Pastor's Sermon, Drinking Buddies, Advice and Sheist Niggas

Anyone who has followed my ramblings knows I’m not really a religious person. I’ve read the Bible one time through and constantly go back to it, but I do so no different than I would “One Hundred Years of Solitude” or “Invisible Man” or any other really, really, good book. The difference between the Bible and other literary canon is broad swaths of ordinary, non-academics are familiar with the Bible and some of those people ascribe power to it as a Holy text. Well, I’ll be damned (quite literally here), but that makes the Bible a powerful text. Maybe I have taken extra efforts to know the Bible well enough to get creative in expressing myself and exercising persuasion over those to whom the Bible holds weight. Sometimes you have to speak a person’s language.

But I’m not religious. And to be frank, a lot of religion and religious people turn me off. You see, I am a pretty principled individual and have a high sense of ethic. This is not on purpose, it is how I am. Things that perplex and weigh heavily on people I see in black and white. I don’t need a preacher or congregation for that.


For some reason, I seem to attract people who have lapsed in their religion. You know those guys that used to go to church every Sunday but haven’t been in a while. Now they are drinking buddies or wing men talking shit about who they’d fuck, who they’ve fucked, and how they’ve dogged so and so and are about to do the same to next one.  As typically happens we’ll get drunk and featured backslider will start spilling guts about they don’t want to do so and so in such and such a way but they just have no choice.

Basically I sit, listen, laugh and shake my head at repentant sinner as he goes on about trying to do the right thing and how its so hard bla bla bla. Like omg, what should I do? If they are drunk enough sometimes they even get to their immortal soul as if that is another factor I should consider in giving them advice about their non-dilemma, dilemma. To which I always offer the same advice: Do the best you can. To which they offer a sarcastic "thanks." To which I offer a sarcastic "pray on it."

I don’t get these helpless motherfuckers.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my shiest shit. Thing is I don’t seem to have the same internal war. If its fucked up but I can look myself in the mirror afterwards and be like you did some foul shit then proceed to laugh about it and not loose sleep, then I’ll do that shit, especially if there is some temporal pleasures to be gained. But if it’s too foul I won’t go there. No big deal. There is no pleasure worth my peace of mind and there is no repercussion for pleasure beyond my peace of mind. Since I know myself pretty well there is never a prolonged cost benefit analysis which requires a six pack and a friends ear. I can do it all by myself. And since adulthood, most of the times, I’ve done the right thing. I won't lie either, when there is some question about the right thing, I've even used my readings of the Bible (along with other books) to guide my actions. Why re-invent the wheel, you know?

After these backsliding nouveau teetotalers get back on track and find there way back to the flock, as evidenced by facebook statuses and are-you-fucking-kidding-me tagged notes sent to select friends (read: not me) about biblical passages, they now want to proselytize me. They even want to shake their head at things that I am doing or done when I never even asked what they thought. Then when I smh and have are-you-fucking-serious written in sanskrit on my forehead they behave like they know something I don’t. Perhaps they do. I won’t pretend to know what happens after death. But I can guarantee this: I know something most people you shower in your holiness don’t. That you are a sheisty motherfucker! Yeah, bro. Sheisty.

Days turn to weeks and we’ll hang out less and less. You know that sort of thing happens with buddies, no hard feelings. I just would like to offer some insight on why this happens other than the typical church folk narrative, which goes: 1) He was a sinner and would have tempted me and/or 2.) You can’t save everyone focus on your own salvation and shed those who would hold you back. You know something like that. Hey, whatever it takes to maintain. I’m not mad.

But here’s my take on the situation 1.) You are a foul dude and I know that about you so you couldn’t go on with your charade in my presence without being a liar. I mean sure folk change, but this was last week dog. And 2.) You know my moral judgment is more sound than yours hence you replacing pastors sermon with my ramblings off a six pack for a month or two, yet I clearly thumb my nose at all that religious ish so what does that say about you or that religious ish? Pretty scary to think about, I know. So don’t. Don’t think at all. Believe and have faith. It works for you. To me that’s all it comes down to. Does it work for you?

All this other ballyhoo and judging and feigned condescension is why people don’t like you Jesus freaks. Fuck being a hypocrite, we all are. Just don’t be such schmucks about it. Do that shit silently somewhere without being a prick to people you once turned to for counsel, without being a prick to people you turned to for counsel because you never developed the ability to make tough decisions independently sans Pastor's sermon or drinking buddy, more specifically.