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The Friday Night Inter-Denominational Social
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 671
Which, as I discover, has attracted a wide body of worshippers. A full house. 200 people, easy. Now somehow I misunderstood "Social", the social, it will follow after the half hour of singing, the worst "hymns" - if that's what they could be called - that I've ever heard. I mean, get an AI on it, pronto, there's probably no more than 20 different words in each one, repeated over and over...
There's a helpful Karaoke display on a big TV at the end of the room, in case you can't remember the lyrics, but I'm pretty sure you could, only the mind rebels at this level of inanity.
I mean, Gospel at least rocks.
And the congregation, this congregation, they've got to be - on average 70+ years old.
There are the regulars, from the restaurant, one, 60+ years old, is doing a "flag dance" with different colored flags, it's all a bit WTF, the low rent rave, and I'm thinking this party would benefit a great deal from some MDMA laced Kool-Aid and edibles...
Another, younger pastor, good looking, fit, but - well, it doesn't take long to figure out that he's found a great beard in Jesus.
There's a couple of short sermons, and then we're all instructed to get down to the serious business of Prayer. Now being raised Catholic I'm a little unused to what follows.
They assemble themselves in groups of 6, I'm with 5 other 70+ ladies.
We're given the prayer agenda for the evening -first of all, it's come to the attention that while other local towns have godbothering ratio of up to 53%, this town, this infernal little hell hole, is coming in at less than half that.
Which, all things considered, still seems a bit high, I mean, there are so many more interesting paths - there's the crystals, there's yoga, there's Buddhism, I'm guessing that the practicing Christian base is dying off largely due to the fact that there are better parties, much better parties, but that's my opinion...
Topics for prayer are, in order today, to beg for more Churchgoers, Good God needs more people to enter the fold. The next topic is Doctors and hospital staff, like every city & town in Canada, and the solution proposed is to allow the unvaxxed doctors and nurses to resume working....
I know.
And the next, well, a group prayer for one another.
This takes - all of them together, forever, and the group prayer is the worst...
But I'll start with the first one. God and Jesus both need better ambassadors to bring people into the fold. The pastors, both that I know, work for, are kind, reasonable people, but they're not coming up with the solutions people need.
The second, more doctors? Blame the politicians who spent the pandemic driving them out of the hospitals. Blame lack of funding. And - instead of praying for more doctors, pray for better health.
Then get off your asses and go for a walk.
The final one, well, you sit in a prayer circle with a group of 70 year old women praying for one another in that passive-aggressive "Jesus you were great getting me that last car, but I need something better..." and "I knew you meant well when you took my husband..." and "Lord help her to bear her suffering...." and you get the idea.
Basically the Lord has to listen to the complaints of older ladies that have exhausted and worn out their caregivers and friends.
No shit, this was brutal.
So, finally at the end, the "Social" part, say hi to the people you need to say hi to, talk to Tats briefly, he's found a new friend, Tats Color, with even more Tats than Tat and his all in glorious color, and they're comparing the illustrated biblical scenes they've each covered themselves with...
Visit, visit and meet a few others, then - time, time to help put away the chairs, dishes, time to wrap this roadshow up and get the hell out of there...
Later, at home on my sofa, unpacking, as it were, and it makes sense - after a fashion, I've not went down this rabbit hole, not since the internet made research so damned easy (but I will, I will), and I'm reading my current book, a 1923 book titled "Primitive Mentality", and this, an excellent read on the mindset of primitive stone-aged peoples, picked up the other day, can be no coincidence...
The Soup Kitchen
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 743
Out on Thursday, on my way to the Library, and, while standing and having a cigarette outside before entering whom should I encounter...
...but "Tat". I'll call him Tat because of his very obvious Tattoos. He's an old regular from the restaurant, super-nice guy, and we're talking briefly, he's working a job, just on his way to lunch, maybe I should come along? He'll buy...
...and I'm in the process of politely declining, don't care to be a bother, have work to do, bleah bleah bleah when he tells me it's at the Soup Kitchen. You know, the place above where I volunteer..
Now I'm in. Pride be damned, there's a reason it's a deadly sin, I'm in, like Flynn, I've never gone, I've never been, but - lets see where my labors are going...
So, first, a varied buffet of sorts, served up by volunteers, of whom there's a host upstairs I've never met.
It's busy, and I know quite a few of the people, it's busy, maybe 70, 100 people, there's the the Pastor that runs the Charity and another one that assists, and there's some of the street people and a host of other people that I know to see but not so much to speak to.
The "Church", if I can call it that, a large room that weekdays is the soup kitchen and on week-ends is home to the 'congregation', but - we'll come back to that.
So, catch up with Tat, move it from acquaintance into friendship, and I discover that his Tats are actually spiritual sigil's representing his belief in Christ...
OK.
OK.
The hook is set, and - clearly, I have my own interpretations, understandings of it all, remedial at best and certainly not worth sharing, it's far more interesting to hear what other people think...
And soon we're sitting with Pastor.... and Tat is catching me up and I'm asking about his ex and his kids and getting all this, and discovering a lot about JC that I never new, for example that Black Sabbath really weren't a bad band, I mean, read their lyrics (and here he's pulling some up on his phone) and wow- what do you know? I should pick up some of their records...
...and so forth, discovering that Tat knows various of the other customers from the restaurant, the Sunday Crowd, and that Tat has the gift of prophecy and can channel the Holy Ghost and that cute so and so is pretty good at speaking in tongues...
...and we're discovering a surprising number of people we have in common, mutual acquaintances, he knows Dan from the restaurant, Dan's been a good friend to him, and so on and so forth...
Meanwhile I'm trying to get a handle.
Discover that Tat knows so and so, great customer from the restaurant, and that - while I knew that So and So went to Church I'm discovering that Tat goes as well, and that - believe it or not...
...and wow, how long have I worked under this rabbit hole without ever suspecting it existed...
...it soon becomes apparent that the Pastor is the sanest one in all of Christendom....until he speaks, but for the moment he's largely silent, working off his charismatic reputation...
This is apparently one of the town's better kept secrets, although I've clearly known about it all along, it attracts a wide variety of the towns non-homeless and relatively normal people...I've heard from girls who've told me of guys wanting to take them there on a first or second date, and damn, I'm jealous, I've always prided myself on the low bar I've set for dating but apparently I can limbo down a little further, adapt a little better to the Kootenay life...
And so it goes, and I'm glad of the society, glad to know everyone a little bit better, and - "hey - there's a non-denominational worship tomorrow night are you going to come out?"..."of course, why would I miss it...." and this question will answer itself in another post...
Brothel Tokens from Pompeii
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1069
Found these interesting (via reddit): 
I mean, it seems a bit much, having to commit to one thing and one thing only so early in the game....
This Fucking Computer...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 545
Now, every day, memory warnings, I need to delete things so that I can update my computer. For what? What in the living be-jeezus-fuck do I need to upgrade this mf-piece-of-hp-chromebook-shit for? It has an OS that comprises 27 GB!!!! WTF!!!! I browse the internet with it, write in .txt and .rtf format, I don't run Word or Open Office or any photo-editing software, this - this - I mean, I have a browser - but - WTF!!!!!????
My God, my first computer, a TI/99-4A, 40+ years ago, worked way fucking better than this. Across the board, for everything, and sorry the internet didn't exist then but if it did it would have worked a lot fucking better. 8 Bit serial processor. 32 KB memory. We're literally - literally - 1000's of times faster here, for the same basic tasks, and the infrastructure, the delivery, is so overloaded, top-heavy, non-lean, bull-shit intensive that it can't keep up.
Now, I mean, watching porn - not that I do, not that I'd ever dream of or consider, but - watching porn - if I did, or dreamt of, would be more stop-motion than the original King-Kong.
No Kidding.
I can't have more than a single browser tab open at a time. More than that and this fucking piece of shit crashes. More than 2, 3 documents open? This fucking thing seizes and crashes.
That's OK, it keeps me focused. I get on this computer, I'm doing one thing at a time. One thing at a time. I used to have 20, 30 tabs open, now I have one. This one. One thing at a time. Breathe deep, focus...
But, mother of God, what a fucking piece of shit and what an unnecessary load of grievances for something that should be easily 1000 times equal to the most trivial of tasks I'm putting to it...
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