July 4

Well, I'm sitting in a computer lab and, quite frankly, find it depressing. So don't expect any profundity. Coffee is not at hand, in fact is forbidden, and that is a prerequisite for composition of any sort for this proud American.

I'm in one of those anonymous bad moods, the kind where there's no apparent cause--it's just there, sitting gloomy and dusty and heavy on your shoulders and you can't shake it off. If it gets any worse, it's gonna sprout a head and limbs like those horrible old stoles people wore back in the Whenevers, you know, back when it was considered attractive to parade around with dead things that clearly were once alive on your shoulders. Oh, no, I don't mean like Neanderthals or cavemen or trogladytes. I mean like when it was cool to wear your dead animal with heels and chic purse. And if it gets any worse than that, it'll probably start growling. The mood, I mean. But clearly this metaphor has gotten way out of hand. As has the mood.

Maybe it's because I sat on a train last night on the way home from fairly intense theological discussion at church (yes, you read that sentence right: theological discussion at church, and I meant it) and listened to a quartet of loudmouths declaim the superficial and ridiculous about everything from how much wine it takes to get them drunk to how dumb PhD's are. Brent and I were 2 seats away from them and I could hear their conversation better than I could the woman sitting next to me on her cell phone. It occurred to me as I listened--at that volume I think eavesdropping becomes an obsolete concept--that it would be absolute hell to be trapped in a body that, no matter how hard you tried, only expressed the dumbest thoughts in the high school vernacular you never grew out of. These people seemed okay with it, though. They were 6 years older than me. I know this because they spent 5 minutes discussing how much better it is to have been born in 1970 than '69 (complete with reference to that song by whoever it was) because they can legitimately claim to be children of the 70's. But then they started on church. These laudable Ambassadors for Christ proceeded to blast everything I hold sacred by talking about it in the same inane and foolish way they talked about everything else--loudly, carelessly, irreverently, confidently, and self-servingly.

If there's anything that shakes my faith, and I say this very, very seriously, this is it. If this is Christianity, then this rotten boat full of holes is going down. By the time we all disembarked at Princeton Junction, I felt physically ill.

I really wanted to say something snide and confrontational as I walked past them--something like, "y'all have been real Ambassadors for Christ tonight. Keep it up." But I knew they wouldn't get it. They would pat themselves on the back. Maybe invite me to a Bible study.

So maybe that's it. Or maybe 'cause it's the Fourth of July and I don't find anything to celebrate. We're going to our NZ friends' place later and I plan to wear the KGB shirt the K's gave me a couple years ago. I don't want to spend the day complaining. But I don't want to celebrate, either. What is there to celebrate?

Yesterday on the TV I heard it asserted that we should honor the soldiers who have died because Jesus said, "there is no love greater than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Well, I have to end the tirade because there are pasta salads to prepare and I should probably shower before showing up for the party. Perhaps I will find myself in a better mood at the end of all of this, but somehow I doubt it.