{i love & hate you all[

On understanding people. Or at least trying to

Posted by Christopher Jones
March - 27 - 2008

That would actually be an awesome post title for something else, but I will let it go for now in deference to the band who got to it first. It seems my local radio stations must suck, because the first I remember hearing of The Black Keys is on Erin’s iTunes share at work. I’ve had the Magic Potion album on repeat for about a week now.

Your Touch – The Black Keys

Just Got To Be – The Black Keys

Love it or just admit that we can’t be friends anymore.

Also excellent is the album 102% by the New Mastersounds. They are funk/soul jazz, so they may not be everyone’s taste. They should be, but I can understand if they are not.

I’m serious about the Black Keys though. Just walk away.

Posted by Christopher Jones
March - 22 - 2008

So I was thinking, and have been on and off for a bit, of just making a series of posts called “I know it’s terrible”, as it seems that that what I want to call most of the posts that cross my mind of late. Since that seems overkill as the posts are often in little way related to each other beyond revealing some twist in my mental process, I just made a new category instead. Yay for wordpress.

So tonight I am sitting in church and someone has a prophetic word during worship and says, “Is it not enough that I died for you?” Now that may not be the exact quote, but it is only off by a word or two if not. Of course, as expected, people had the standard reply that yes, dying was enough. Enough for what? No idea, I find lately that people are oft light on details. This leads us to my “I know it’s terrible” moment. So…

I know it’s terrible, but my first thought after the initial question was “no”, followed in a moment by “no, of course not”. Ok, maybe I don’t know it’s terrible. Am I wrong in this? Did anyone else catch it and was just too polite to force a rephrase? I did note that one of the leadership did say ‘yes, the blood is enough’, which implies in my mind a different ‘enough’ than the original question, so perhaps it was subtly corrected then, or maybe I just heard a question being asked what wasn’t really asked.

I’m positive the speaker’s heart was in the right place, but intentions have never been good enough for me in those settings. Words have the power to sway crowds, so when you are in a group setting, your words need to be very accurate or you risk causing confusion later. Remember, individuals are smart. People/crowds are bleeding idiots.

Is it enough that a woman give birth to a child? If a mother throws her 2 year old out on the street, was it enough that she cared for the child for the first two years? Is it enough that she went through the pains of labor for her child? Assuming the child somehow survives, is the child expected to later respect and love that mother? You might can pull that the child should honor her mother (Exodus 20:12), but beyond that? If the child never wanted anything to do with the mother again, would anyone blame them or say they were wrong? I wouldn’t. I doubt you would either.

Of course one single act from the past isn’t enough. Though as I said, enough for what was never asked. Legally enough? Enough to cover our sins? Well then sure. But that’s like asking if 8 billion dollars is enough for that car I want. Of course it is, that was never in doubt. Since we already know the obvious, the question should be about something else. Is it enough that we don’t need anything else? Is it enough that we don’t want anything else? Is it enough that we should be ok on our own with what we know now?

Then no. No. A thousand times no.

Related Blogs

Posted by Christopher Jones
March - 16 - 2008

I let her walk out on me. I think she’d have gone anyway, but I just sat on the floor and watched her go. I didn’t stand in her way.I figured it was her choice, and you can’t hold someone if they don’t want to be held. If someone really wants to be free of you, you have to let them go.

Well, fuck that, fuck that all to hell. Don’t go, please, don’t go.

I love the way your hair shines in the light. I love the way you smile when you’re not trying to hide or impress anyone. I love your laughter. I love the way your voice can hold sorrow like the taste of rain.

I love the way you watch her when she moves through a room, when you don’t think anyone’s watching, because it’s exactly the way I watch her.

I love your eyes.
I love your pain.
I love you.

Yeah, I don’t know. I just really like the line about your voice holding sorrow like the taste of rain.

For proper disclosure, as always, the above is pulled with minor edits from a Laurell Hamilton book I am currently reading.

Posted by Christopher Jones
March - 13 - 2008

One thing I finally noticed in the past two weeks or so… or perhaps ‘noticed’ is not correct… perhaps it was simply recently that it really started too annoy me… is that I do not think I have had an intelligent conversation with an adult while there was a small child they like in the room in about a year. Perhaps two. The only true exception I can think of being if I was at a restaurant, in which case the child (be they 1 or 41) is on good behavior and not running around grabbing the attention of every ADD adult in the room.

Maybe this is me being petty, but I can think of 3 conversations recently that were immediately halted due to some child walking/being brought into the room. I don’t mean that we were talking about something we should not speak of in front of children. It was as if you waved a laser pointer at a cat and they had to go get it. If not actively go mess with the kid, then conversation immediately turned the kid’s way (or to whomever had them, talking about the child). Dead stop in the middle of a sentence. I’ve had people I was talking to stop talking due to some child and I’ve been flat out ignored in the middle of speaking because a child entered the area.

I’m trying to decide if I am being an idiot or if the whole world around me simply loses all respect for other people when a child enters. The only decent reasoning I can come up with to explain it is that people feel that once the child grows up, they will no longer have the same opportunity with them. A “you’re only young once”… er, “they’re only young once” type thing. The flaw is that the statement is true for everyone. March 13th, 2008 only comes once. It doesn’t matter if you are two years old or seventy-two.

All ditching someone in mid conversation does is tell them that their time isn’t important. Maybe that is true. But damn it, have some tact.

Flickr

scan0032scan0023scan0031scan0022scan0035scan0051scan0046scan0049