Bent

Heard this word in church yesterday, and it's been banging around in my head. Bent. Like obsessed, driven, myopic, compelled, set, inclined, unswerving, determined. Bent.

Right now, my youngest son is sitting at the table, staring down a cup which contains roughly 1 inch worth of clean, white, whole milk. He's been staring at that 1" of milk for over an hour. He's probably got another hour in him, given precedence. He's begun to scream at the cup. Once, tribes of South American indians believed that screaming at a tree for long enough would demoralize and kill the spirit of the tree. Perhaps that is what he's after right now. It's working. Not on the cup so much, but it's working pretty good on me.

What in the world are we here for? For a long time, I was bent on writing music, and being a rock-star or something. I practiced for hours. I labored over lyrics that were mysterious, beautiful, and yet within that, meaningful and honest. I drew up advertising flyers that were intended to be interesting, have integrity, and be artistically pleasing. And then I'd set them aside and try to make a better one. I was bent. On me.

The apostle Paul-now if anybody was bent, it was that guy. My kids scream at me for 3 or 4 hours and I'm out. This guy, he makes the energizer bunny look like the Blob. Ok, but he's like, a bible SUPER hero, so, as any respectable report of statistics would, he's out, being in the top 4%. And that also takes care of the sloths at the bottom 4%. So. All fair now.

Anyways. Church is: A) a great place to network and make new connections. B) a wholesome environment to raise your kids. C) a place for me to deepen my spiritual connection to God, and recharge my battery so I can go out into this cruel, cold world. or D) a base-camp of super-charged, subvert-the-dominant-paradigm-shifting world domination E) all-of-the-above and finally F) NONE of the above.

Ok. Think about that. I'll expect a report on my bench by the EOB.