um....

so here i go again; i have been suffering from months of writer's block. actually, as i have previously hinted, i am a slacker. but here i am away from the rush of gotham city with nothing better to do but entertain you with this unique view into my thoughts and what not. egotistical? perhaps. but even the noblest long to express what is on their minds. so bear with me, noble samuel, as i once again attempt to return to the regular updates you were once accustomed to.
here is what is on my mind, and for those of you who don't know me forgive me for bringing this up. i am about to give you text with no context, yet in this case (and many others) ignorance is bliss. wow, that is a lot of disclaimer.
anyway, i cannot seem to shake my past no matter how hard i try. it is like a sore in your mouth that you can't stop licking but it is that very action that prevents the healing. in my head i keep saying, stop licking dammit, but alas, it is no easier than playing pick-up-stix with my butt. still i am saying nothing, my thoughts have not yet been written....i can't shake the ghost of pullman's infamous self-worshipping church. it plagues me in the moments i least expect it, it interferes with many an interaction and comes up in too many conversations. kudos to those of you who have managed to escape the death grip of the intellectual activity this place still seems to require. yet, i cannot leave this confusion...sure there was good but it is not the good the good that leaves the bad taste in my mouth and thus it garners very little of my attention.
the whole concept of this "church" is still too much for me to understand. how does a place that perpetually abuses its members stay around. so many certain successes, beautiful marriages, and happy families have been sacrificed on the proverbial altar of this place. and for what gain? bring us your tired, your hungry, your humbled masses; and we will manipulate them, exploit them, and when they become wise to our violation we will ostracize them. yes, that which they told us in trust we will broadcast to our members as a deterrent; publicly disgracing person after person. please bear with me as i try to put this entire scheme in plain english and i welcome your thoughts and corrections to my interpretation.
lff is some twisted monarchy that rules with an iron fist. somehow people get sucked in (by the friendship of the evangelism department). come to church, and i will be your best friend until i am sure you are going nowhere, then kiss our friendship goodbye. "fake" would be the most fitting word. its all a sham, people pretend to care and that is just where the pretending starts. isn’t Christianity about truth? how about this for truth.

would you like to come to church…here is the fine print. you need to give roughly a quarter of your gross monthly income to us, yes you heard right a quarter after all we need to pay our pastor $140,000 a year because yachts, gaudy rings, and water front property don’t come a dime a dozen these days. we also need you to pull your weight around here. this may include but is not limited to, weeding, sweeping, cooking, cleaning, babysitting… oh wait we forgot to tell you we need you to do all this at our church and our house. in addition, since we are the pastors and very busy with our meddling we expect you to, clean our home, raise our kids, fix our cars and yes, fold our underwear (parachutes.)<---sorry that was low. and to thank you we will tell you how to run your life, because you are obviously incompetent and we, in our non-underwear-folding superiority know best.

anyway, how can people be so blind to the double standards, the utter fakeness of this elaborate counterfeit, the lies, the control, and the nepotism? i am puzzled to say the least…i cannot quite place my feelings. anger? no. but i have not yet become indifferent and that is the problem. how does something like this continue to exist? how do these people delude themselves into thinking they are part of the solution? how can I put this all behind me? i don’t even know what I am trying to say. i apologize for saying so much while managing to say absolutely nothing. i welcome your feedback, help me call a spade a spade and then perhaps i can pull out my spade and bury the hatchet. ha, too many clichés for one sentence.