I was so into the Lord of the Rings when it came out it sort of knocked me over. I rarely watch them any more. I’ve become angry at them – well at Star Wars as well. I feel like they lied to me – as if idealistic fantasy films like that take advantage of dreamers like me and millions others – much like highly emotional church services that leave you crying and singing loudly “Yes, Lord – I DO feel you!” as the congregation sings together in a comically over-hyped infestation of what my brother calls “God emotionalism.” I use to argue with him but I admit now that he is onto something. You leave the sacred church walls pumped up on Jesus and the Holy Spirit and thinking how many “brothers and sisters you have in Christ.” Funny how they never seem to have anytime to be true friends. I never understand that about Christians – even though in my heart I know I am one in a much larger, redefined scope of God’s Kingdom from Toltec Mysticism and Wiccan and Buddhism and well, something like that makes sense to me.
What do you think?
And the true Balrog appears and his name is American Society and sadness and disease and getting older and American consumerism and coldness and war and knowing I live in a world where Hannah Montana is worth hundreds of millions of dollars while grandparents have to be “greeters” at Walmart for seven an hour and there’s an iceberg the size of Rhode Island floating towards Austalia due to our global warming. I want to know – where is Gandalf and Luke Skywalker? Where is your precious Jesus and when the FUCK is he coming back? You may find Gollum in some ally shooting up heroin or at the work place carrying his Book of Mormon to the bathroom (they really do this) like some Utah-Worhsipping Junkie who holds it close to him like venom to bite “non-believers.” And you find out that your “brothers in Christ” retreat to their West-Knoxville megahomes driving a new 5 series Beemer and a thousand-dollar mountain bike proudly attached above like a proper “outdoorsie, affluent, American Christian” who spends six dollars a day at Starbucks and watches shows like CSI-Miami. If you are looking for love and compassion you can be assured that was left in the sanctuary -with the cheesy lyrics and espresso machine in the church lobby and your pissed-on hopes and delusions of community. The last “christian” friend I had brushed me off when he thought I was “straying from Jesus” too far I guess. In reality I admitted to masturbation and a fettish for questioning the compassion and purpose of hell. What a bunch of horseshit I believed – not about God. I know God is real and I feel him or her flowing through me every day. I just don’t know why the Church is the last place you’ll find him. I really don’t understand.
Wow, that feels good to unload. “Thanks for sharing. No, thank YOU for listening!”
I can’t live escaping into make believe movies and religions anymore. It hurts too much to want them to be true and then walk out into the cold winter with its gray skies and dead spirited people racing to outrun time and avoid eye contact and saying insane things like, “you know, Jesus is enough. He’s all I need.” What does that mean? Are you out of your fucking mind? I need sex, food, a job, ostrich-riding lessons and an Idiot’s Guide to Having a Cockatoo. That, and seared Albacore Tuna from that place in Southshore Lake Tahoe. What’s their name?
I can forgive J.R.R. Tolkien. He just wrote a story – he never expected that we’d dive into it like some alter-ego of hope that we ingest like Ecstasy to feel good for a few hours. I can even forgive George Lucas. It’s not like Star Wars was an original story arc. Let’s put King Arthur in Space. Fine. Hallelujah!
Honestly I think Fellowship of the Ring and A New Hope are both Masterpieces in filmmaking please know that – just venting here.
A little, helpless bunny rabbit is walking across my backyard. No one will ever notice him but me at this exact second, unless a hawk gets him. He won’t save the world or do anything newsworthy. He’s just looking for food in a place that is probably so horrifying to him that being hit by a car is an act of mercy. It’s raining and cold and I hope he has somewhere to get warm. And there are millions more like that rabbit, desolate, hungry, weak and outcast. I hope all their suffering is not in vain. I hope they are not forgotten, Lord.
“I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope…”
Red – The Shawshank Redemption
