On Being a Punk

Things I know about myself... and wish I didn't.

I can sit for hours on end watching a movie or chatting with a friend while waxing philosophically about obscure topics. My butt hurts in under 15 minutes when I sit and read my bible.

I can still recite the Preamble and the Gettysburg Address. I still know all my lines from being Yente in a production of Fiddler on the Roof. I remember the Pledge of Allegiance and know when the Lords of Leaping and Pipers Piping do their thing in the 12 Days of Christmas. I memorized Isaiah 6 at one time. Now? "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted seated on his throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple....and something something something and then woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips, something else more too."

When I did a post on Tommy Jordan shooting his daughter's laptop after she posted some hateful stuff about her parents on her Face Book wall? I knew what she'd done was wrong but I did not quickly and swiftly identify it as a violation of the 5th commandment. I pride myself on cutting through the fluff and getting to the heart of the matter. I also tell people if you identify a problem biblically, the biblical solution becomes apparent. However, I was willing to identify what she'd done as "wrong" or "disrespectful" and never thought beyond what she'd done to her parents. She sinned against God. Phil Johnson nailed me on that one. I hate that guy. Not really, but dagnabbit he convicts me with the stuff he writes.

My first response to conviction is not repentance. It's annoyance. I am also annoyed as heck if someone asks me a question when they know that I can't answer it. I will hold the transgression against them for a long, long time and when I can I will return the favor in the most humiliating venue I can manage.

If I have apologized and sought forgiveness for something and you bring the issue up again for any reason? I am done with you. Not only that but I will resent you for "making me" sin again by wishing for your skin to turn green and your eyes to fall out.

I am afraid of almost every scenario that involves transparency or intimacy. And what's more, I delude myself into thinking you don't know that about me already. Don't blow my cover. I am a formidable enemy when I am scared.

I am smarter than I let on and more ignorant than I will admit. I am honest only because I am too lazy to keep track of lies -but often wish I could. I don't like the immediate consequences of honesty much. By the way, don't lie to me. If I have to be honest and take the heat for it, so do you.

If you ask me two or more questions in a row about anything personal or to expand on what I have already said? You are suspect. If you can't catch the annoyance in my responses? You are either very evil and don't care or you are a dumb suspect. Dumb suspects are dismissed. Evil ones? They are marked for termination.

When I am lonely I think about blowing off my faith and running back to life I used to have. Yeah, the one that was so miserable when I was living it.

Why? Because I am just that stupid and focused on my temporal happiness.

You may be asking yourself what in the world would make me post something like this. I dunno. I take some solace in the fact that nobody reads this stuff anyway. If you do and you can identify with me in some capacity, I have this for you. My sinful attitudes and actions don't take God by surprise. He isn't slapping himself on the forehead and asking, "What did Rosemarie do this time!?!" When I trusted in Christ's atonement as the only way my soul could make it to heaven, all my sins were covered. All means all. So as horrible as I am, I am His. And as much as misery loves company I didn't tell you these things so we could sit sack cloth and ashes discussing what punks we are. Why don't we cut out all the lamenting, repent first and rejoice next?