Work was sort of alright for once. I comforted this lady whose window had been broken and her house set on fire by vandals. I hate when bad things happen to nice people, but I like it when they get routed to me, because nice people make you WANT to help them, not feel like you HAVE to help them.
Then speaking of which, I had a woman whose house was flooded. That's not that weird, but on top of it she'd just had a baby a day or two ago, she was moving and didn't even know if her policy would cover the damage because she'd forgotten to update her address, and her mom has cancer too. She cried on the phone, the big racking sobs that I cry to people on the phone. And said, "it's just so much all at once," the way I have said "it's just so much all at once." I just wanted to reach through the phone and hug her and tell her I know exactly how she feels. I hate that someone so nice was under so much stress, but I liked being a sympathetic voice on the phone for her. It probably didn't help her that much in the grand scheme of things, but I liked being a help to someone who feels like the way I do.
Lastly, I helped a guy who was a total chode more than I had to, and it made me feel like someone who IS nice and does help even people who don't deserve it.
Which is something I've been worrying about lately. I don't know what it is about stress, but it starts making me worry even more about even the things I don't have to. So yes, I've been worrying extra about serial killers. I wake up in the night, and have to check to see if there's a serial killer in my house before I can go to bed again. I lock & close my windows even though I'm 3 stories up.
But the other weird thing I worry about off and on is armageddon. I think the reason why it creeps me out more than just dying for some other reason is that it means that God exists, and I'm probably going to go to hell. Being tortured FOREVER just seems like an unequal reaction to ANY sin. Like... even if you molest children for 60 years, I can see being tortured for 120 years. But like if you shoplift, do you deserve to be tortured for 120 years, much less forever? Or like if you're Hitler, maybe you get to feel everything every Jew you tortured feels, times 2 or 3. But forever? And me... I haven't done much that was actively bad, but I'm not exactly a good person. I give the minimum money to charity, and no time. I've never really done anything unselfless or good. I slide by in every situation doing the minimum. And I've not accepted Jesus in my life, because even though I really do believe in hell, I have trouble believing the good things. Plus, God seems like a dick. I know you're supposed to have faith and whatever, but stuff like Hitler and child molesters don't deserve to exist, I don't care what it does in your goddamn plan. You're god, you're so smart, you can figure out how to teach someone their lesson without it. And man, couldn't you have warned us about the goddamn serpent? Or made us smart enough to realize he's a dick on our own? And speaking of dicks, old testament god is such a bastard. I may not have given to charity, but I've never smited anyone, killed children to prove a point, or turned someone to a pillar of salt for feeling sorry for bad people. But there's a lot of natural disasters and wars, and it's been like a generation since the Jewish people reclaimed Israel, and my dad insists on talking about those first two things when he's not just yakking away about my sick mom & grandpa and I worry that the world is going to end and I'm going to hell forever.
2 comments:
well at least you won't go alone, since I'm apparently going to hell for sex before marriage :-D and gossip... definitely gossip.
It's natural that someone under the stress you have would worry more than usual. As a Christian who considers himself more than a little familiar with the Bible, I'm disturbed with the "going to hell forever" doctrine. It seems to me that most people get their ideas of hell from Dante and whatever pop culture spinoffs you get from that vision. Certainly a lot of folks, even Christians believe that's what the Bible teaches, and most churches seem to have a variation of this doctrine. I don't think that is a reasonable reading of scripture. Yes, Bible-based Christianity should teach about a final judgment, but not humans being tortured forever.
This is not the place for a theology lecture. But when this subject comes up, I feel compelled to say something -- to object to this doctrine, which I think is pernicious and makes God out to be a monster. Eternal judgment (which is not eternal torture -- it is death and nonexistence) is for the incorrigible. You aren't incorrigible, are you? What you've written shows that you want to be a good person. We are all weak, and God's intention is not to fry us for our weakness, but to help us grow in understanding, love, and strength.
Anyway, it's one worry you probably shouldn't have to deal with right now. BTW, my Dad died last year of cancer. Just give your mom whatever support and love you can. That will give her comfort in this transition.
eric
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