Happy Face 9

Somebody once called me "convenient." He wouldn't explain further and we haven't been friends now for well over ten years. He was a friend struggling with mental illness and found me very supportive, which I suppose was what he meant by convenient. Everybody's pet doggie. But it has always been strongly in my nature to be there for others, because I am not a selfish person and as a Christian i am even less selfish, but no one is going to consider you as a candidate for friendship if you are there to help and support but don't descend to their level of bottom-feeding. My psychiatrist, and others, have told me that I do not tolerate mediocrity. And this is largely true. I have been told that my values and standards are just too high for a lot of people, and that my gifts as an artist, writer, my verbal gifts and wit, my spiritual gifts, and my sharp tongue and ability to see through other people's bullshit actually puts me at a social disadvantage. People get scared of me, they feel intimidated and they close ranks to keep me out, which is also cruel because even gifted people who can't shut up for five seconds need friends and community, but for me anyway there never appears to be anything or anyone there. Unless they need me for something. But otherwise, I get sidelined. I am relegated as someone who is interesting, but not worthy of friendship. People can only bear so much stimulation before they get tired and bored or irritable and vicious. So, I never get invited anywhere, and being poor and socially marginalized, as well as queer and asexual simply makes me even more of a freak, so they don't want me spoiling their lovely family Christmas celebrations, where no outsiders are allowed. Hardly the spirit of Christmas, methinks, but people for the most part are just that, they are puerile bottom-feeders and maybe I should question my need to be wanted and accepted by such mediocre idiots as your average person. Okay, I'm also elitist, but poor and socially marginalized, so demographically, I cannot afford to be an elitist. Go figure. Neither can I shut up about global warming, climate change, and our entrenched lethal habits and addictions to convenience and comfort that simply are bringing us that much closer to the precipice: driving cars, eating meat, and wanton consumerism. Neither am I going to shut up about homelessness, the growing divide between rich and poor and social and economic inequality. People hate being reminded of their sins, and if this hectoring is coming from a low income Jeremiah or a white trash Cassandra such as myself, then so much the worse. No wonder I haven't got any friends. I am also poor and old and single and male, all categories that make me less than attractive social bait. Okay, I get it. But I still need support. I still need community. And I need people who can tolerate me, who will love and accept me, and who will allow me room to integrate among them, preferably Christians, since non-Christians find me and my brand of righteous nagging to be particularly odious. And, no, I am not going to shut up about these important matters and issues, much as the rest of you probably wish that I would and for the simple reason that I have to obey the urgings of the divine that is within me, which is to say, the Holy Spirit, because our time on this planet could very well be cut short if we don't all seriously smarten up, and I do not want to face God's judgment when I die for not playing my part and sounding the alarm as I have been able, much less for not pulling my weight and endeavouring to the best of my ability to live out my Christian faith in a world full of people who only wish that my kind would go away and die somewhere in the wilderness. and I am going to go on doing this in a spirit of joy, even if my heart seems always to be breaking in the midst of this fetid darkness we have collectively brought on ourselves on the planet, and I can still smile because I do this for love. I nag and hector your ass off because I love you. Just as I offer you my support and friendship. Because I love you. And because I love you I also have joy, because joy is the fruit of love and all love comes directly from God, whether you choose to believe in him or not, Gentle Reader. Hello? Anyone out there?