It better be better

The church filled and the first hymn, a contemporary one, is flashed on the two screens in front and we got a hangover of Catholics here, a mournful dirge, subdued singing, how can I not be doubtful at what is happening on this day, the day of Divine Mercy.  Well who doesn’t need mercy, we all need it because we have a hard time believing anything is going to change.  We celebrated the risen Lord, though it’s not a celebration which involves alcohol, and a week later we still face the same everyday crap.  Oh Lord we need mercy more than ever.  God is in control?  We go deeper into space and there is no way we can’t not believe in a supreme Creator but down here it is ugly.  A divine paradox if you ask me.  Who asked you, no one. 

And I really shouldn’t sit in the back of this big place, the distractions are absurd, looking at every girl, thinking about box scores for crying out loud, thinking about and not hearing a priest’s homily that speaks of doubting Thomas, oh only if I could put my finger in your side, Lord, if only I could put my finger in the holes of your hands, I’d believe but after 2000+ years, faith is seeing, faith is experiencing, the multitudes of all faiths are weak because there is no experience and nature, God bless it, it’s not enough, nature can energize and can keep you close, but that intimate life changing conversion is from the supernatural and it ain’t here, it ain’t here for the Filipinos, it ain’t here for the Indians.  We just got no choice, what good does it do if we question our faith, what good does it do if you don’t.  It won’t improve anything, either way, right?  We need divine mercy because it’s all we’re gonna get as long as we live, because mercy doesn’t mean you find happiness or contentment, it doesn’t mean your troubles are over, your troubles will never end.  Never, it simply means your next life better be better than this life because if it isn’t #$%#@, I can’t imagine, I simply can’t imagine billions being duped, for two millennia, wait, go further back, to the beginning, and there is only the flit and flow of an energy we know.  I know my energy, squirrelly devil.    

Ya know I am not stupid.  All your concerns about others, the evil that has the world on its knees through no fault of their own, it’s you, isn’t it, the world suffers, you suffer, your concerns and the world’s concerns, it’s always been your veiled smokescreen, hasn’t it, if you were content, if you were happy, then you’d turn a blind eye to the world, right?  No, I deny it.  Today I saw an Afghani, a Pakistani, I’m not sure, sitting alone, slumped, in the shade of a tree and I tried to understand that my unhappiness in no way could be compared to the sufferings of this man, no money, no ambition, no future, I don’t really know, simply his body language suggested he wasn’t what he wanted to be, perhaps he has a family in a small village somewhere and he misses them, no, Johnny, your suffering, pathetic it is, will never come close to those who really suffer.  You’re right, I should be ashamed.  I have a gift, I should always be thankful for what I have.  I’ve stated it here before, I am grateful I am not sitting under a tree, alone, mourning loss, I am grateful, I don’t have a job where I earn $400 a month as a janitor, I am grateful I don’t have any health issues, yet.  Should I go on?

I think an easy transition to the states would include living somewhere where I am the minority.

Evening closes in, remain calm, keep the telly off, no music, the muffled sounds of traffic don’t distract, the ceiling fan circulates and feigns fatigue, a faint clop and clip in every rotation.  I bought four cans of soup and four bowls of thai noodle soup, add hot water only.  I’ll miss buying the fresh foods and greek yogurts, the plum cakes, the rye bread though it’s nowhere as good as the Jewish rye bread, hmm liverwurst with brown mustard, that’s all I want. 

Just sitting in the dark, listening to nothing but my rattling thoughts.  My problem is, and always has been, direction.  Of course the peninsula has been home for 14 years so I guess I’ve liked it enough, anywhere else, I just don’t know.  I wonder if Texas is similar to here.  Big open spaces, lots of desert, lots of people who don’t speak English.  Why not look, ahhh, I looked at apartments in Hamtramck, I always get this idea there are huge refugee camps occupying empty buildings.  No?

I could buy a car and drive up to Alaska.  Think the Inuits need a middle aged English teacher?  Ok, let’s practice comparatives and superlatives, ok, let’s start with you Chu, is your seal liver larger than Ikniqpalagaq’s seal liver?  Very good.