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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Hell: Calling God to Hell
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Smudgie
Ship's Barnacle
# 2716
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Posted
[TANGENT]
quote:
Originally posted by Lucy H:
quote:
Originally posted by ChrisT:
Singularly unhelpful, LucyH, but you meant well. And maybe that's the problem. You meant well according to what you understand, according to what you know.
Unfortunately that's all I have - meaning well. It was an offering not a solutionn And btw ouch!
Chris, I am really sorry but I am going to have to say something here, I can't just let this pass.
I know that it has been expressed earlier in this thread that people should be allowed to rant without shipmates trying to offer advice or discuss, and that is fair enough. I am in no way questioning that as the way this thread should run - how could I?
Sometimes, though, it is hard to read all this hurt and anguish and say nothing; to hold back from wanting to put an arm round a shoulder and try, however clumsily, to comfort; to run the risk of seeming heartless and uncaring and like that God which people are describing as oblivious to their cries or like those well-known "friends" who suddenly disappear at the first sign of being needed.
How do I ever know what is going to be the right thing to say and what is going to be unhelpful? I cannot - nobody can. I can only go by what I know and what I understand, whatever that may be.
Yes, perhaps I should stay silent. Yet that's not always the right thing either, and sometimes tentatively reaching out to someone in pain takes more guts than I have. Dare I say that for all of us, when we are hurting, it is easy to forget or even choose to ignore that others have feelings too?
Perhaps you could have conveyed the same message as "I personally am too hurt and angry for that analogy to be meaningful, but thanks for caring." Because just maybe that would make the difference next time, when Lucy's words may just be the message from God which someone - not you, perhaps, but someone else - just needs to hear and she holds back from saying them because caring is a risk.
Sorry, this is probably unhelpful too.
[/TANGENT]
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Miss you, Erin.
Posts: 14382 | From: Under the duvet | Registered: Apr 2002
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
No, you're right Smudgie. I was off-beam with my comment and lashed out at Lucy. I have, in fact, PMd her earlier in the week apologising for this and hopefully it is sorted.
However I hope you understand where I am coming from. I am not for one minute suggesting that we are not to reach out to each other with comfort or compassion, but rather that the best expression of that is not in words. And it certainly, at least for me, is not in the pious and innappropriate words I have heard many times from 'well meaning' people.
Maybe I just need to learn how to take things better ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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Nunc Dimittis
Seamstress of Sound
# 848
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Posted
quote:
you created an opportunity for us to lance our boils.
Ewwwwwwwwww! ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
Posts: 9515 | From: Delta Quadrant | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ophelia's Opera Therapist
Shipmate
# 4081
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Posted
Enjoyed it did you? My totally fucked-up evening. Cheers. And those followers of yours? Completely fucking useless... I guess you should just nuke us all - go on, go ahead. Get the lemmings all blasted - 'oh nooo' then that 54321 countdown and oblivion.
Oh, and I know it wasn't much suffering as Good Fridays go. Completely my own fault I'm sure. One stupid mistake after another. So much for relaxing a bit. If I don't do everything to organise everything including myself it all just falls to bits.
And why am I even talking to you? What the fuck do you care? You dumb dimwit incompetent crazy rabbit owning brat you!
OOT
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Though the bleak sky is burdened I'll pray anyway,
And though irony's drained me I'll now try sincere,
And whoever it was that brought me here
Will have to take me home. Martyn Joseph
Posts: 979 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Feb 2003
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welsh dragon
Shipmate
# 3249
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Posted
So, there I was, sitting very glumly in the Maundy Thursday happy Christian meal. And I thought with relief of this thread. You bastard, I thought. Everyone I love is dead. I would have been so happy to have had a family of my own to love and care for. I have so much love to give. And all I really want is someone I can love who will love me back a little. And I don't see what more I can do to help that along. I have tried *so* hard to do the right thing, I have followed the way best I could back to you.
I have changed traditions to be closer to you. I have put up with gossip and insults and little rejections and some very boring sermons (not if I can help it though re the last one). I have joined fellowship groups and pastorate groups and I have sat through evenings of Christian nice chat, just like I am doing now. I have even started waving my hands in the air again.
And what do you do? You leave me stranded on my own, trudging off to look after other people's problems all day, smiling and consoling and martialling resources and landing exhausted in a prayer meeting in the evening - and then facing a lonely house and a slew of disappointed hopes at home. All I want is someone I can love, someone who can understand how important you are to me, someone that I can share my hopes and dreams with. Why on earth is that so hard? Why did you make me like this then? I wasn't made to be alone. I wasn't made to be happy in a relationship with someone who can't understand why I want to go to church either. And I want someone to buy silly little presents for and share jokes with.
And so I struggle on, trying to do the Christian thing, trying not to look desperate - though I might feel desperate sometimes, trying not to cry in church - and sometimes failing - trying not to say anything embarrassing. And then there is a glint of light out of the faltering, choking, blushing impasse and the wasteland of first dates that don't come to anything and I follow it tentatively, cautiously, hardly daring to hope that there was an answer, and the response to a gentle knock is another door shut politely and kindly in my face.
Why is my life like this lord, I wailed (silently), and what are you going to do about it?
And God said (and I mean that metaphorically, I'm a psychiatrist, I'm not talking hallucinations here)
1) You have a vocation
2) You are choosing to ignore it
3) How do you *expect* to be happy then
4) And what are *you* going to do about it?
And my response was
1) To start dancing (it's okay it's that kind of church)
2) To initially feel really an awful lot better
3) To think, well, that doesn't really help, that's another complication, no no God, what I *really* need is....
4) Oh. Shit.
Anyone with any helpful advice on this one, advice is welcome.
Posts: 5352 | From: ebay | Registered: Aug 2002
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welsh dragon
Shipmate
# 3249
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Posted
Okay, well if you post on this thread you get some really interesting PMs. Thank you for the kind and supportive PMs. I am feeling much better now than I was on Thursday night, please note. Confused and a bit tired, but better.
Re-reading that post, I felt it wasn't altogether accurate also - the closest members of my family are dead, but there are certainly many people that I love, a fair few of whom are on the Ship.
I was very much reminded though this morning of a time - again Springtime - when I had fallen in love for the first time. The young man in question had been rather good at telling me how nice I looked and was the most devout Catholic I knew. He also had photos of his little brother and sister perched on his desk. I thought this might be What & Who God Wanted For Me.
It Wasn't. And it wasn't what the young man wanted either. He went off instead with a young lady who had a bit more social cool. I was heartbroken and far too crushed to tell anybody what I had been feeling.
But I told God.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked. "Are you really there? My life feels as though it is worth nothing to you. I want it to have some meaning. I want to feel as if you are real. Send me to do something that will matter. I'll do anything. I'll go anywhere, India if you want me to go to India, oh, anywhere. Just don't leave me hurting and alone like this"
And as I walked out of the service I saw a poster asking for volunteers to go and work that summer in an Indian leprosy colony.
I felt that God was having a bit of a laugh really, but I also felt I had sort of given my word. I had been praying at the deepest level of my being.
So I went.
And when I was there I got interested in medicine and ended up training in the following years...
As for my first unhappy love interest, the girl with more cool married him but left him for another woman. He tried to take me out years later, but his idea of a fun evening - the Last Night of the Proms - was not mine, so I left it at that. I realised by that stage that we had little in common.
So maybe that relationship wouldn't have been right for me, though it was certainly what I thought I wanted at the time.
I am a bit concerned though at the parallels. Do I only listen to God when I am in the middle of a load of emotional angst? (Maybe)
Is going off and finding a vocation in order to put a bit of meaning into my life becoming a bit of a habit? (Pun on habit not intended)
Do I need another vocation - isn't one vocation enough?
Maybe vocation isn't the right word to use anyway - maybe series of expensive and emotionally draining hobbies is more like it...
And, please God, when you get round to it, please please could you sort out the emotional side of my life? I get the impression it isn't terribly important to you, but I'd really appreciate it...
Posts: 5352 | From: ebay | Registered: Aug 2002
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Annie P
Ship's galley maid
# 3453
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Posted
(Annie is about to get fried, I can feel it).
Somtimes it feels like bashing your head against a brick wall, one which reaches up to Heaven and seems like a barrier which can never be over come.
I've read this thread since it started, and again I say that it's been really difficult, words have failed me. I was thinking yesterday whether we would be better off giving stuff to God, even when we can't feel him or know he's there. Or are we more comfortable holding onto our hurts and pain, because we wouldn't know what it would be like without them? How would He replace them? Since we have become so used to having them around, what would we do? What would we think about instead? I find that increadibly scary.
In my own situation, things that happened 10 or 15 years ago still effect the way I see myself or think others see me. Will I ever be completely free?
My perception of God is coloured by the fact that I do truly believe that God loves me. I have thought about it as I've read these posts and I cannot believe that this isn't the case. However, I do not lord it over those who do not think that or feel that at this time. Instead, as I've said before, I will pray for you,listen and try not to judge, and hope that you can see it too.
My trap is that I seek approval from everyone. If I am being useful, helpful, understanding then people need me and will love me, right? Could anyone love me just for being me? If I was comletely useless, would someone still want me?
He saw me there, just me, no one else who was in that room. I looked up and saw him, looked into his eyes, and he smiled at me. Piercing blue eyes which captivated me, and I couldn't look away. He came over to me and took my hand and helped me to my feet. I could feel the strength in his arms. He placed a ring on my finger and kissed my hand. There, just then, in that moment I knew that even if I was nothing to anyone, I would be everything to him. I was his, and he was mine, forever. Even if I cut him into tiny pieces, kicked and ingnored him, left him for someone else, every piece would still cry out "I love you". Real love, not gooey stuff that goes off in a week or two. Not just physical attraction, the real stuff.
I don't know how that's helpful, but being single is hard, I've had my heart broken. But occasionally, when I can stop for long enough, I find him there and some how, for a while at least I know things won't be this way forever.
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Older now, but not necessarily wiser.
Posts: 3248 | From: stockton-on-tees | Registered: Oct 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Smudgie:
Sometimes, though, it is hard to read all this hurt and anguish and say nothing; ...
How do I ever know what is going to be the right thing to say and what is going to be unhelpful?
There is a story in Sumerian myth, of Ereshkigal, goddess of the underworld, raging at the light and what she did not and could not have. Her sister, the bright queen of heaven, went to visit her in the palace and was stripped of her finery and ended up rotting on a meat hook.
Enki (god of wisdom) took some dirt and fashioned two little mourners out of clay and sent them down into the underworld. They didn't give her advice, they didn't try to talk her out of it. They listened and they wept with her. And Ereshkigal calmed down, and Enki was able to rescue the body of her sister (Inanna). And the light returned to heaven.
This thread has reminded me of that in many places. I could not have posted when I first felt a sense of estrangement from God. I was much too bitter, and furious, and I hated him. There is some guilt involved in all of this of course. At some stage in your spiritual life you almost certainly feel that you probably shouldn't think this way. But what is coming to the fore is salt-in-the-wound, ugly, excoriating, uncivilized, raw honesty. That honesty is the only way out of the desolate, dark palace of the underworld. If you lie to yourself you will stay there much longer.
Here, well-meaning advice is simply irrelevant, and mostly meaningless. More than one person has said on this thread that it wasn't the advice or the pious comments that helped, but hearing the cries of others. Enki's little mourners in practical action. The desire to reach out and comfort others is an excellent one. But there are times when, like giving someone a hot sweet cup of tea after an accident, it may not be the right, or the best, thing to do. If people on this thread are raging at the light, there's nothing you can do for them except listen. Telling them that the light is beautiful is not what they want to hear right now.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Ariel ![[Not worthy!]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
To all of us in pain: ![[Love]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
To God: ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif) ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif) ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
To make this properly hellish, please assume that I've inserted a long string of bad words.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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auntbeast
Shipmate
# 377
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Posted
Posted by Ariel
quote:
There is a story in Sumerian myth, of Ereshkigal
Thanks for the reminder of this myth. It is one of my absolute favourites, one which I spent a lot of time with a while ago. I was always struck with how Inana had left instructions with her assistant (whose name escapes me) that if she was not back in a certain period of time to go to Enki for help, and Enki sending the mourners to Ereshkigal, saving Inana. It intrigues me to examine where in my own story I play all the characters in one way or another, then to look again at my story and see how other people have been all the players. WHen I am most choked at and abandoned by God I wonder whether what I need are some little mourners to validate my anger and pain but what I want is Enki to blast the hell out of the underworld and bail me out. So many aspects of this story to consider again, a very good one to think on over Easter.
Hang in there all.
Auntbeast
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"My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal" - Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)
Posts: 820 | From: Vancouver, Canada | Registered: Jun 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Re the "little mourners":
I'm reminded of the little "worry dolls" from Latin American cultures. As I understand the practice, you tell a doll your troubles before you go to bed--and then you can relax and sleep, because *you* aren't carrying your troubles.
Sort of like a therapy session.
Pictures of worry dolls
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
..... but cheaper
P
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Peronel
The typo slayer
# 569
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Posted
Okay, God, we know we're evil. We get it already. We know you hate us. You've made that so abundantly clear that we'd have to be even more stupid than we are not to get it.
We're so sorry we dared to think that that might not be the case, that we dared to hope. The arrogance: thinking that just maybe I could be acceptable to you, inspite of all the evidence to the contrary.
But please, please, please stop hurting people/things we care for? We promise not to bother you ever again, just please stop. We know that we sully the sacraments just by our presence. We know that we are unredeemably evil, that we turned and walked away from you, that there is no forgiveness for that. But please stop hurting/killing the innocent. Because it's not fair.
Peronel
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Lord, I have sinned, and mine iniquity.
Deserves this hell; yet Lord deliver me.
Posts: 2367 | From: A self-inflicted exile | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
((((Peronel))))
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
((((Peronel))))
Ditto.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
We know that we are unredeemably evil, that we turned and walked away from you, that there is no forgiveness for that. But please stop hurting/killing the innocent. Because it's not fair.
This is Hell, so ...
I refuse to think of myself as unredeemably evil, unless you meant that in a spirit of sarcasm. We are not evil. We are not good. We just are. And most of us fluctuate in good and evil between on a day to day basis but the presence of one quality does not mean that we are wholly that quality. I can't blame God for Iraq, or child murders, or the abuse of power in a country that means the leaders may keep the food supplies for themselves and the rest of the people starve. This is the work of other human beings. Apart from natural disasters, much of the suffering in the world is man-made. Which is extremely unfair.
The world is imperfect, and I don't know why a supreme being or creative force would deliberately create something flawed. Perhaps because a perfect system wouldn't evolve, but why is evolution necessary when you have attained the ultimate anyway?
What a waste of time asking questions is. I have shouted this one into the darkness periodically for some years and there has been nothing, not even an echo, by way of response.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Peronel
The typo slayer
# 569
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Posted
quote:
I refuse to think of myself as unredeemably evil, unless you meant that in a spirit of sarcasm.
I'm sorry, Ariel. I meant me. I have a tendency to use the plural to refer to myself when I'm particularly overwhelmed, and I forgot to edit it out. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) ![[Embarrassed]](icon_redface.gif)
Didn't mean to refer to you, or to people in general at all.
I meant me.
And I wasn't being sarcastic.
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Lord, I have sinned, and mine iniquity.
Deserves this hell; yet Lord deliver me.
Posts: 2367 | From: A self-inflicted exile | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Ariel--I think Peronel was being scathingly sarcastic.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Nunc Dimittis
Seamstress of Sound
# 848
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Posted
quote:
I'm sorry, Ariel. I meant me. I have a tendency to use the plural to refer to myself when I'm particularly overwhelmed, and I forgot to edit it out.
Hey. The tendency to use "we" to express individual grief/sorrow/pain/other emotions has plenty of precedent... Check the amount of poetry written.
It makes me sad though, to think that you think yourself irredeemably evil. I wonder what sad sadistic bastards have imbued you with that notion, because it is so false... Noone is irredeemable, not even the Devil (and he's got to be worse than you).
((hugs)) for you; I sincerely hope your experience will change to one where you are lying in the embrace of a forgiving and loving God...
Posts: 9515 | From: Delta Quadrant | Registered: Jul 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
One can also use "we" because one is royalty. We certainly do.
Peronel, we believe you may be related to us. Your Great Aunt Catherine was our Second Cousin Aldric's half sister, through a morganatic alliance. Therefore your blood is as blue as ours, and you are entitled to use the plural. Step forward child, that we might break a bottle of champagne over your head.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Sarkycow
La belle Dame sans merci
# 1012
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Posted
You know God, a person could seriously go off you. Especially with the steady grind down that you seem to specialize in.
So what's your excuse? That it's a result of human sin? Sorry, don't buy it. I mean, yes, tangentially I can see that might possibly excuse the crap that's been going on for the last two months. But it doesn't explain/excuse the crap over this last week. That's not due to human sin.
Oh right, shit happens? Yeah, well it can stop bloody happening to me. Go pick on somebody else for a change.
All-powerful God (don't even get me started on the problems I have with that) and yet you can't be bothered to lift a finger to help. Would giving me a break just once in a while really be so bad?
Viki
PS No hugs please, I'm British.
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“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Remind me; what is it the British do instead of hugging one another?
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Sarkycow
La belle Dame sans merci
# 1012
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Posted
Shake hands - only I can't, cause I might catch SARS. One can never be too careful
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“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
They pause for a moment in embarrassment and then make a light remark about something completely unrelated.
I have a hellish toaster of my own. It cost 5.99 at Argos, and produces slices of curved, wavy toast with a patchwork pattern.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Sarkycow
La belle Dame sans merci
# 1012
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Posted
You know what God? You can stop taking the bloody piss; fuck off and play with someone else's life.
Now.
Just.Fuck.Off.
Cause I don't want to know anymore. I don't care. I am not playing. Find another puppet with strings you can pull, cause this one ain't yours to play with no more.
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“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
Whoa.
I am becoming more convinced of the appropriateness of conceptualizing God as something that emerges out of the order of Creation rather than as the Person in Charge of Everything. So long as God is conceptualized as the Person in Charge, people are going to get really angry when things go wrong.
In the Old Testament we get the picture of God as a super-person with whom you can chat. In the New, there are other strains that God is a spirit or presence that can be sensed and experienced but not really engaged in a two-way conversation.
If we are the Body of Christ, perhaps God is latent in us and thus in Creation and is only manifest when we act toward one another in a Christ-like manner. It doesn't make sense to tell Love, Caring, Compassion, Health, and Prosperity to stop bothering you and making your life miserable. But it does make sense to do so to a God who is supposed to supply you with these things but instead supplies you with Suffering and Sorrow. Or allows you to be so supplied.
Instead of telling God to go away perhaps we should summon God from each other. It seems to be happening on this thread, and working.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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Sarkycow
La belle Dame sans merci
# 1012
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Posted
Or alternatively we could not bother with the concept of God in any way shape or form.
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“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
Viki, that's not a bad idea. Where do I sign up?
ChrisT
Society for Humankinds Abolishment of God (SHAG)
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
ChrisT ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
I presume the theme song would be the Beatles' "Imagine"?
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
........ it's the only shag he's likely to get this week .............
P
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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welsh dragon
Shipmate
# 3249
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Posted
Hello God.
Well, you know what weird little jokes you are playing at the moment. I hope you are enjoying yourself. You sardonic old Creator you.
If anyone has a moment to spare from being pissed off, do you think you could say a prayer for me this evening please...
Posts: 5352 | From: ebay | Registered: Aug 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
{{{Welsh Dragon}}} (in absence of a prayer smilie)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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that Wikkid Person
Shipmate
# 4446
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Posted
A song I wrote to God a couple of years ago:
Who Are You Anyway?
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I know you're not like Santa Claus
Although you know who's naughty nice.
I don't say "I've been good all year, so give me this"
You don't have a sleigh...do you have advice?
'cause I can't help but wonder
because I just don't understand
I don't know who you are anymore
I don't even know who I am
I know you're not like Jupiter,
You're more than Zeus in one his foul moods
But some days you help, some days you smite
most days I don't get a reason why
Though I don't mean to be rude...sir
I know you're not like my father
Although your standards are almost as high
If I'm your son, I'm more prodigal than prodigy
Scared to come home and I don't know why.
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We have only one truth and one reality. Let's make the most of them.
Posts: 1007 | From: Almonte, Ontario, Canada | Registered: Apr 2003
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that Wikkid Person
Shipmate
# 4446
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Posted
That was supposed to be "Though you know who's naughty or nice"
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We have only one truth and one reality. Let's make the most of them.
Posts: 1007 | From: Almonte, Ontario, Canada | Registered: Apr 2003
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
God, I am so very, very tired.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Tracks down God. Goes into a fury of kicking, screaming, hitting with a foam bat, and throwing paint balls.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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sophs
Sardonic Angel
# 2296
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Posted
Ok God. This is it. I am so lost and confused and angry I can't think straight. But i know one thing, i know that you are a bastard and i hate you. i really really really hate you.
All i want is to feel you near. to feel that you care for me, to feel that you love me. i want you to be the god i was told you would be: someone who comforts and heals people, someone who cares. Is that too much to ask God? is it to much to want to feel your love and comfort? Why can't i god? i'm looking for it, i'm searching for you...i'm crying out to you to come and help me...and where are you? why do you go in my darkest moments? why is it when i need you the most you leave me, you leave me to pick up the pieces of my "life".
Why are you there for some people God? Why do some people feel your love and others don't?
I know why you do this god. i know why you leave the ones who are hurting and broken, i know why you hurt people and cover them in crap til they loose all hope of some better life and just give up. You are a sick bastard. You enjoy seeing humanity suffer. you enjoy seeing people crying and pleading for you to help them. You like seeing them powerless and scared, you like seeing them try to trust in you and try to hold on, whilst you watch them slipping...
Posts: 5407 | From: searching saharas of sorrow | Registered: Feb 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Sophs
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Clay_Pigeon
Mathematics
# 2516
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Posted
God!
Why is it that you only seem to take the good ones? Why is it that you only seem to afflict those who earnestly strive for you. Don't give me this blah blah purifying fire blah blah blah rebuking those you love blah blab blah preparing us for the afterlife bullshit. What I see is that one of the most tenderhearted, kindest, most enthusiastic students I have losing a father -- and a wonderful, loving, engaged father at that. I see a kid who could only talk to me about computers at his father's calling hours because when he talked about anything else he burst into tears.
I know you're there Lord...in the hands and feet of the people who love that family...abiding with those who hurt. But why the hurt in the first place? It's not right....it's just not right. Did you just forget all of the pain and heartache that you experienced when you were down here? You'd think you would have drafted up a new plan once you got back to Heaven....at least something where the good don't die young.
It's just not right
-Troy
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THAT'S IT! NOW I'M PISSED!. You're so off my prayer list.
-Was Once Troy
Posts: 599 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Mar 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Just reminding you that I still exist. I've been around for over 40 years, and you still haven't found any use for me. Except occasionally, when I get tired of the way things are and try to change them, you throw up a quick brick wall so that I'm back to square one again. Are you finding this amusing? Because I'm not. If you haven't got any use for me, do the decent thing and abolish me. If you do have a purpose for me, just tell me what it is instead of watching me blunder around in some kind of eternal fog. And what is all this business about snatching away everything and everyone I value? I'm not supposed to show any signs of enjoyment?
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Hugs to everyone.
(Assume insertion of Mandatory Hellish Thoughts (tm) here.)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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sophs
Sardonic Angel
# 2296
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Posted
Thats it God.
I.GIVE.UP.
now. forever.
i don't ever want to speak to you, or hear about you again.
you are a complete bastard and i hate you.
good bye.
Posts: 5407 | From: searching saharas of sorrow | Registered: Feb 2002
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welsh dragon
Shipmate
# 3249
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Posted
Hello again God.
Erm, I think this is the lull in the middle of the storm. Lull is good.
Sorry for shouting.
Oooh I wish we could just go for a beer and have a chat. In a none-too-overwhelming non-incendiary way. You must get so fed up of all this. I love you really you know. Does anyone ever buy you birthday presents? Or care about what your favourite music is? I bet you don't like an awful lot of the music you have to listen to. Clumsy choruses and dirge-like hymns. And we can't understand you or talk to you very well, and we blame you for things that are our own fault, and we are too scared to be honest about what we feel, when that is what you really want from us. And you put up with it all, and you love us to death.
Ohhhhhhhhh.
Sorry, God.
Posts: 5352 | From: ebay | Registered: Aug 2002
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sarkycow:
Or alternatively we could not bother with the concept of God in any way shape or form.
Well, Sarky (and ChrisT), I actually think that not bothering with the idea of God is quite a good move. In the long run, I even find it helpful. Because the shit is still there, but there's no-one to blame and yell at. So what then?
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
So God, "your eye is on the sparrow." What are you doing with the other one? Some folks down here could use your help. Have you only got one eye?
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
This ain't a follow on post but I think it belongs here.
Look God I am fed up with being preached at about the ressurection! I mean it. Escpecially how that should make all the difference to how we cope with things. Well I find coping with life pretty hard work and your ressurection does not give me anymore energy to cope with life than that of none christians. Indeed because they do not bother with you they seem able to take decisions that save them trouble where as I end up expending myself to no purpose. I end up fatigued and exhausted trying to do the best I can at loving the people around and I do not seem to get one ounce of all that joyful energy that is supposed to come from the ressurection. Is it all a charade? Do we have to wait until we die to get it? or for you kingdom to come?
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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MadKaren
Shipmate
# 1033
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Posted
Oi God
Whats going on? Why am I here, getting ever more into debt, constantly worried about what happens in x months time. Why can't we find jobs that allow us to get rid of this bloody millstone? I don't even want a lot of money, just enough to not have to keep worrying and stressing and juggling cash to pay off the usurious sharks chasing us. I liked the last job, why did it have stop? I thought You might even want us here, but why are we still struggling with stuff. I mean struggling. you don't have to worry about red tape in a language you barely speak to try and sort things out. The whole thing makes me feel so damn useless...as if I've not had enough dealing with the fucked up sense of self esteem for years.
You know sometimes I wonder if i can go on doing this, and knowing that I don't really have a choice...
And lets not start on this mornings debacle - or why your church can't agree about the one thing thats supposed to bind them together...
</incoherent rant>
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Why do people who claim to love God embarrass him in public?
Posts: 866 | From: Jumping along the line between genius and insanity.... | Registered: Aug 2001
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harmony hope
Shipmate
# 4070
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Posted
I feel so deeply for all of us who are or have been through periods of great unhappiness and depression when life just feels totally unliveable and pointless and there is no reply to our despair.
I have ranted & raved, begged & pleaded, prayed & prayed (why?) for release from this and finally, after almost 10 years of on-and-off hell, (lots of counselling & learning to counsel, and a really exhausting exploration of my faith), thanks be to God, I have reached an okay place where some days are actually rather good and I feel more able to cope.
My experiences nearly killed me (literally) but I have been made stronger & yet more humble by them. I understand things now about my life that I could not before.
Not sure if this helps. My current happiness may well come & go & to everyone suffering now I wish with all my heart that I could help to ease your pain. We all suffer with you.
I believe now that God was listening all along, even when I tried so hard to escape Him, and he has held me in his love for all this time.
I have absolutely no answers for the developing world/suffering (earthquake in Turkey)and feel sick to my stomach about it - the 'how can there be a God if He allows so much suffering' argument is one quite rightly often thrown at me by others questioning my faith.
All I can say is that I DO believe - it's a very simple faith now - but I am lucky, I live in a prosperous country, I have medicine for me and my young children etc. It is a very personal tourment that we in the West endure, of mental illness, depression, and a no less real tourment for that.
I pray the clouds will start to lift very soon for everyone who suffers this despair - I feel very passionately about this and trust that God does too.
Harmony Hope
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'God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can and Wisdom to know the difference.'
Posts: 645 | From: gentle rolling Oxfordshire countryside | Registered: Feb 2003
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Amorya
Ship's tame galoot
# 2652
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Posted
Y'know, Lord, I read this thread and it makes me sick. So many people here are angry and upset, and want to have it out with you once and for all. If everyone here is anything like me, they'd give anything and everything for one little nod of the head from you, saying "don't give up yet, it'll get better". But for some it's just been too long.
I've been thinking about this when I was at Spring Harvest. I know in my head that you only want what's best for me. Mentally I know you're there looking out for me. I even know in my head that you have a plan. But I'm having a damn hard time believing it in my heart. Why is it that when I just want a little reassurance and I cry out to you, I get nothing back? One word would give me peace enough to keep on going. But instead I have to lie in bed for hours on end crying, or drag a razor blade across my skin, because I can't cope.
You really were my last hope. Now I'm about to give you the old middle finger, but I've no clue where I'm going now.
Bastard.
Amorya North
Posts: 2383 | From: Coventry | Registered: Apr 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Hugs to everyone--or waves from a safe distance, if you prefer.
Amorya, please don't hurt yourself!
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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