Black Gold and Unphiltered: F as in Faith

Black Gold and Unphiltered: F as in Faith: Please read how to lose friends in 5 minutes or less.....:) Easter Night could be the best night for this or the absolute worst.   Either wa...

F as in Faith

Please read how to lose friends in 5 minutes or less.....:)

Easter Night could be the best night for this or the absolute worst.  Either way I’m going for it.  I may not have any friends left when I’m done because this is going after just about everyone I know…..but I’m gonna let it go because it has bothered me more than anything for decades……

You see I feel like I am constantly mediating between two halves of the entire human race on a daily basis and it comes down to this:

On one hand, very few (or not enough) people know that my faith and my relationship with God, are insanely important to me.  I’m very defensive of them and am constantly battling with people who feel intelligence = atheism, or science disproves God, or whatever the argument may be….. I’m just as excited about every science discovery that comes down the pike and it all jives completely with the God I believe in……

BUT…..

On the other hand, I cannot stand many of the Christians that I know, or read about, or see on TV….or maybe I should say I cannot stand how misguided they are and how they, in fact, treat others. I think the entire Western church, especially the AMERICAN church, has morphed into something it was never meant to be or look like and I don’t blame many for fleeing FROM it…..

Where does that leave me? Feeling alone, defensive, and angry.

So how can this possibly be and how did this subject even come up? Let me ‘splain!

In my attempt to express my happiness during the Easter holiday and show my pride in my faith, I included an excerpt from the Gospel of Matthew as a status on my Facebook page this morning…Easter morning.

Ironically, and perhaps hypocritically to some, this followed on the footsteps of a few posts from the night before that had a few…or more….F bombs…or insinuated F Bombs…..

Ex: after every Pirate win we all shout in the ‘burgh “Raise the Jolly Roger!” and we abbreviate it with RTJR in writing…….in all my vituperative wisdom (how about that $5 word Ms. Fleming!)  I have morphed it into RTMFJR…..I’ll leave the MF to your imagination…..ok this year I even added a B at the end……never mind.

Anyway…. My dear, dear friend, the great Robert Rowen-Herzog (we’ve been best buds since the age of 8 or so…) threw the typical type of jab that has peppered our conversations as friends for 30+ yrs as a reply on my Facebook page.  He wrote, “What Gospel is RTMFJR from?”

Ouch.

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Ok, I know this may come as a shock to some of you but I am a somewhat emotional person…..ok maybe more than somewhat……..all right I’m a f……ng basket case.

But if I could get you in my head for maybe 7 seconds you’d say, “ooohhhhh….now I see” and maybe you’d understand.   Emotion rages through me perpetually like I’m a shaken 5 liter bottle of Pepsi, and keeping it under control is something I’ve been struggling with for approximately 36 yrs…..at least that’s how far back I remember wanting to cry, laugh, and punch someone all in the same second…..sorry Damon….I hope it didn’t hurt that bad…..

Ya ya ya….therapy, meds, anger management, blah blah blah……been there, failed at that.  Not much I can do….I’m Phil. Short of a brain transplant, I’m stuck being a wreck and an emotion junkie.  I thrive on it.  I actually can’t function without it….There was an actual time years ago when my life was so good I may have actually “missed being depressed”……..God I wish I was kidding….anyway this isn’t supposed to be about how screwed up I am…..back to my issue.

 How many of you earlier were thinking…c’mon Phil….do you have to use that word?....couldn’t you just raise the plain old Jolly Roger?…why the MFing one?  I hear dozens of voices in my head when I drop an F on the internet…two of them being my mom’s and dad’s voices…..I won’t mention any others….some may be reading this J

Anyway, God has somehow seen fit to take a shy boy from Penn Hills, PA who is scared of everything and anyone and placed him in a situation where his entire life and profession are almost solely based on relationships and connecting with people in order to succeed.  I am always on stage…or I feel that way anyway.  Very funny God….thanks alot.

If you take my profession, for example, I am not your typical math teacher. The nerd who knows all the formulas. The geek who is painfully organized and demanding of his students.  NO…sorry…that’s not me.  My success relies a great deal on my performance..my connection to the students. The excitement of the math coming through…or the excitement of something coming through anyway.

A good class is me on a caffeine fueled rant, nearly crackling with energy, with every student tuned in for the good or for the bad…I feel like a bad standup comedian where if I lose it just for a minute I’ll get booed off stage. Believe it or not I like it that way.

I feel I improve every year on the math end but my strength is my relation to the students and my presentation…….my “show”. It’s just how I HAVE to do things with what has been given to me by God….if I tried to be like many of my incredible peers in the same building I would flat out SUCK as a teacher…and that’s all there is to it. We all must use what we were given.

So what does that have to do with my issue? Everything.

My personality, my sense of humor, my teaching, my relationships with people all hinge on the emotion and energy that is in me.  Exaggeration and over the top reactions are just who I am and how I communicate, and it is a large part of my sense of humor…..at least when I’m at my best.  As a result it is very difficult for me not to use everything, and I mean everything, in my vocabulary, and in my actions, to express my ideas to the fullest. 

Unfortunately, round about the age of 14 or so I discovered the F bomb. Yes…the word “fuck”….I could feel you cringing just reading that.  I love that word. I’ve tried everything I can think of but nothing gets that energy out..the point across, or grabs attention and holds it like that word.  If you only knew how I restrain myself out of respect for others…and well…to keep my job.  In private (and sometimes not) I have almost mastered the use of the word in all of its forms, like a Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.

Don’t give me suggestions. I’ve tried Fire truck. Shut the front door…..everything. The word “freakin” has become a common substitute with me but it’s not quite the same.

The problem, and microcosm of my whole life, is reconciling my use of this word, the bubbling over of my intensity and energy, and some of my other actions, with my close relationship with God.  And at the same time be cognizant of how I come across to people who don’t have faith and make split judgments of me and that faith I am supposed to represent…..or the way they “think” I am supposed to represent it.

My question is…”why the FUCK do I have to?”

Well…I know I HAVE to.  It’s just not accepted.  And in certain forms…like its ORIGINAL form and meaning, it shouldn’t be really.  Many of us, however, use it as an adjective or even a noun (my favorite!).  When I get excited about something I use it to stress a feeling, or underscore the emotion or importance of the statement.  If I’m not using it as a verb (ex: Go F yourself!..or F you) and tearing down another person, which is what I believe is wrong and frowned upon by God, then I have no issue with it. But that’s just me.

Well the F bomb is just the tip of the ice berg and is a small part of the larger problem.  Regardless of what you believe about the last paragraph this is my message. 

To non-Christians or people of other faiths:   When you hear me say or see me write something along the lines of  “The Pens are fucking great!!!”  or  “Fuck! I stabbed myself with that knife!”   You haven’t “caught” me….. I’m NOT a hypocrite.  My faith isn’t about rules that I break or don’t break.  I’m a human being that is no different than you.  And if I’m wrong about the whole F bomb thing it’s just something I struggle with just like you do with your issues.  Christians aren’t claiming (or they shouldn’t be anyway) to be better than you.  I just have a certain view about the history of the human race and its meaning and purpose.  And all of science fits into that purpose by the way.  Also, even if I happen to suck at life….my failure has nothing to do with my church or my God so don’t use my ‘sucking’ as an excuse to discount my beliefs as viable. Just because I suck does not mean God sucks.

Also…just because the universe is reeeeeeeeealy big and the micro universe is reeeeeeeeealy small and the world is reeeeeeealy amazing and beautiful and we keep discovering more and more things does not mean there is no God. Just because you in all your infinite intelligence and wisdom can’t fathom a “God” and you can’t find him in a lab doesn’t mean he isn’t there.  I’ve read Dawkins. The man is incredible. I believe in evolution and I’ve read about Darwin…also….incredible. So what??

And just because Descartes and Kant and all those reeeeealy smart people back in the Enlightenment period started the age of reason and philosophy doesn’t mean that suddenly 400 yrs ago the human race finally “outthought” God…..I’ve read that stuff and still see no contradiction with my beliefs.

 . so shut your pie holes. I can’t stand that crap……you may not believe and you have every right not to….(and some days I don’t blame you), and I don’t judge you for it….but you haven’t proven or DISproven anything…..so please….just. stop. 

Not to be critical…….

To fellow Christians: 

Some of you are NOT HELPING!!! A LOT of you are not helping. Jesus himself said that one of the two GREATEST commandments was to love your neighbor as yourself.  We are here to be shepherds of his creation….to care for each other. Not just the ones we love or the ones that are easy to care for, or the ones that are American, or even just the ones who are Christian…..EVERYONE.  That is not easy but I believe it is our commission.

We are not here to be the teacher’s pets of God and get all the gold stars for following the rules. There is no Gold star chart in a waiting room outside heaven…you aren’t beating anyone in a race.  We are here for one reason and one reason only and that is to keep things in order here as extensions of HIM until he comes back and remakes this mess. Period.

If I raise the mother fucking Jolly Roger I am not an awful person and I love my God as much as you do.  Go back to your glass house and stop judging me…oh…you don’t have one? Weird.

Unfortunately some of the most generous and most wonderful people I know are NOT Christians, and many of the people that I feel are unfeeling, uncaring, self-centered, and mean ARE Christians.  That bothers me.

Look, no one has a tougher time loving all their neighbors more than me….some of you have read my rants…. No one has a tougher time carrying out God’s will than me….but I sure as blue hell am not alone. And God loves me no less because of my struggles.

All you Tea Party Christians….you do NOT know what it’s like to be gay…you do NOT know what’s it’s like to be a poor minority in the inner city without a job…they aren’t ALL taking advantage of  the system just because you know of a few…or “heard” about them.  You do NOT know what it’s like to live so close to freedom outside our borders and just because you’ve read a few clever emails you don’t know how many are crossing over OR what jobs they are supposedly getting….they are human beings.

It’s easy to “follow the rules” and be a “good noodle” as SpongeBob says when you and your family have everything you need, live comfortably, and you happen to be the right race and live in the right neighborhood. 

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Anyway, the bottom line is I suck. I know I suck but that is my business.  Part of my “suck” however is not my language.  I know my intentions and so does God.  I try to watch myself because of how it is perceived but when I fail it’s not the end of the world.

If I grab a vastly underachieving problem student I care about who has finally pushed the last button and drag him outside my classroom and hiss, “What the hell are you doing?! You need to get your f….g shit together! This is your life.” And proceed to tell him in language that happens to be colorful that I can’t sit by and care about his future and watch him flush it etc etc…. If my intensity and language have grabbed his attention and gotten a very important point across in his vernacular am I wrong? Well, sorry but my answer, or my opinion, is hell no. 

If you think being calm “like Jesus” and using quiet tones and perfect language to usher him out of my room to the office because he broke the rules again, and making sure he gets ANOTHER detention because those are the rules and he broke them, is a better and more Christ-like reaction then, in my very strong humble opinion you have missed a very large point and are dead wrong. (This situation is hypothetical......of course :)

And in a lighter example if Jesus decided to walk down my street and decide to finally come back and press “restart” on this mess and I saw him coming and in all my excitement I said, “Holy fuck!!! He’s here! He’s here!!!” and began to shout and cry with joy …..Do you think he turns to me like the Terminator the instant he hears the F bomb and blasts me straight to hell with lasers coming out of his eyes?

Ok…maybe he calmly puts his arm around me and says, “Phil, really? Holy f…?? Let’s work on your language…”  ...and maybe I look sheepishly to the rest of you and accept your “I told you so’s”……but until then leave me to my struggles and my love for my God and worry about your own house……and I hope you have a ton of Windex….cleaning all that glass will definitely fucking suck.