Countdown to Oblivion

Stephen Harper

First, let me comment on the comments to Nothing ……. Seriously, guys, do you realize that by commenting it actually gives nothing …… weight. And I did want to respond to Mama Tried’s first comment. So, the renowned existentialist, Jughead, says to Archie, he says “hey, Veronica’s real cute” and Archie responds “Yeah, sure. My car looks neat, huh?” ………………… my car looks neat, huh? Man, does it get any more profound than that?

Times New Roman. You thought I was joking. I get this newsletter from a law firm in DC that deals with matters FCC. I don’t understand a word of it but sitting there with my magnifiers cradled on the precipice of my nose looking intently at its pages gives me an air of …. knowledge. This, for anyone that walks by. I usually strike the pose when I hear footsteps coming my way. Few realize that I’m holding it upside down and while browsing I’m thinking, “hey, I wonder if the guy what staples this thing together gets free legal advice. And if it’s another lawyer doing this does he suck as a lawyer that much he has to be relegated to stapling pages after law school?” Then I glance over at my own dismantled stapler and I am awash in shame and fear. But, I digress. One of the sections in said newsletter is titled, “Countdown to Oblivion”. Not original I know but then lawyers rarely are. However, it sure reflects the culture of a Times New Roman. We’ve all heard the noise that our culture is looking like the Roman Empire with the violence and the sex and the togas. Yeah, you heard right, togas. Did you know that if a man was caught wearing pants in ancient Rome he was beaten and his property taken away? I’m sure I read that somewhere. My question would be, what if he were caught wearing culottes? Part pant, part dress. Like to see that staple fumbling lawyer get his mind around THAT conundrum in front of Caesar. Depending on the Caesar of course. I mean Caligula might have thought it foreplay. But, I digress. I don’t see the culture reflecting Rome. I see me reflecting Rome. The curse of a blessed country (or a world power) is the stuff. Our priorities are altered exponentially by what we can possess. And our pain is diminished to what toys we can’t have. I need new carpets. Ours are old and worn and our bank account is vapor. I need a bigger bank account. And, geeeeese, it gripes me that I have to get one of my two cars fixed. Now, I’m not American bashing. You take a street urchin from Calcutta and transplant him to the US of A and within a month he’ll be crying that his half-caff double mocha from Starbucks doesn’t have enough ice and he will be upgrading to cable internet so he can download porn faster. No one is pure. No one gets out alive. My challenge isn’t to cram Jesus into my stuff like some errant puzzle piece. Jesus is always the piece that doesn’t fit. Frankly, that was my main attraction to Jesus. How did I get distracted from that? Even to have a little in this culture means having a lot. Having Jesus means having it all. What in the world makes me think that “filled to overflowing” has anything to do with new siding? I am the Times New Roman. It feels every bit as vapid as my bank account. The challenge isn’t the realization, it’s the crawling back. It’s tough to crawl with all that crap attached to you like the chain pulled by the ghost of Jacob Marley. But then He came to set the captives free. My mistake was thinking that this was a one-time deal. The more we have the more locks He has to pick. The b**ch of it is, He does it with a smile.