As Monica sat in front of her television, hoping against hope that her favorite American Idol would make it through the evening’s elimination, it would have taken very little time in her presence for any normal human being to discover that Monica was an idiot, in the classical sense of the word. She was incapable of the most basic of intellectual pursuits. She was irritatingly stupid to those people in her life that would have expected more from her. She was easily manipulated by anyone who possessed an even slightly higher intellect that hers. She basically contributed nothing to the world in which she lived, save for the continuous respiratory conversion of useful oxygen into poisonous carbon dioxide.

The problem with Monica is that she is not alone. In fact, she is a part of a strong majority of people who do and say and think the same things that she does and says and thinks. As a matter of fact, Monica would be the perfect representative of the group of American citizens who are inadvertently causing the fall from grace which scares the intelligent, red-blooded citizens of this country half to death.

Hopefully, through my illustrations of Monica – her life, her ignorance, her complacency, and her repulsiveness – I will be able to convince you to avoid what it is that she is.

Monica and Her Friends

Monica has many friends at school, inasmuch as a friend can be defined as someone with whom great amounts of time are spent fruitlessly. Her friends tend to be like her. They all dress very strangely – most likely in an attempt to lash out against something which they don’t truly understand: the establishment. They all enjoy the same, useless activities like playing video games and gleaning what passes as intelligence from a device called a television.

Monica’s friends, and sometimes even Monica, enjoy doing things that are established as forbidden. They do this because they wish to disobey, thinking that in their disobedience they can establish themselves as separate and independent individuals. What usually results from these reckless escapades, into activities that are forbidden for a good reason, is that someone usually gets hurt – sometimes obviously and sometimes not so obviously. Unfortunately, depending on the heat of the fire that these people chose to play with, sometimes the hurt and pain can be permanent. Seventy-two percent of adult alcoholics began drinking before it was legal for them to do so. Eighty-eight percent of women whose first child was born out of wedlock never make more than thirty thousand dollars a year.

Monica’s friends match her, mostly, in intellectual ability. For anyone to hang out with others of a different mental caliber would eventually draw attention to their lack of prowess. It is certainly not conscious that these stupid people seek each other out, since that would be an amazingly awkward question to start out an acquaintance with; “Hi, are you as dumb as I am? If not, I don’t think I will be comfortable hanging out with you since it will only serve to highlight my own moronic existence.”

Monica’s friends, and she for that matter, can never really count on each other for any meaningful assistance. In their ignorance, they lack self-sacrifice of even the most basic kind. If Monica were ever sitting on the side of the road with a flat tire and not the slightest idea regarding a way out of the situation, she could certainly use her cellular phone to contact her friends. They would all conveniently be busy when they discover that she is in need of something that will pull them away from the ol’ X-Box 360.

So, inasmuch as most people look to friends for support and camaraderie, Monica has no true friends. However, since she defines a friend as someone who helps to define her, she has plenty of people with which she can share a common feeling of uselessness.

Monica and Her Family

Monica, genetically speaking, is the result of a simple statistic: individuals in possession of higher degrees of educational attainment have sex less often. While the cretins continue to clone themselves in a way which brings almost as much satisfaction as watching someone get voted off of Survivor: Fiji, the intelligent people of the world are creating fewer and fewer offspring. The good news for Monica is that she will never be alone in her stupidity. As long as stupid people have little better to do than to have sex, and as long as those same people find it completely impossible to use contraceptives effectively, Monica will have many, many, many peers with whom she may find ignorance a common characteristic.

The down side, for Monica, is that uneducated people have to work more hours in order to make the same amount of money that smart people make working fewer hours. As a result of this, Monica’s parents are always working as much overtime as they can. Additionally, and to the dismay of said stupid parents, paying the payment on the double-wide trailer, the fishing boat, and the seven snowmobiles is amazingly difficult when you make less money because you are less valuable to the society that carries the weight of your existence.

Absentee parents are the worst kind of parents for a girl that seems incapable of making the most basic decisions correctly. Since they are hardly ever around to take part in their daughter’s life, Monica is a runaway Chevy with no steering wheel. While her parents work to pay for things that they don’t need, including one hundred and seventy channels of television which does nothing but pollute the mind, they continue to pay not attention to the fact that they are failing at the most important job that they have – raising a child which could some day contribute to our society.

In the best case, Monica might be able to overcome parents who simply aren’t there. Unfortunately for Monica, her parents cut her with a double-edged sword. Since Monica’s parents are extremely overworked and underpaid – as a result of being only slightly useful to the world – they usually have little energy or patience when dealing with their daughter. This results in bad parenting when they are around and no parenting when they are not. Let’s assume that fifty percent of Monica’s life is spent without any parental influence. The other fifty percent of the time, Monica’s parents are there, but utterly useless as parents – let’s give them a failing grade. That equates to a half of a half of the time that her parents are useful.

A brief history in fractions would suggest that this results in parenting that is twenty-five percent effective. Too bad for Monica.

Monica’s Past

Monica has never really shown a proficiency in anything. While she is at school, she annoys her teachers by failing to do her work. She doesn’t do her work because she believes that she is incapable of doing her work. This belief comes from Mr. Endicott telling her, as a fourth grader, that she would probably never be able to do anything more mathematically complicated than basic addition. This belief comes from Ms. Stephenson telling her, just last year, that she couldn’t write a sentence with a gun to her head.

This belief comes from even the most cursory glance at the mental proficiencies of her parents.

So, since she believes she can’t do the work, she doesn’t try to do the work. Academically, Monica has only received a grade better than a “D” twice, once as a gym student in elementary school, and once as a member of her high school’s wildly pathetic marching band. Monica always chooses not to think about the fact that her “C” was the lowest grade for anyone in band that year.

Monica’s Future

Monica will surely grow up one day. It happens to every teenager, to greater or lesser extents. She will eventually take part in fewer risk-taking behaviors, trading them in for dumb adult behavior like excessive consumption of television programming. What is certain is that, starting from the point from which she’ll be starting, Monica is never going to cure cancer or land on Mars.

In fact, the nasty chewing tobacco habit that she picked up just last week will give her cancer of the mouth when she is thirty-six.

The operation to remove the cancer will leave her with half of the bottom lip that she was born with and only fourteen of her teeth. She will speak for most of her adult life with a lisp that could only have been avoided if she hadn’t been such a stupid teenager.

Monica is going to be a pretty tough adult. As a result of being such an ignorant teenager, and carrying that ignorance into her twenties, Monica will be in more than one bar fight in her life. She will eventually develop the skills that it takes to be one of the last people standing at the end of a brawl. Hell, it’s not a college degree, but Monica will someday, sadly, take pride in it. She will, as a result of being a tough individual, be entirely stubborn and closed-minded.

Just what this world needs: another strong headed idiot who believes that they know more than they know and is unwilling to negotiate the true level of her own stupidity.

Monica and Love

Monica is, and will continue to be, mostly unsuccessful at finding and maintaining a romantic relationship with a male. This is the result of several key factors. Firstly, Monica’s amazingly low self-esteem will cause her to feel that she is largely unworthy of appreciation and affection. This will cause her to be the most needy mate that any man can ever imagine. High-maintenance has new meaning when we are talking about the needs of Monica.

Additionally, since the only romantic role models that Monica has ever known are her parents, she will have a very poor example to follow on what a romantic relationship should look like. Her parents are in love only in a practical sense – they allow each other to sleep in the same room and eat from the same food supply. They fight over the television remote on nights when professional wrestling conflicts with reality television – despite the fact that Monica’s father would suggest that wrestling is about as close to reality as one is likely to get on the tv.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am so sick and tired of the finger pointing.

It happens every minute of every day.  We all do it, we do it without thinking because it makes us feel better about ourselves to blame or criticize others.

It happens when the administrator of a school looks for the cigarette smoking student who almost sets the school on fire.  Would it be better if the administrator looked to themselves to see if an environment has been created by their hand where something like that is possible?  Perhaps.

It happens when the soccer coach is criticized by a parent who blames the coach for not doing enough.  Would it be better if the parent looked to themselves to see if they are responsible for allowing less than full effort from their children?  Would it be better if the parent looked to the players to see whether or not they are trying their very best?  Perhaps.

It happens when the student blames the teacher for not understanding what they are supposed to learn.  Would it be better if the student looked to themselves to see if they are responsible for trying as hard as they can to grasp the concepts?  Perhaps.

What has happened to personal responsibility?  Why is it that no one seems to look to themselves anymore for their failures?  If I screw up, shouldn’t I look to blame myself first and foremost?  But, no one holds themselves responsible for things anymore because it makes us uncomfortable.  It has become much more psychologically safe to blame the government, or the media, or the schools, or the foreigners, or anyone else for that matter for our problems or mistakes or shortcomings.  When did it become absolutely impossible for any of us to take an “ego hit” by admitting our part in failures?  What is so wrong about failing if you have tried as hard as you can?

A loss or a mistake isn’t something to be feared or hated, unless it involves less than total commitment.  Our society, however, leads us to believe that a loss is a horrible thing or that a mistake should be punishable by death.  I agree, to a certain extent, because failure without full effort should not be excused.

The best that everyone can do is give everything you have every time you try something.  Don’t ever do anything unless you are willing to do it with all of your might.  If you do this, then when someone points a finger at you, you can feel confident that you are not responsible, or as responsible, as the player or the boss or the parent who did not do their part.  If we all try very very hard, then it doesn’t hurt so bad if we fail.  If everyone did everything they could ever time, then the only failures left would be the ones that people can accept.

In life, we are all in the same boat, and as nice as it makes us feel to think that someone else may be responsible when the group fails, it is not fruitful to think this way.  I will admit when I have done something wrong, but I am sick and tired of people pointing the finger at me when they fail.  If failure happens and I am responsible, I will take responsibility because my full effort is always a part of everything I do.  But, DO NOT POINT THE FINGER AT SOMEONE WHO HAS TRIED HARDER THAN YOU.

We all must do our very best, or the failure falls on us.

how limited my view

to see the crystal blue curve

of the round horizon

as a flat line before me

as I sit to see.

the power of the moment

rich, snobbish loud patrons

sip expensively

in the lush, dilapidated restaurant

as I celebrate

my lifetime love.

and, the flat blue horizon

ends me.

how wonderful it must be

to be self-important

to speak loudly knowing

that others must want to hear.

as the twin suns

draw together to burn as one

I enjoy the gin,

and the bisque,

and the rectangular light

from the rectangular lamp

with my lifetime love.

I require only relative silence.

as the arrival of entrees

all over the restaurant

quiets the boisterous voices

I am truly touched

by the light and the heat

the fullness and the joy

and the universal connectivity

of all things

and I with

my lifetime love of it all.

Why is it that we are uncomfortable doing things that other people don’t do?

Shouldn’t we be uncomfortable when we are all doing the same things?

I look around, and I notice almost everywhere that people seem to be doing the same things as the people around them. Today, a coworker of mine realized that she was not doing the same thing that everyone else was doing, and she became very agitated. What further irritated her was that most of the rest of us aren’t matching up on our procedures. It is highly frustrating to her that we are all doing different things. I mentioned to her that, in the absence of a clear policy, the vacuum is filled by the random decisions of the masses.

And then, I got to thinking more about this. If we are all, in American society, mostly chasing after the same things and avoiding the same things and seeking solace in the same things, then there must be some policy that leads us to this. What policy (isn’t it interesting that ‘policy’ and ‘political’ have the same latin root) leads us to this? Is an organization that forwards policies a political organization?

Why do I do by default what everyone else is doing?

Should I be?

Perhaps, it would be better if I continued to do things that go against the grain, because running under the assumption that it would be good to be controlled by the same entity that is controlling them is not something that I’m comfortable with.

Be different.

I have figured out one of the most painful things about losing someone close to you.

It’s the sharing of your life with them that will never happen again.  The invitations to parties that you will never send to them.  The phone calls to share the events of an outrageous day that you will never make to them.  The advice on how to deal with Mom and Dad that you will never get from them.

We share our lives with each other, some to a greater extent than others.  I shared my life with my brother, who died 18 weeks ago on this Wednesday.  I lost someone with whom I shared my life, and now I share my life less.   It hurts to share your life less.

So, I’ve recently started reaching out to people around me, people with whom I’ve coexisted but with whom I’ve rarely shared much of my life.  I am reaching out to new people in an attempt to try to compensate for the fact that I don’t share my life with my brother anymore.  It’s been a different experience for me, to want to be around people that I usually don’t desire to be around.

Maybe, it’s just that I’ve come to realize how important people are.  When will they be gone, and I’ll have one less person to share my life with?

So, if you’re reading this, which I’m fairly certain that no one is, cherish the people that you share your life with.  Extend your sharing to others around you, so that they might serve to fill in the holes created by the deaths of the people closest to you.

And, pray that God will continue to provide you with loved ones with whom you may share the road.

Well, I have been sick for most of the past week with a viral infection (according to my doctor).  He said that they’ve been tracking the infection in other patients for about the last three weeks, and that patients with this particular virus have been complaining of cold-like symptoms along with excessive fatigue and a fluctuating energy level.

On Monday, I took the day off because I was feeling weak and a little stuffy.  On Tuesday, I felt better and went into work.  On Wednesday, I took the day off because I was feeling worse than I did on Monday.  I saw the doctor on Wednesday, and he wrote me a note for taking the rest of the week off.  I don’t really need a note, but I faxed it into the school anyway to prove that I wasn’t faking it.

Now, here I sit on Sunday morning, and I still feel like crap.  Today is Lilly and Sarah’s second birthday (Lilly and Sarah are my twin daughters)!  I am excited for them, and a little sad that Steve is not going to be at the party.  I still am experiencing the cold symptoms and the fluctuating energy level.  Yesterday, Jen and I worked really hard to get things ready for the birthday party today, and by the end of the day yesterday, I was exhausted.

When I think about the prospect of going back to work tomorrow, after missing almost an entire week, I am apprehensive.  I still feel poorly, and I am not looking forward to cleaning up the mess that is made when a teacher is out of the classroom for four out of five days in a school week.

Just another day on planet Earth!

It is so hard for me sometimes to do what it is that God wants me to do.

I think that I know what the will of God is for me: to be a good father, to be a good teacher, to draw near to him in worship and prayer, to grow with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

But I am often hindered by my brokenness.

I find it hard to do the things that He wants me to do, because my human nature beats me to the punch. Before I get a chance to think, “Would Christ want you to be doing this or saying this or even thinking this?”, I am doing or saying or thinking things that I end up regretting later.

I argue with my wife about things that are stupid and prideful. I get angry with my kids when they demand my time, time I would rather spend on myself. I am not getting what I want a lot, and I get angry and jealous and prideful.

I need less of me in my life. I want to kill myself, not in the sense that I want to end my own life, but in the sense that I wish that my pride and ego and self-importance were destroyed forever, so that I could do the things that God wants me to do without resentment.

Is there anyone else out there who wishes that they were dead, so that they could live for Christ?