out, because she’s super awesome and has impeccable taste (and no, she did not demand an apology, I’m a dumbass with a monster guilt complex. ☺ )
Speaking of shoutouts, are you all watching Friend O’ The Blog Aarti kicking ass on tonight’s episode of The Next Food Network Star? I couldn’t be happier for her, and fyi, how NICE is it when you can be genuinely happy for someone’s success? Instead of that twinge of why the hell aren’t I getting the opportunities they’re getting? I can’t say enough nice things about Aarti, y’all. If you notice, it’s only episode 2, and everyone that’s coming into contact with her are all saying the same thing – that she’s so warm and bubbly and inviting. IT’S ALL TRUE. She’s adorable, and that’s exactly what she radiates when you meet her. And no, she's not paying me for the endorsement, either.
I have the most incredible friends in the world, I really really do. There’s nothing better than watching someone do what they love, whether it’s recommend good music, or cook good food, or stare down a fight with cancer, and KICK ASS at it.
So I know this here bloggy has kinda gotten away from its original purpose of chronicling Amy’s Quest For Communication With God. Haven’t really been kicking ass with that, lately, have I. Well, the other way to look at it is, if I was successful at communicating with God, the blog wouldn’t have anything to say, because communication with God is so personal, I couldn’t tell you what worked for me and have it work for you.
Just like how Jesus never healed a person the same way, God speaks to us in different ways, and even when it does work, there’s no guarantee you can make it happen the same way. Just because I hiked in Griffith Park and stood on a very high hill and begged God for help, and thought I heard rescue is coming, the unfortunate part of that is that I think it was 98 percent me answering as though I was God, because that sounds like something God would say. Eventually.
The point is, there’s no guarantee that I should hike up that very same high high hill and expect Him to be there. Because that reduces God to the proverbial genie in the lamp, and He will pop out to do your bidding when you rub that f’ing lamp, and I’m pretty sure He doesn’t work like that.
Right now, it appears that God is acting like the benevolent grandparent who drops by every eight months or so to shower some blessings and then is off again. He showed up last fall to get me into a new place, a new job, and poof, off again, probably to go down to the Gulf and weep copiously at how man is destroying his creation.
But that’s okay, I can shamble along okay, even though He’s not HERE here, it doesn’t mean I can’t pretend like He’s talking to me anyway.
I was running slides today, and we’re hitting the extra controversial stuff in 1 Peter, where they say things like, “Husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner.”
THAT’S IT! I’M NEVER COMING BACK TO THIS CHURCH AGAIN!
Ha ha ha. Man, context truly is everything, isn’t it.
The pastor...oh boy. I haven’t given him a name yet. He needs a name, huh. Well, his joke is that every week, he gives himself a different middle name. He’s a WILD MAN, our pastor is. Last week, his middle name was Diet Slice, so even though it’s gonna change this week, he will forever be known on this blog as Pastor Diet Slice.
So Pastor Diet Slice was talking about why men need to value their wives, and why wives need to value their husbands, and why single men need to treat single women with respect, and why single woman need to treat single men with respect, and he said this phrase:
“You will have to answer before God how you treated His son or His daughter.”
I’ve heard different variations of this, like, “You will have to give an accounting for every blessing you didn’t take advantage of” or something like that. Whether it’s what did we right, what we did wrong, how we used our talents (Matthew 25), la la laaaaaaa, we’re gonna have to talk to God when we die about what we did.
I can’t WAIT for this conversation, fyi. I hope it’s over tequila. I bet they have GREAT tequila in heaven.
But I love this idea: that we need to treat everyone as though they’re a son or daughter of God. Because basically, they are. I mean, in all honesty, in our day to day lives, do we REALLY have enemies? Of course we don’t. We have people we disagree with, people who aren’t doing what we want them to, or people who want us to do things we’re not doing, but nobody’s trying to kill us. Nobody is actively working for our personal destruction. The United States Of America, yeah probably. Amy The Writer? Not so much.
When you realize that, you figure out that most everyone is worthy of politeness, of respect, of being treated like a human being. As much of a misanthrope as I can be, I find it surprisingly easy to be polite to people. Especially people I would rather aim a flamethrower at. Because when you’re polite and nice to them, it totally throws them off their game. That kinda makes everything worthwhile.
“You will have to answer before God how you treated His son or His daughter.”
That one might be going over the computer as a reminder.
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