shit

Sorry for the title of this entry boys and girls, but I was sat here thinking, now what shall I call this post? And that's the first thing that came into my head.

I tend to start my posts with the title. I don't know if other people do it that way but I'll think of a title or a song lyric that really gets me and I'll go from there. I like my titles to make sense alongside what I write but I'm better at titles than essays so it's best just to mould my writing to the title.

'Shit' is not a very good title. But I decided I'd go for the upfront and honest approach with this one and just give you the only word that sums up my thoughts tonight. Shit.

Shit the exclamation. As in, oh shit. As in, oh no, I'm unemployed. As in, whoops, I broke my mum's camera. As in, oh dear, I did some monumentally stupid things this weekend.

Also, shit the adjective. I feel shit. Physically, I'm blistered, sunburnt, bruised, hungover, ill with a cold I think I caught from Mike in Dublin. Emotionally, spiritually. Oh god, I'm tired of being a Christian right now. Not bored, not like that. As in it exhausts me, and I'm sick of excusing myself. I'm tired of starting every conversation on the defensive, sick of snide comments and people who set too much in the Da Vinci Code. I'm emotionally exhausted from second-guessing myself and not knowing how I want to live my life.

Tonight we are waiting for something to click.

As in, oh shit, how does one fit in with the other? How do I reconcile the two, when these emotions drag me down? So, Christian, where was your faith this weekend? Was God with you on Friday night and in your dreams on Saturday? At what point in the Reading Festival, you Christian, were you being salt and light in the fucking world?

Repeat after me, Christian. I am not good enough to do this.

I wrote this note down at Soul Survivor, in one of the main meetings that just said "I'm shit but I'm loved". Maybe it's ok to be that way.

I am not good enough to do this. They taught us at SoulintheCity to say I Am Not But I Know I Am. Clever, huh? I am not, I am nothing but I know I am. I am, another name for God. I am nothing other than what I am in him. They said it was ok not to be good enough, because God ws good enough.

So tell me, born-again Christian, at what point this week did God's goodness shine through you?

I mean I'm REALLY not good enough. Not in a modest, self-effacing way. Not to big God up and play down my own achievements. There's no hope in this statement. Right now, I'm not good enough for this.

Maybe in a month's time I will be. A year's time, a week's time. Maybe I never will be. Right now there's no room for God in the way I am because there's too much else. And there's no point to this post, no philosophy to expound. This isn't a sermon. I still say father, I don't know how many times a day, but there's no prayers left to follow it. Father, what? Father help me? Father help them? Father I'm sorry? Well that's meaningless, then, because as soon as that word leaves my lips it's gone into the ether and there's nothing good coming out to replace it.

How refreshing it is to be completely and utterly, negatively honest. I can't sugarcoat this one. Right now I don't have a clue who or what God is and if he's even bothered with me.

I have absolutely no hope for myself right now and I have nothing valuable to say tonight. Nothing that will educate or edify or improve you in any way so I'll just say shit. I'll talk shit and act shit and feel shit until something changes. Until something clicks.

Tell me, Christian, where is your God tonight?

He's watching I guess, like a parent watching their kid trying to shove the circle piece into the triangle hole in the shape box. He's waiting, I guess, for me to figure it out. Waiting for it to click.