It's a Mark Twain quote and I have been toying with using as a title for some weeks now. I don't mean to further scar my fellow VVMS classmates who remember the hell of those posters and no one being able to use a quote someone else was using. In the words of LL Cool J, don't call it a comeback. Sure, I could use my own words, but seeing as 70% of my brain is song lyrics OPP (Other People's Prose) comes to mind first.
Happy 2012 everyone! We have put 2011 to bed (THANK GOD!) and now we build a new year that is better than the last. I decided to wait to restart this blog for that reason. I wanted to be done with 2011. By far one of the shittiest years of my existence...well, at least on a human level.
I have been thinking a lot about my original intentions here. I have been thinking a lot my strengths and weaknesses and what makes me tick. I have been really realigning myself and whatnot. It helps that I have spent the last eight weeks in a physically hard job that has afforded me a lot of opportunity to not think at all. I quit because I was completely disillusioned but couldn't put words to it...my own or other people's. It's a weird place to be. Everything going progressively wrong and all the fun being slowly sucked at lightspeed out of life.
I know everyone has been there where they just don't understand what is going on and they find themselves feeling like for every step forward they take they get donkey-kicked back three years. I felt like I had been making so much progress. Life was good, but there were strange inexplicable flares.
One of those flares involved church. I thought I had found a church that I would be with for a long while. I enjoyed and got much value out of the weekly services but when I tried to be of service it left me flat. People were standoffish. Little things were happening and all signs were pointing to stop. So, I did. We did. I still miss it a little. However, no one probably misses us as they perpetually confused us with another couple...even after nearly two years...so they probably haven't even realized that we are gone.
That's really were things got heavy. The whole what to believe quandary. Eventually, we decided to just go to the church around the corner. I like it as long as I steer clear of the 10am service. Seriously, I don't know why but sitting in a "contemporary" service is like sitting in a room full of chalkboards being scratched on by Freddy Krueger.
The eventually happened after finishing two books: How to Know God by Deepak Chopra and The Reason for God by Timothy Keller.
At one point, I was reading them simultaneously. Talk about a mind-blower. Aside from starting at this new church, I find myself reading a lot more spiritually oriented material and even my Bible. I am up to Acts, and it is interesting to say the least. I find myself wondering why I didn't get most of this growing up. Seriously, there is a lot missing in church education. Anyway...
I am going to leave this post with this sermon. Call it a turning point, if you like. I got something out of this particular sermon that I needed. Granted, "gifted" has a certain negative connotation to me. It has for a long time, so knowing that helps shed light on what moved me. This is from the dreaded 10am but it's the same message I heard. That's right, 11:15 show is same as the 10, except they don't serve veal at church.
November 20, 2011 Barry DeShetler The Journey: "Mary of Nazareth" from Christ United Methodist Church on Vimeo.
More later as apparently I am holding up a trip to get iced coffee.
It's good to be back.
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