Update

Oi. I’m at the shelter. It’s the wee hours and all the homelesses are tucked into their beds which’re really plastic-covered mattresses on the floor. Hasn’t been much drama tonight – one of the regulars has been kinda agitated about the imaginary woman who follows him and makes his life difficult, but that ain’t unusual. I applied for a job earlier – Peer Recovery Specialist at a local agency that does peer recovery. A year ago, I’d’ve been beggin’ at the door for the job, but now I don’t really care. It’d be a decent, full-time gig, working with the people that I wanna work with, doing the kinda work I wanna do, but I dunno. I interviewed there a while back, didn’t get thejob, and I kinda got a weird vibe off the joint. When I heard they were hiring, I wasn’t gonna apply, but then I figured since it is so very much in the line of work I wanna do, maybe I should – like maybe I’d get some experience that’d really help when I’m ordained or some shit. So I banged together a resume and cover letter, sent it in. If they call me, I’ll go in. If they hire me, I’ll work. I don’t really feel that much about it either way – s’all up to God, really. That was the reason I finally decided to apply: I’m not making the decision. God is.

I’m close to finishing the two classes I’m taking this summer. The Intro to Literature class got less boring and annoying when we got through the short story section and into the novel – Kindred by Octavia Butler. It’s okay, as far as novels go, though I do not have it in me to give a shit about some made-up people and their time-travel troubles. The other one is psychology-related, so that one’s been a walk in the park for me. I’ll ace the psych one, pass the literature one.

I still gotta get a science, so I’m taking geology at the community college. There’s some other shit I gotta do for the BA. But the seminary is letting me take one class as a non-matriculated student, so I’m doing Bible:Telling the Story, which will finally be a class I’m interested in that relates to what I wanna do.

It’s been a little rough lately. Climate change has become pretty fuckin’ real – the sky here in Virginia has been hazy because of the fires in Arizona and Oregon. Asia and Europe are flooding. New version of covid dropped. Western Civilization falling apart – but being really slow about it. I’m ready to grab my kid and guns and go up to the mountains, but everybody else is just moseyin’ along like shit’s normal. I’m tryin’ not to get ahead of the process. The collapse of capitalist America is something I been hoping to see for a long time. It’s gonna be bad, but the new thing can’t happen ’til the old one is gone. There’s a chance, of course, that the new thing will look a lot like white supremacist fascism, which wouldn’t be nice, but I’ve considered that and I have some idea what I’d do.

Despair is a tool of the Devil. It’s one way he prevents us from building the kingdom of God here on Earth. Not giving into that is a huge thing for me, what with my genetic predisposition to depression, which is state of mind not unlike walking despair. Continuing to try even though I don’t see how the world around me can last another few weeks is about all I can do, so it’s about all I’m doing. I got the kid this weekend and we’ll be hittin’ swimmin’ holes and such, so that’ll be a welcome break from the daily doom. And I’m getting my head around the idea that taking some classes that I may or may not have any interest in is just how my life is. I was thinking too much about the end of the process – when I get ordained. That will likely happen someday, but it won’t be today or tomorrow. Makes more sense to do what I gotta do today and not bother with what happens later. Actually, that’s something like something Jesus said (Matthew 6:34).

Continuing to continue.