angst

The Shadow of Cain, Reflected in the Mirror

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It’s against human nature to point out our own flaws. No one really wants to take Jesus’ advice and remove the logs from our own eyes, so we can see clearly to remove the specks from our neighbors’ eyes.

Sarcasm, snark and mockery are the hallmarks of my generation, and over the years -sad to say- I’ve become a master of all three. I throw stones from inside my own glass house all the time. Sometimes the best way to try to cope with a broken and messed up world is to find the humor in it.

Hypocrisy runs deep through the fabric of humanity. It’s funny when stupidity happens to someone else but we are just as stupid- even though the stupidity may take a different form.

I have to admit that no matter what I do my image is shot through with the shadow of Cain. I plot revenge against my enemies (even if I don’t have the means or the heart to carry out said revenge,) and I have to admit I have a certain sense of schaudenfreude when those I perceive to be assholes and/or idiots get theirs. I shouldn’t enjoy it, but I do. Too much…which is not at all like Jesus, Who warned us that we risk the fires of hell whenever we call our neighbor a fool- even if he or she is one.

Confession doesn’t come naturally to the sons and daughters of Cain. Our instinct is to put on our fig leaves and attempt to cover up our wickedness with our own self-righteous justifications. As flawed as we are, we still want to play the merit system- and we want to believe that God grades on the curve.

No one is worthy before God on their own merit.

In spite of what I do, or more likely fail to do, I still come to the table like Isaiah in Isaiah 6, the man of unclean lips, a filthy, disgusting piece of nastiness in the sight of a perfect, holy God.  The shadow of Cain is shot through me completely and I can’t fix it or wash it out.

The only merit earned in God’s merit system is a merit earned outside of us, a merit bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Even so, we all try to justify ourselves like the Pharisee in the temple.

“At least I’m not doing that.“

“I go to church every Sunday.”

“I give to the church and contribute to Christian education.”

Very well. As you should.

But…

No matter what I do my good works are as Isaiah describes in Isaiah 64:5-6. The ESV uses the polite term “polluted garment,” but the original Hebrew of this text isn’t quite so nice. The actual reference would be more like a used tampon or a bloody maxi pad. Something unspeakably nasty, and those are the good things I try to do.

I am thankful that even someone like me- a sinner who has no right to stand before my holy God has been invited to His table. His fiery coal burns the evil from my lips. He removes my guilt. He gives me His clean garment as a gift.

I still live in the shadow of Cain until the day when my Lord sees fit to call me home. But He forgives my sins. He heals my diseases and is fitting me for life in His Kingdom.

Plus ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose- Except for the Scenery

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I don’t remember much from high school French, other than the old saying that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Maybe if our illustrious French teacher, Mme. Novatny, could have gone out to smoke fewer than 3 Virginia Slim Menthol 120s per 45 minute class period, I might have learned more French in three years than je m’ennuie tellement. (I am so bored.) Apparently the Gen X ennui wasn’t confined to the Marion Harding Class of ’86. We were exemplary at it, but we didn’t realize it was a generational trait. We were told there was something wrong with just us.

Fast forward 38 years, and the ennui remains. For me, so does the depression and the sense of being deprived. Our heritage and history were stolen.

We lived the fall of the 20th century, just as we were coming of age. In 1983, as we were cranking up the Frontiers album and Steve Perry reminded us that all the heroes have gone east of Eden, we were in a very real sense being banished from the utopian idealism of the modern age.

We weren’t born with silver spoons in our mouths. We were thrown outside to fend for ourselves while Mom locked the screen door and turned up the TV.

We were born in the fallout of the end of a golden age, and we were denied our own.

I struggled from the beginning- overworked, underpaid, living in constant anxiety and existential dread. Add two failed marriages, near death in childbirth, working for insane employers for 20+ years, and dealing with years of chronic pain and expensive chronic illnesses, and I am just as downtrodden and hopeless as I was in 1986. I have absolutely nothing to show for all the aggravation. I am not beautiful or wealthy or successful or well liked. Nothing has changed there.

Only now I know that all my striving wasn’t worth a damn. If I would have known where I would end up I wouldn’t have tried so hard.

Granted, I have taken more of an interest in learning a second language. I have been studying German for about three years. Ich bin müde, und hoffnungslos. Je mehr sich die Dinge ändern, desto mehr bleiben sie gleich…

I cling to God. That part is different because I was so confused and cynical about spiritual things when I was younger. I honestly believe that it is by the grace of God alone that I haven’t blown my brains out. Lord knows it has been a temptation at times.

If anything my life has been an exercise in futility. Perhaps I should read Ecclesiastes again, or maybe Job. I don’t have a right to question God. It doesn’t make the futility of life make sense though.

Torrential Rain, Self Evaluations, and Other Unpleasantries

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I like self-evaluations about as much as a one legged man likes being invited to an ass kicking contest.  Usually our esteemed fearless leader forgets about the yearly evaluations that are supposed to occur in June (fine with me) until the last minute and then he hastily goes over the paperwork and signs off on it.  I like it when he puts as much thought into our performance evaluations as I do into football season.  I am not a terribly big fan of the scrutiny of others, especially if they are going to compare their scrutiny of my performance alongside my own.

This year by some stroke of bad luck he actually remembered evaluation time in May which is unprecedented.  So we have all had plenty of time to peruse the self-evaluation portion of this yearly torture, and he will have plenty of time to grill us all to see how closely our version of our performance evaluation lines up with his.

I don’t know where to land.  On one side it’s not good to come across as a braggart tooting on your own horn, but on the other it’s not good to be so self depreciating that it’s the intellectual equivalent of donning a hair shirt.  I may not be the greatest thing since Steve Perry in Spandex, but I am good at what I do, even when people get on my nerves.

The happy little form we have to use sucks, too.   I would prefer a modern, on-line form because my writing has devolved into an almost shorthand scribble type script, and I am pretty much the only one who can read it.  It didn’t used to be that way, but I can type three times faster than I can scribble.  Efficiency, you know?  The other benefit of typing is that it’s harder to see the frustration and angst in typewritten fonts than what is angrily reflected in my scrawling.

Oh, to find a happy medium on that one!

I never knew Michael Jackson owned a Honda dealership in Wisconsin.  WTF was Michael doing in Wisconsin, where it’s cold and there’s nothing but snow and cheese and the Green Bay Packers- where Liz Taylor wouldn’t have been caught dead (even before she really was dead)?  Dude sure got around.  I saw this unfortunate Honda CRV on Morse Rd. the other day and just had to get a pic of it. I should have gotten a pic of the dead deer right next to the Stabbing and/or Shooting Weekly UDF & Mobil Station  on the corner of Morse and Sunbury Rd.s too, and the abandoned clothes and shoes in the turn lane across from the Goo-Goo Car Wash.

I can’t believe some of the names I’ve seen plastered all over dealerships.  Some of them sound like social diseases rather than places you would want to plunk down thousands of dollars to buy a new car.  If my last name were Fagnilli or Butts, or some other double-entendre type sounding moniker, I certainly wouldn’t advertise it, let alone use it to promote my business!

I know May is still Monsoon Season here in Central Ohio but come on!  It’s supposed to rain all freaking week again which sucks, especially if you’re a large dog who wants to go outside.

The illustrious Miss Sheena will almost inevitably be in for another surgery which also sucks.  I found another small mammary growth that I’m having the Vet check out Saturday.  I know what her answer is going to be.   The growth will have to be removed and biopsied at the very least.  My personal preference- if I am given one- is since she has had mammary growths before it would probably be more prudent to remove the mammary chains and associated lymph nodes as a precaution and also to avoid future surgery.  My fear is if the growth is removed and biopsied and if it is something serious, then the mammary chains and nodes will still have to be removed later, requiring a second surgery and another episode of anesthetic.  I will have to trust the Vet’s judgment, but if I am given the choice, my gut feeling is to do the radical surgery now, get it over with, and only put her under anesthetic once.  Large dogs have a higher risk of anesthetic complications, and mammary cancer is very common in dogs, especially ones like Sheena who had several litters of pups and were spayed after two years of age.

The SOS clinic said she did well with anesthetic for the spay and partial mastectomy surgery back in December, which is good- and our Vet had no problems with Clara and anesthetic, which is amazing given that Malinois are notorious for being difficult under anesthetics.  I am still nervous about it though.

Poor Steve-o.  In a way, maybe.  He freaks out so easy over the weirdest stuff.  Today he calls me freaking out over $10  because he thought Mom wrote him a check for $35 instead of $25 (her writing is painful to read too) which I thought was a major crisis- until I discovered he hadn’t bounced any checks or anything really sucky like that.  It’s still a good day if your bank balance is positive, but he’s not old enough to have the life experience to know that yet.  My son has lived a sheltered life indeed.  The POMC strikes again.

So Saturday is not going to be much fun- shlepping Sheena to the Vet and inevitably making her surgery appointment, getting the sticker for Steve-o’s rail buggy (more money down the drain) so he can have his summer fun.   It makes me almost wish I could get drunk.