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only jesus can kill you

I'm pretty bitter toward Jesus, right now, because He apparently compelled some drugged-up homeless guy to stand yelling His praises through a megaphone a few yards from my window for seven hours last night. I didn't fall asleep till after five o'clock.

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It really bugged me when Sharon referred to Habitat for Humanity as "missionary work." I hate the idea of missionary work, because I find it really ballsy to presume that one's own religion is so universally right it warrants smearing all over the world.

Anyway, the Habitat families want to have homes built for them, because, in most cases, they would otherwise be living and raising little kids in shitty apartments. Hopefully that attitude, that I was contributing to something these people proclaimed to want, doesn't make me a total missionary at heart.

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Nice segue into the spring break recap, though. It was kind of terrific, very free and self-empowering. I have a tan and good memories, many of which involve alcohol and/or dancing, and isn't that pretty much the net result of any good spring break? Luckily, I spent fifty-five dollars on the transportation in total, instead of the hundreds or thousands of dollars everyone else spent, and I actually accomplished something, in that, by the time I left, there was a complete porch where no porch had previously been.

My host lady collected butterflies, and she had, literally, thousands of them cluttering her house. Twice I came in really late and clumsy, stumbled around in the dark terrified of waking her up, only to find that she was still out herself, at some show or card party that had run past midnight. Crazy.

Hugh and I enjoy each other's car company, which is nice, because we spent a total of seventeen hours together in the car from Sunday to Friday. There were scattered passive-aggressive music wars--he wanted to listen to nonstop Ingrid Michelson and Rilo Kiley; I couldn't survive that--but it was nice, it was confusing. I'm fighting off an attraction again. Damn it.

Justin and I exchanged emails, which surprised me pleasantly. I wrote first, thinking he would maybe read it when he got home from China; I checked back six hours later, and he had written with a detailed account of his twenty-three hour plane stint and some of the weird stuff he'd seen on the streets in Hong Kong.

In my first return email, I proposed that maybe we should rethink the whole "let's not be physical" thing.

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"Only Jesus can kill you," ha.

It concerns my mother that I don't pray. Recently, especially, she wastes no opportunity to remind me that it's important and that I should. She claims it would help me feel more centered about things like guys, school and the future.

Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. ACTS.

Sometimes, when I go through experimental phases of trying to be a better Christian, I use the acronym to guide me through these stilted rounds of prayer. I feel so fake, doing it. I'm not sure that I adore God. My actions are mostly the products of a Godless internal dialogue, so confessing wrongdoing would take forever each night. When good things happen, I prefer to thank the people responsible.

That leaves supplication. I'm an awful person for it, but my prayers, when they exist, are mostly please-please-please in nature. Help me get a job. Make Justin ask me out for Valentine's Day. Better grades next time, please. Don't let me oversleep.

Regarding prayers of supplication, my mother has been known to say, "God only gives three answers: Yes, No and Wait."

Sometimes she says that to her church friends, and their jaws drop in admiration, like they can't believe how profound that is.

This is why I don't GET religion. Are we supposed to take it literally? If only Jesus can kill you, but He can do it any time He wants to, how is that better than chance? If God answers prayers with Yes, No or Wait, how is that ANY different from how it works for non-praying people? You either get what you want, or you don't, or it happens later, and that's how it goes for everyone, every time.

Lame.