fear

i'm supposed to be going to bed. well, i am in bed but i'm nowhere near exhaustion, which is what's required these days for me to fall asleep.


sigh. i just set my alarm clock for the first time in nearly 4 months. i worked so many hours that i would get home around 11 and just crash til my body woke up at 9. and another thing - before all that insanity, i used to set my alarm for 8 to roll out the door at 8:10 to be at work for 8:20-ish. if i miss anything about my last job, it's uniforms. yeah yeah. they were ugly and uncomfortable but at least they required absolutely no thought at all.


i had a feeling this would be a whiny-ish post. sorry. let's see if it takes us anywhere constructive.


i've been in this mood all day. i went to sleep last night, thankful for constant provision, and woke up this morning to the thought of, "oh shit. cameron likes coun--- COUNTRY --- music. oh shit shit shit." and that thought, of course, set me off on the tip of a spiral of pissed-off-edness. eh, well. grief comes in waves and it's disingenuous to lead you to believe that i'm ok all the time. because i definitely am not. most of the time, but definitely not all. today was a wallow-in-self-pity-on-the-brink-of-spirally day.


i'm trying to change that tonight. self-pity is selfish and shallow and so... annoying. trust me - i'm annoyed with myself. you can be too. it's totally ok.


so what set me off was being subject to country music all day. that thought makes me want to shoot someone. i absolutely abhor, no loathe, no. what's the word? I CAN'T FUCKING STAND COUNTRY MUSIC. how's that for using my stellar vocabulary? mom would be proud.


anyway. it's funny what's bothering me about going back to BPBR. it's not time-clocks or stoned college kid coworkers or even being a peon after being the boss. it's frigging country music. so what's up with that? i grew up listening to it. i owned an 8-track of john denver's greatest hits and knew more willie nelson when i was 7 than most people do in a lifetime (thanks, dad). seven spanish angels, anyone? no? 


ahhh. anyway. i listened to all forms of that crap all the way through my teens. my 20's were mostly grunge. somewhere in my early 30's i realized how... self-centered and small the country music genre is and it made me mad and sad at the same time. forget the stereotypical "my dog ran off and so did my wife i'll pay you for the dog and to keep the wife" crap. although that is pretty terrible. it's not even real. well, maybe there are folks out there who live that kind of life but who does so ON PURPOSE? and SINGS about it? GLORIFIES it? IMMORTALIZES it in song and in radio waves that travel only God knows how far into the universe? we even subject whoever inhabits the far reaches of space with that crap. i'm hopeful that tolkien's description of the angelic hosts singing in the early hours of creation (the silmarillion, page 3) is true and their voices drown out all the noise we send out.


oh yeah - fair warning - this blog is likely to become less and less politically correct. in case you haven't noticed that yet. i'd say i'm sorry to offend you, but that would be disingenuous too. not that my intent is to offend; my intent is to provoke you to think for yourself. it always has been.


so back to psycho-analyzing my reaction to country music. taking a stab at the obvious psychology, i'd say that this level of extreme negative reaction to something so seemingly innocuous as a music genre is rooted, as most things are, in fear. how's that for pulling wisdom outta nowhere?


so what do i fear? well, quite a lot of things, actually, although most would be surprised to hear me admit that. i seem to put off this... essence? of fearlessness. am i not the one who has "valiant one" TATTOOED on her back? as in a name bestowed by God Himself? yep, that's me. i can give you a long list of things i do not fear but what's the fun in that? let's hack away into the deep recesses of my psyche to see what's behind this fear that's masking as hatred of country music. goody. i'm sure i'll sleep much better once this is all out.


mediocrity. smallness - life, not stature. failure. repeated failure. lack of control of my surroundings. lack of control of my circumstances, for that matter. being one step away from homelessness. not being loved. not loving well. not being valued. definitely not being known. and being known. (that's a cruel double-edged sword i'll leave alone for tonight.) not leaving this world better than i found it. that i care too much about the land and not enough about people. not being able to hear His voice or worship Him fully and whole-heartedly. ah, the tears come and tonight, they are not cathartic. it doesn't help that i have "to the wild country" playing in my mind.


so how does one get from fear to hatred? of all the answers rushing to flow through these fingertips, only one is correct: eyes inward. not outward. not upward. faithless.


ouch. brutally honest even now. surprised? i didn't think so.


i could wrap this up with religious platitude. i could quote 15 scriptures off the top of my head that would make all of us feel better. but i find myself strangely resistant to make it that... thoughtless. and by "thoughtless" i mean "without thought". rote.


i need a JC reframe. in place of that, i sit hear with heart ruthlessly exposed and no shalom. the hounds are at bay for the moment... i can hear them, but they can't get through the door. i had a friend who used to bookend whoever or whatever she was praying for with Jesus, making a prayer out of simple sentence structure. example: Jesus ann Jesus. see? isn't that beautiful in its simplicity? i tweaked it a bit through the years, as it seems to help me truly place the Cross between me and all others, and place it before and behind those i pray for.


i used to be, and suppose i still am, considered to be somewhat of a prayer warrior, although in all honesty, that has not been true of me for quite some time. maybe the place to start again is here:


JESUS ann JESUS fear JESUS country music JESUS.