Rock you like a hurricane...

I suppose that Hurricane Rita marks another milestone in my life. It is the first time that I have ever been truly affected by a hurricane. Like everyone else, I watched Katrina devastate NOLA and was moved by the plight of my fellow citizens. Michelle and I did a little; we gave blood and what money we could afford, but not as much as we feel we should have done.

Regardless, this hurricane landed in the middle of our living room, in a manner of speaking. Like HomeDipu, Kimbrough's Cove (I just made that up. Too cheesy?) became a temporary refuge for evacuees from Houston and Port Arhtur. Namely, Michelle's mother, brother, and grandmother.

It made for an interesting weekend. On the whole, I consider myself very lucky when it comes to in-laws. They have their foibles, as do we all, but they genuinely like me. I don't know if that says more about me or about Michelle's past relationships, but ... no matter. We get along well, and that's what's important.

However, when they're suddenly thrust upon you in the midst of a crisis, when they are worried about their homes, their jobs, and their future, things can get a little, well, tense. Michelle's mom, Marla, was utterly freaked out, trying to get any piece of information she could about what was going on, which resulted in us watching countless hours of inane news reports. As usual, nobody had anything new to report, but that doesn't stop them from babbling incessently about the limited reports they do have.

Marla's mother, Anita, bless her heart lives in Port Arthur, which was one of the few cities in Texas to take the brunt of Rita's force. I'm not sure how aware she was of what was actually going on, and we're still not sure how her house fared. Reports say only a couple of feet of water covered parts of P.A., but I don't know enough about the place to know where her house is in relation to the flooding. This added the element of us periodically speaking loudly at her (she's mostly deaf, but refuses to get a hearing aid, which is only for "old" people) and her responding vaguely or not at all

One of the highlights of the weekend, if you could call it that, was us taking in a movie at the Drafthouse: The Exorcism of Emily Rose. This led to a heated discussion about whether or not demon possession is real, which I suppose was the director's intent, but which ain't great when you're in the situation we were in. As it turns out, Marla and Eric, my brother-in-law, who is a few months short of becoming and M.D., are quite convinced that demon possession is alive and well on God's green earth. Michelle, of course, thinks this makes them a little superstitious throwbacks to the middle ages. Hence the "heated discussion."

Having said all that, we do all still care deeply about each other, and that is what really made the weekend tough. Everyone was trying their damndest to be nice. So we would argue over who would be nicer and give up their spot on the couch. Or we would clash over who was going to have the honor of doing the dishes. It truly is possible to be TOO nice sometimes, and if there was every a group of people who could kill you with kindness, this is them. But that is a story for another time.

Anyway the whole ordeal ended around midnight last night. The evacuees decided to head back to Houston in the middle of the night, to avoid the heat, and hopefully the traffic. As it turns out, it only took them three hours to get home. And once back to my mother-in-law's house in northwest Houston, they found the power on, and the house free from flooding or wind damage.
We were luckier that any of us had a right to be, though we still don't know the state of Anita's house in P.A. It could have been alot worse, that's for sure.

As soon as we got them on their way, Michelle and I sat in the kitchen decompressing over a few screwdrivers, and then slept soundly for the first time in three days. I hope that most of the people got off as lucky as we did.

It just shows us that Nature is still red in tooth and claw and that we are so often merely flotsam, tossed hither and yon in her path. If we treat her right, maybe she won't keep trying to kill us.

Can I get an Amen?

Ah, welcome back to post number two. I have to warn you up front, this post is going to be about religion. And it's going to be a very long post. So feel free to come back later. Maybe I'll talk about water softeners again.

I am inspired to write this because only yesterday, I was accused of being a communist and of abandoning the Bible. At the same time, no less! Well, I'll get into the communism thing later, but for right now I want to talk about the Bible, and the reasons for my response to that accusation, which was to say that I had not abandoned the Bible, I had simply abandoned organized religion because organized religion had abandoned the Bible a looooong time ago.

In order to put forth my explanation for this point of view, I need to do three things. First, give you a little Bible history alongside some current events. Second, give you a little personal history. And third, quote a little scripture. If this frightens you, let me apologize up front. I won't make a habit of it, and I promise it won't happen often. So here goes.

First, the Bible history. You may have heard, perhaps, of an ancient group known as the Pharisees. Now, I'm not a Bible scholar, or a scholar of ancient history, but my understanding is that these guys were the big dawgs of the Jewish religion at the time Jesus was striding across the landscape of the Middle East. They were the arbiters of the faith, they had power, they had prestige, and they had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. They were organized religion. And then along comes this revolutionary character, Jesus, and make no mistake, he was totally revolutionary. Jesus scared the...um...bejeesus out of the Pharisees, because he was systematically tearing down the entire system upon which they based their power and position. There natural reaction, therefore, was to seek ways to get rid of this revolutionary influence in their midst.

Now, flash forward approximately 2,000 years. We live in a country with people who believe very strongly in their faith. People who are led by men like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and George "Nucular" Bush. These men are the arbiters of their faith, they have power, they have prestige, and they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Does this sound familiar to you?

So I have to ask myself, in a different place and time, would these men and their followers be shouting for joy at the coming of a long-awaited Messiah? Or would they be calling for his blood and shouting "Crucify him! Crucify him!" It's just a little something to think about.

You see, as some of you already know, I was raised in the Church of Christ. It’s a fundamentalist sect. In fact, it’s the fundamentalistyist of the fundamentalists. So I have studied the Bible quite a bit in my day. I know alot of scripture. And my whole family still continues in this way. Everybody except me.

Lately, my brother has become even more conservative, for reasons that I do not fully understand, and he has used his faith as a reason to vote for the war-mongering, civil-rights-infringing, corporate-welfare-giving “nucular” cowboys that currently run our government. And he has accused me repeatedly of abandoning my faith and of abandoning the Bible. The thing is, I haven’t. And I know I haven’t, because I have read the Bible. Recently, in fact.

So I want to share with you a few of the scriptures that I found there. Feel free to bring these up the next time you are talking to one of your conservative Christian friends or relations about religion (which I don’t recommend).

John 8:7 But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

Matthew 26:52 "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Mark 10:21-23 ²¹Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." ²²At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. ²³Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"

Matthew 19:24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Matthew 22:16-22 ¹⁶They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" ¹⁸But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, ²⁰and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription? ²¹"Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." ²²When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Matthew 22:36-40 ³⁶"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" ³⁷Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

So, I don’t know if you’re picking up what I’m laying down, but these are the words of Jesus. And do you know what they say to me?

Jesus was a long-haired, bearded, sandal-wearing, socialist revolutionary! And that, my friends, is why I read the Bible. And that is what, someday, I hope my family will understand about me and my faith.

Until then, I guess I’ll just have to endure my brother calling me a “liberal” as if it is somehow going to magically become the insult he wants it to be, rather than the compliment I know it truly is.

And if you made it this far, you are either a true friend or a total masochist. Either way, I appreciate it. I won’t make a habit of this.

By the way, do you think I got ripped off by buying the $10 a bag water-softener pellets instead of the $6 a bag pellets?

The Moment of Truth

Well, hello there. Welcome to my blog. If you’re reading this, it means you are an acquaintance of mine, or you have really weird web karma to end up here. I won’t even ask what you were searching for to begin with. We both know it was porn…

Anyway, this is my first blog entry, and I’m not sure where to start. So, I’ll start with an epiphany, a Moment of Truth if you will, that slapped me in the face not two hours ago. Perhaps it will give you some insight into the person authoring this. So I begin:

I am an American. I am a red-blooded, football and Mom’s apple pie American. And by that, I mean that I am very often a totally selfish and self-centered bastard.

How do I know this? Because I have a water-softener in my garage. What does that have to do with me being a bastard, you ask? Well, let me explain.

I have hard water. It’s terrible stuff. It is full of minerals that cake up on every surface that the water touches, from my dishes to my shower door, to my very own skin. And so, to combat this, I have a water-softener. I would not ordinarily have installed such an item, but it was in the house when we moved in, so I use it. But it’s a total pain in the caboose. You have to keep it refilled with salt, you have to clean it, you have to wash out these tiny little pieces, you have to worry over it and fiddle with it to keep it in good working order so that you can have lovely soft water all the day through. I hate it. But I hate hard water more.

But Matt, you say, you still haven’t explained how this makes you a bastard. Well, here’s why. I was working on my water-softener this very night. And I was bitching about it…nonstop…to my long-suffering wife. I had to go out and get more salt, so I loaded myself into my big white truck, ya know, the kind that only total bastards drive (I’m looking at you Lisa Belle) and headed off to the hardware store.

On the way, I of course had to stop at a red-light. And of course, on the corner stood one of Austin’s many homeless people. And that’s when it hit me. I’m a right bastard. Here was this man, standing on a corner, homeless. And he truly was homeless, not one of those who would rather panhandle than work. His hair was matted and soiled, his clothes hung off a painfully skinny frame, and he hobbled slowly to take a dollar from the car in front of me. And there I was, passing by this homeless man, grumbling to myself because I had to go to Home Depot, a place designed exclusively for people who are fortunate enough to have a roof over there heads. And suddenly, I thought about this man, and the thousands of people who have found themselves without homes in the wake of a horribly destructive force of nature. And of the countless others who will soon find themselves in the same predicament, when Rita gets finished with the Texas coast.

And here I was, complaining, because I had the great fortune to own the home of my dreams, to be hale and hardy, sound of mind and body, fed, clothed and cared for.

I felt sorry for myself because I had hard water. And then I met a man who had NO water, and no food, and no shoes, and no home, and no hometown.

But there is hope for me. And that hope also lies in being an American. Because I have witnessed in the last few weeks what it truly means to be an American. I have seen the people who opened their homes, their lives, their wallets, and even their veins to help those who could no longer help themselves. And it is not the first time that I have witnessed this. It is where the true strength of our nation lies.

I am blessed to be a part of it, and I hope that I can live up to that legacy. We have come a long way, and we have a long way to go, and sometimes we’re right bastards. But then we are hit upside the head with a Moment of Truth, and it all becomes clear.

I don’t have a catchy way to end this, my first entry. So I’ll simply thank you for taking the time to read it and hope that you will come back and visit me. I might even tell you more about the trials and tribulations of hard water.