Come Roam the Gallery with Me!

There was this one time when you popped in here to see if I'd updated my blog, and I just happened to be standing there, and I said "Oh, hello there!" And you were so surprised, remember? Usually this place is deserted, so my presence was as unexpected as it was awkward.

We briefly exchanged greetings and quick pleasantries. I was just leaving, and preparing to set up the donation box by the front door to accept the 50 cents admission fee, but I decided to let you in for free that time, to nose around and see what goodies I posted for you that night. You remember, right? I bade you farewell, apologized for the mildly unpleasant lingering aroma (I mentioned a bowl of chili, I believe, in passing), and then left you to your devices.

You were relieved, of course. I mean, I'm a nice person to visit with on occasion, but you certainly don't want to hang out very long with me. I am quite annoying, after all. I tell the same lame jokes, my eyes dart around the room in that weird way I do when I'm feeling socially insecure, I shuffle my feet, I "casually" rub my nose on my sleeve a lot, paranoid that there might be something (shall we say) visually unpleasant in there...

Still, I sometimes post enough amusing items to make dropping by worth while, and that night you had 5 minutes to kill, so "why not?" you thought. Remember? So you moved your way through the gallery...

I'm sure you remember that night clearly. You stopped first by the Video Room...



But all I had posted was that video of a Chinese guy dropping a firecracker into a sewer and almost getting killed by the exploding manhole cover. Sure, you marveled a bit at how the man's jacket got instantly shredded off his body, and you were glad he and his kids were ok... but you questioned why on earth I would feel the need to share such a thing. Remember? You decided to give me the benefit of the doubt, and assumed I didn't have anything better to post. That was nice of you, thank you by the way. It was actually all about exploding methane...

So you left the Video Room and wandered the photo gallery. You saw the funny T-shirt design I posted, which was a riff on the "Can Haz Cheezburger" meme, but presented in the style of the old Soviet propaganda posters from the cold war...

While you generally find cats amusing enough, and you could appreciate what the artist had been attempting, nevertheless you found the color combination jarring and ultimately off-putting. You moved on.

Next, you saw that I'd posted a photo of a soldier over seas, holding up a letter he'd received from a well-intentioned schoolkid somewhere back in the states...

You chuckled a little, if you recall... and you tried not to read too much into the expression on the soldier's face. Was he more amused than concerned? Was he proud of that kid? Or did the letter drive home the truth that we'd been at war over there longer than some grade-schoolers have been alive? Will it end?

Pushing aside those thoughts, you moved on to a photo which could only be described as patently absurd...

You sighed, unamused, remember? People posing with statues, in an attempt to be funny. You paused... as you scanned your memory banks, you had to admit that there have been a couple of these types of photos that you've seen that have been funny... but this was not one of them. You plunged your hands into your pockets and moved onto the Theology Corkboard, hoping to find some reason to be glad you dropped by that night...

You skimmed my latest theological conundrum, and even though you vaguely recalled me waxing similar before in this blog, you had to admit it was an interesting topic to chew on.

"It's safer to not hear what God wants of you," I'd written. "If you don't know what God wants of you, you can't be accused of disobeying Him. It's safer to basically guide yourself through your day while keeping an umbrella of random Bible verses over yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. Be holy as your Father is holy. Don't lie or cheat. General verses/concepts that deal with the way a representative of the King should go about his or her day each day. But as for really buckling down and finding out something specific from God, as far as what He'd have you do *right now*? Talk about terrifying! What if He asked us to do something embarrassing? Or that we didn't want to do? Or that we thought to be impossible? If we find out something specific from Him and we don't do it... then we are in trouble! If we find out and we don't do it, we are disobedient and rebellious! Thus, it is safer to not find out, and rather live in vagueness, trying to live by general rules and guidelines, as presented in the Bible."

You knew that I wasn't advocating such a life, but was merely confessing my own faults in a form that gave me a little bit of distance, to avoid having it be too uncomfortable to read. See, I had no clue whether other people wrestled with the same thing or not... but I sure wrestled with it. It was true of me - by nature, I'd rather live each day trying to be a good boy than risk the punishment associated with directly disobeying the clear request of an easily-angered God... of course, the rewards for actually obeying Him (what a novel concept!) are worth the risk to any sane person (not to mention the fact that God will assist such a person endlessly, for obvious reasons), but the fear and selfishness within me combine/conspire to keep me in the dark, day upon day, as my life crawls by, sadly free of concrete examples of obedience... I am apparently content with a form of Godliness, but deny the power thereof.

You pursed your lips a bit and nodded. You decided it was worth stopping by the blog that night, if only to learn from me by "reverse example".

As you shuffled to the door, you dropped 50 cents into the admission box. Thanks for that, by the way. That helped to fund my next caramel macchiatto.

But you didn't leave a comment! O_O

Dave the Goof