paradigim shift

I am well aware I put myself in the situation I'm in. Broke, out of shape ect. I'm more than willing to work my way out of this rut. It just seems so daunting a task.

I see a certain amount of futiity n my job these days. Nobody ever seems to get better. They all get in trouble again and come back to me again. I work them to no end, they still can't behave in class. I was a complete jerk when I was their age too. I did just mean things I regret to this day. Like in 4th grade when we were getting crushed in baseball, a little girl named Amanda hit a one in a million shot and got a home run. That should have been her moment of glory....should have been. When she rounded second base, past me, I tripped her. She skinned up both her knees and her forearm. She liked me quite a bit and it made her cry. My punishment was I had to sit out the last of the game and get silent lunch. .

As an adult, I feel a certain deep remorse for that act. I appologized and she accepted, but we were never really good friends after that. I felt like the status quo. Just ruining someones wonderful, shining moment for the sheer fact that I was mad that it wasn't me. Like keying someone's band new car the day they get it, or running through a sand castle at the beach. I deserved to be hated, and I was.

The funny thing about being a hated outcast, it makes a very nice chitinous shell around your emotions. My personality was tempered by years of abusive relationships. I think my fall from grace was in 8th grade. I tried to be good, to be a good, God - fearing little boy. 8th grade was not a good year for me. After being in private school for three years, I was sent to the worst school in the area and the kids just ate me alive. It was the most miserable time of my life. Then my Grandmother died. I was keeping the faith. I knew God was testing me and I had to stay strong, just like Job in the Bible. Then she died. I prayed and prayed and cried and prayed some more. I wanted to make sense of it all. Then it hit me.There is no sense to be made. It isn't fair and it never was. Good has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Well, yes it does. Good is important, but that has nothing to do with churches or books that contradict themselves.

The some of kids who made my 8th grade experience pure hell were church goers too. God didn't tell them to treat me nicely. God told them to beat me up for my lunch money. Obviously God wasn't talking to both of us. My conscience was talking to me, and they either ignored theirs or never had one. When you pray, it is an emotional wash cycle. You feel better and cleaner, until you go out to play again and soil your conscience.

I spent 30 years wanting to believe in God. Maybe there is a God and he got mad and quit. He only wanted Sunday off and we couldn't even give him that. So he said I ain't doing 7 days a week. This place can go to Hell as far as I'm concerned. And it has.

Maybe God is just our conscience. That little nagging voice that tells us if we're doing the right thing. Just listen to your conscience and you'll do just fine. What about those with no conscience to speak of?