That’ll get ya an article about some missive from some conservatives at the Vatican about how transgender people are confused or something. The title is “Male and Female He Created Them”, which is from Genesis 5:2, ” Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them “Humankind” when they were created”, that being the New Revised Standard Version version because that’s what I use.
I started this post about a month ago. I was gonna go off on a rip about how nobody with the possible exception of some old Opus Dei codgers at the Vatican and a few semi-literate Pentecostals take the Creation story of Genesis literally anymore and then follow up with some more of my jibber-jabber about how God wants diversity and how modern gender roles are constructs of the same secular world that we, as Christians, ain’t s’posed to be of, though we are obliged to be in it, at least for a while. At least, I think that’s what I was gonna do. Seems like something I’d do. But it’s been a month or so since I did anything here and things’ve been going on.
I’m living in the house that I was trying to buy. The whole process keeps getting stalled and put off by the underwriter or somebody. A couple days ago, the mortgage agent texted me good news with many exclamation points so maybe the closing will happen this week. I am cautiously optimistic. The closing has been scheduled and put off many times. I’ve been painting – got the little girl’s room done. She picked the colors, so it looks like an Easter egg. I’ll start on the living room next. Or the bathroom – they’re gonna be the same color so it don’t matter. And I’m still banging away at college. I’ve decided to change careers, that’s new. There’s an agency in town that does peer-to-peer counseling, which means that crazy drunks who have been sober and relatively sane for a while talk to crazy drunks who are crazy and drunk. I am a crazy drunk in the former category and I have some education in the mental health field, so I’m qualified for the job. There’re a lot more homeless people around town this summer than I’ve ever seen before – MAGA! – so there’s work out there. I figger working with the homeless will help me gain some experience that might be useful when I become a pastor which is still the five-year-plan. I applied for the job. I have several pretty good references in the mental health system and I know several people at the agency I’m applying to, so it could happen.
I been working on the novel – I think I mentioned a novel – or alluded to a long, creative writing project. It’s an allegorical faery tale of sorts. Pilgrim’s Progress meets Alice in Wonderland is one way of describing it, though that leaves out that it’s trying to be a poor man’s Finnegans Wake, written by an American Lutheran instead of an Irish Catholic. Whether anybody ever gets a chance to read it, or wants to if they get the chance, remains to be seen.
I have been working a lot, too.I worked four or five Sundays in a row, then asserted that I’d like to go to church and somebody else could cover a Sunday shift for a change. I didn’t know how much I’d missed church, but the first Sunday I was back, it was like a wave of relief rushed over me. In just six months, I’ve really taken to the beauty of Lutheran ritual. I love the whole thing – though I still could live happily with less of the hymning and more silence. There isn’t enough silence in church. Also, the new associate pastor seems like a nice kid, but the sermon is the least important part of church. I’ma have to paint that on the wall of my office when I get my own church.
I’m also gonna paint some stuff on the walls at the house. Like, over the front door, it’s gonna say
“Praise the Lord, all you nations!
Extol him, all you peoples!
For great is his steadfast love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!”
That there is Psalm 117, the shortest Psalm. And I’m thinking that over the bathroom door I’ma paint
“Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.”
which is from Psalm 25. I’ma paint that backwards so it reads right, over my head when I’m looking in the mirror, brushing my teeth.
Some other stuff will go other places.
But I wanted to post something here in case anybody actually reads this. I’m not giving up on it and now that I got internet hooked up at the house, I can actually do this occasionally.
Luther von Wolfen 