OMG

Suffering a personal crisis that was peaking in intensity, I called the hotline. As always, they picked up on the very first ring. 
"Heaven Helper Hotline. How may heaven help you?" came the always-pleasant voice. 
"I need to talk to God"
I heard a sigh on the other end, something I had never heard before. 
"I'm soooo sorry. God is not in today"
"Not in?!" I almost yelled into the phone, but quickly remembering that it wouldn't be good to piss off God or his staff, I meekly struggled to say "Can you tell me when he will be?". My shock was so great that I could only manage to think to say this. 
"In 28 days. He's on vacation- his first one in ten thousand years"
"Okay, okay" I struggled to think. "Is Jesus in?"
"Yes- but...."
"But what?" I almost yelled into the phone again.. "He's not available?" I managed to say, then as soon as I said it, I almost kicked myself for saying something so stup.....
"That's right. He's struggling to fill God's shoes, but not even the number one son......"
"I get it. How about Moses? Or any other prophet? Apostles! I'll bet there's a few of those around! Any saints available? How about Joan Of Arc?"
"I think we can manage to get you through to somebody. There is a wait, however"
I pictured a massive heavenly call center, halos floating over cubicles as far as the eye could see, all of the hallowed ones within those glowing cubicles busy fielding calls.
"Would you mind holding?" came the ever-pleasant voice.
(What choice do I have?) "No, not at all"
There was a soft click and then the most wonderful Muzak came over the headset. I almost drifted off, as a matter of fact I must have, because when someone suddenly came on the other end of the line I was roused as if from dreamy sleep. 
"Yeah? Can I help you?" came a brusque voice over the headset. What was this?
"Yes, I'm here" I stuttered. "Who are you?”
"St. frickin' Anthony! What does it matter? Now- what's your problem?"
I was aghast that the Heaven Helper Hotline would have this kind of individual on their staff. "Is there anybody else I can talk to?" I queried this, this person. 
"Not unless you wanna wait"
"How long?"
"At our current rate of fielding questions, about two days"
I didn't want to wait that long. I needed answers right now. 
"Okay. Here's my problem. I got up this morning and figured that I didn't know the purpose of my existence”.

Which way?

Yeshi Kangrang- Unsplash.com

“So? Join the party, pal!"
I brushed off his curt 'answer' and continued. 
"It's something I've been wrestling with for years. And I've been able to deal with it for years. But sometimes...... .....I just can't get my mind off of it. Today I woke up and, with the midterms so close, I felt I had to find out. Because if things go the wrong way...."
"Speak no further, Bud. Whatever happens, it's all good"
"How can you say that? 'It's all good'? I don't think this country or my sanity is gonna make it another two years! That’s all you have to offer me?"
"Nobody here is gonna tell you anything different. We've been answering this question all day. People from the Left are about to jump off a bridge and people from the Right are stockpiling food and ammo. It ain't pretty what's happening out there, but it's all good"
“How is my undesired outcome gonna be good for me, or for the people I care about? God wouldn't tell me that!"         

"The hell he wouldn't! He's the one who gave us this morning's script! He may be on vacation, but he still has his finger on things.  “it's all gonna work out” he told us to say. “Love will prevail. It's the strongest force in The Universe. Everything comes back to the fold sooner or later. You'll see- or maybe not- but your kids will. Or maybe their kids...."
"No, no, no! It's all gonna end! The Left and the Right will never coexist in harmony! They're too far apart and are getting farther apart every day! They're gonna go to war on each other!"
"They already are”
"So- is God gonna send reinforcements, when one side or the other threatens to take over the whole country?”
  "Please, calm down....."
"I won’t calm down! I feel worse than ever!"
"Go watch Seinfeld or something. Take your mind off of it"       

If the light is green it doesn’t seem so bad

Braden Hopkins- Unsplash.com

"Are you kidding?!”
"Not at all! You guys have to learn to relax. You think God is gonna sit by and not intervene? When the time is right, well, actually before, because he's so far seeing, but from your perspective of 'when the time is right', he'll be there. Like Superman! Believe you me, were ordinary people able to turn the tide in their favor they would have long ago. Goes to show there's equal power here- sort of like a standoff. Doesn't take much to tip the scales, and God doesn't see the point in overworking any issue so he let's humans work on problems, sometimes for a long time, then he steps in and 'tink!' everything changes. He's a very good scale tipper"
"Which way?!"
"You'll find out. But remember- whichever way it goes...  ....it's all good"
  Before I could get another word of protest in, the 'saint' or whatever at the other end hung up. I tried to call back but got a busy signal. After about twenty nine more times I finally gave up. 
So I took the guy's advice. I turned on Seinfeld and found I just had to laugh. Jerry and George were in some kind of trouble that had to do with ridiculously tight streetfront parking and then damn if Kramer didn't show up and somehow exacerbate the situation. Elaine had some weird issue with returning a sweater at a high end store- a sweater she bought but never wore- and…. 
….what was I thinking about? About twenty minutes ago? 

Oh yeah- now I remember. I don't know what my existence means, and from the way things have gone- and are going- I might never will. Same for most everybody else. Maybe we're not supposed to know. We're not ready for it. In God's view, we’re Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine. Bumbling through life and overreacting to the twists and turns of it. It's just where we're at. 
  Things might seem dire to us, but they're not really, not yet, and there's a good chance they never will be. The maddening issues that vex us aren't going away. We've got to stay with them, in the present moment, and keep working the puzzle of life, meaning, and existence.

#@$!+!# Socialists!

Somewhere inside lies the salon d’elegance

David Svihovec- Unsplash.com

  Security Adjunct Cedrick Floom addressed He That Shall Not Be Named.
       "Sir?"
      An aide quickly jumped up and whispered in Cedrick's ear something about using the correct protocol, to which Cedrick nodded.
"Sire?”
"Yes?" Replied He That Shall Not Be Named
      "Faux News has alerted us to the presence of numerous Socialist camps within our borders!"
"Damn! As if we didn't have enough trouble with the Immigrant Caravan! Where is that disgrace, anyway?"
      "At present, just south of Guajalhara, a day's walk from the border checkpoint at Brownsville, Texas"
      "Keep 'em there until just before the election. Now, about these Socialists. Who are they led by, what are there intentions, and how in the hell do we either A. Get rid of them or B. Turn them into election worthy newsbites?"
"There is no per se 'leader' of the Socialists, Sire. But there are those that the Socialists look up to, and at the top of that list is a man named Dwendel Apfulshuk" 
"What do we know about him?"
"Well, Sire, in Socialist circles he's kind of like their hero, their legend. Living"
     "Can we make him not living?"
     "Is that a joke, Sire?"
"Of course it's a joke! Tell me more about Apfulshuk, his beliefs, and all that. Hurry though- I've got a 1:15 tee time"
"Mr. Apfulshuk refuses to adopt a mortgage, and urges his followers to do the same. He eschews traditional American home ownership in favor of a nomadic existence. He is at present camped on the outskirts of Fairville, Kentucky, and is surrounded there by many of his fervent followers. They appear to be the kind of people we should be very careful in handling. Most of them are white, and approaching retirement, but are not quite there yet"
      "Voters!"
"Precisely, Sire."
"Christian?"
     "Many are, some aren't. We have tried to plant agents in their camp to subvert and convert. It's just not taking. They seem to be very fired up by Aphulshuk's views"
      "They won't buy into the system? Real estate is my system! It's been very good to me. So many of my crony pals depend on their income properties, and the tax breaks those generate. Can the military be called in?"
      "To forceably move Apfulshuk and his followers? Super bad P.R., Sire. They are totally law abiding"
      "Isn't there a law somewhere about taking on a mortgage?"
"No, Sire. Mortgages are not yet a requirement"
      "Then let's get my people in the Senate to work on changing that. Meanwhile, isn't there something we can do? Hate to see the Democrats latch onto a rallying point. Can we starve them out?"
"No chance, Sire. They're living comfortably on Little Caesars $5 pizzas, 2 for $5 Burger King Whoppers, and $1.49 Costco hot dogs. Benefactors bring them food from these purveyors, and many others, from time to time"
     "Hate to piss off Costco.... ....hmm...  ...Okay, I've thought about it for a minute, time to Tweet something...."
     "Perhaps you should wait, Sire" 
     "I never wait. Give me my phone!"

     It was right at the moment that Apfulshuk was adressing a crowd of ne'r do wells in the middle of the Fairville County campground. 
     "You, you band of beautiful ruffians and modern day Artful Dodgers! This is your time! Time to bust the system that has failed you! Decades of inaction by the States and Congress has created the unaffordable housing crisis that plagues our nation this day. Investors and home flippers have only aggravated this problem by taking the available supply of homes totally out of the reach of the working class. We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. We don't need to march on City Hall though- City Hall needs to march to us! They need us to buy houses, assume mortgages, pay our property taxes, and support their corrupt system. No more, say I! I would rather live in my RV! Are you with me?!"
    "Where shall we settle? cried a far thinker in the crowd.
"We shall summon our bretheren across the country and journey with them en masse to Mexico! Across the border of oppression we'll flee where we can live in a less expensive clime and once there, realize the fruits of our pensions and savings! No more shall we simply exist!"

     And so it was that now two caravans, great in number, approached the border.

     One wanting in, the other wanting out.

Road To Perdition

Saw a bizzare political ad on of all things Sportscenter last night, in which the left was near comically demonized. The ad screamed that voting for any democratic candidate was an act that would lead the country down the road to ruin. Really? There's no compromise anymore? 
Yeah, the left represents (in my opinion) to the right the one thing that they fear the most, dread the most, willl do anything to defend, will fight tooth and claw to their bitter end about, and that is relinquishing profits. 
  And to that end, they will try and foster support for their cause by saying that they represent anything other than that. 
It's easy for the right to rally the religious, just mention the A word and you got 'em, but as one astute person recently tweeted, "There are ten commandments, not one”.
And those 'crazed hordes' approaching the border might be cause for alarm in lesser minds but hey, I've been around immigrants- a lot- and they bring good food into this country. Couldn't they be allowed to come in and make tamales, falafel, spanakopita, Tom Yum soup, and open up Parrillas (Argentine barbeque joints)? That would keep 'em out of the profitmongers hair, they'd be self supporting. How about imagining that option? One of perhaps many?

Parrilla

Christian Koepke- Unsplash.com

Frankly, I'm a little disgusted by the lack of rational thought, the unwillingness to negotiate, to debate, to explore options because it's never gonna be a one way street. This here is a democracy, not a 'demon'cracy, if some people haven't noticed, read the constitution, or understand that in a two party system there's such a thing as actual deliberation needing to be employed in order for the thing to work. 
Were this built-in need to negotiate not so, we'd be living in something resembling an authoritarian regime, where somebody at the top would decree that something is so, and it would be so. Like God. Is your party, which claims to be so tight with God, trying to actually play God?
I hope not because I actually talked to God the other day and he's not happy about your party's considering pushing him aside. But, being God, he's also forgiving. In addition to that, he'd like to come by and visit, talk a little sense into those that think they're capable of doing his job, give a few pointers, because when God does his job, he takes input from everybody and then works out a soulution.  
Some would argue with that, they would say that when God calls the shots he does whatever he damn well pleases but if that was so we'd all be mindless robots but we aren't, we are allowed to think and act independently. After all, who would want to live in a world where they have to take orders all the time by people......
....that think they know best and/or want everything to be their way? Kings used to speak and whoever stood in front of them, their knees shook. Anybody want to go back to those loose bowel days? Not me! 
    So God's a' comin', he said he'll be here Thursday. No, wait, I heard that incorrectly. God isn't coming, he's sending some emissaries. He's way too busy. 
These emissaries have been around, they know how to curtail the wall building impulses that come when certain factions don't want to negotiate anymore and start to throw tantrums, adamant as hell that they won't budge an inch on their positions and wanting every vesitge of power simply turned over to them without ever presenting a rational argument to the governed as to why that should be allowed, who died and made you the boss, and all that other messy democratic hashing things out stuff. These emissaries are skilled with handling the kind of folks that act like they're the new, self-appointed schoolteachers and the citizenry is just a bunch of wide-eyed third graders taking it all in. The emissaries simply posit a few questions to the self-appointed know-it-alls:
"Why should adults grant you any authority?" "On what grounds do you base your assessments of any situation, much less upon reality itself?" Present We The People actual, authentic reasons for any of your proposed decisions that the citizenry may then choose to follow. Soundbites, pieces of audio/video taken out of context, flashing comical images, and baseless outright lies do nothing to sway the learned. 
Situations are complicated. Governing is hard. This is the internet age. People are way smarter than before. 

And Jesus, whoever dreamed up that ad, stop interrupting Sportscenter!

Up your game or leave the court!

This Just In

  Word has reached us here at The Daily Dose that people lie. Let's go to our correspondent on the street, Darren Philberts, for some insight into this phenomenon. 
"Darren! Is it true that people lie?"
"Apparently so, Janelle. And not only do they lie, but they do it all the time"
  "Give us an example"
"Easy" (Darren hails a passerby on the street) "Sir, can I ask you a question?"
  "Certainly" (first lie).
  "We're doing a story here about lying. Do people around you ever lie?"
  "Yeah! They do it a lot!"
    "Recently?"
    "Yeah, like five minutes ago. I got a text from my boss 'asking' (second lie) if I wanted to work on Saturday. He said somebody at work called in sick. But I know that person is not sick. I know that she is lying"
  "So this lying has an effect on you" 
    "Big time! I was going to spend an afternoon at Dodger stadium with my bros watching the NLCS!"
“Why don't you just tell your boss no?"
"Are you kidding? And threaten my future promotion chances? If I don't show up on Saturday I'll be viewed as Not A Team Player. Sayonara end of year bonus!"
"Uh, thank you" (Passerby walks off muttering. Another one is hailed)
"Ma'am? Can I ask you a question?"
"Uhm... Okay" (third lie. This suit better not be asking me for no personal information!)
"We're doing a story about lying....."
"I'm out of here!" Passerby walks hurriedly away.
Darren looks at the camera. "This seems to be a touchy subject for people!"
A man approaches, carrying a briefcase.
"Sir! Can I ask you a question?"
"Certainly" (fourth lie).
Darren goes into his story spiel and the guy listens. 
"Yeah, I lie. So what? I'm a lawyer. It's my business to s t r e t c h the truth. We don't consider it 'lying' though. We're simply offering a different perspective"
  "Interesting. Thank you, sir" 
"You're welcome" (fifth lie).
A local ruffian is hailed.
"Young man- can I ask you a question?"
"Wow! I'm gonna be on TV!"
"Do you ever lie?"
"Hell yeah! Think I'm stupid or something? How else am I gonna relate?"
"So you're saying that lying happens a lot, as a matter of course"
"Dude, where your brain at? You think I'd be survivin' out here streetwise tellin' the truth? Ain't nobody out here givin' you the facts straight up. It's all twisted. You gotta interpret everything"
"And you're good at that?"
"I'm okay. Some's better than me"
"Thank you for your input" 
"No problem, man" (sixth lie)
Elderly gentleman approaches.
  "Sir, can I have a minute of your time?"
“No!”
"Okay, sorry to bother you! How about you, miss?"
A young girl pauses. Darren gives his spiel, asks her if she ever lies. 
"Yeah. I tell guys I like them"
"Do you?"
"Not all of them. But if I do, they do things for me"
  "You don't see anything wrong with that?"
"Use it before you lose it, my sistahs tell me. We all do it"
"Uh, thank you, miss"
A couple approaches. Darren stops them. 
"No" they say, looking at each other intently. "We never lie about our relationship (seventh lie). We are totally honest with each other. It's what makes a relationship work!"
  "Thanks for your input"
Off they go, to get ice cream or something. Darren stops a policeman. 
"Good morning, officer. Do you or any of your fellow officers ever lie?"
"Never! (eighth lie). "We are sworn to uphold the law. It is our solemn duty. We might joke with each other, and with citizens, but we never lie"
"Sounds good to me. Have a nice day (ninth lie) officer"
"You too. Obey the law!"
  "I will, sir!" (tenth lie)

“No way!”

Mpumelelo Macu- Unsplash.com

"Whew" Darren turns back towards the camera. "It seems that lying is rather commonplace here in society. I just caught myself in a falsehood! After a few minutes on the street it must be clear to our viewers that lying is so prevalent that encountering the truth is rare. Perhaps our next story will be on that topic. 
    But what would be the point in presenting that? Employing white lies or blatant deception is relative to the scenarios people are presented with. Depending on the circumstances, some people gravitate towards one end of the spectrum, some to the other. Maybe the deeper question that should be asked is why do people feel that they have to lie at all? Would it be so harmful, or detrimental to their ambitions, to honestly articulate their needs to others? 
    Yes, it would, telling the truth being diametrically opposed to telling a lie. Truth stands alone, bright, shiny, naked, and unafraid. (Well, maybe not bright and shiny but definitely the other two). People are used to having to get what they want through roundabout ways, these being deception and/or manipulation. They veil their intentions, mislead their opponents in order to gain trust, then ferret their way towards their personal goals, or in business's case, shared goals.

Lying is rampant in our society and due to that, there is rampant distrust. Nothing and no one can be taken at face value. We have lost our innocence and become predators upon each other, predators that search to satisfy personal needs in a jungle environment. It doesn't have to be this way but man thinks he needs to be a wily and perpetually strategizing creature. He prides himself on skillfully playing the game of human life and studies the moves of other astute players with rapacious appetite. He seeks power over the outer above all else. 

Those that seek to control the without have not yet discovered the ability to create within. That which lies within the mind, the attention, is always perfectly reflected in the without. The without acts as a learning tool in that way. 
Attempting to control the without is a cumbersome, karma-intensive, awkward way of bulldozing the personal will through obstacles to achieve one's objectives. Why not harmonize with the outer- The World- to get what you want? It's a far more elegant way. It might call for great patience and trust but The Universe has a way of giving you more than you could have ever imagined”.