I Only Like Religions Endorsed by Major Celebrities

I’ll tell you what. I am fed up with congestion.

I don’t know if it’s pollen or what, but I am having all sorts of sleep problems due to nasal congestion. I was getting up at 5:30 every morning, and I really enjoyed it. Now even if I go to bed early, I tend to feel crummy when I get up, so I add two hours to the alarm setting, and I go back to sleep. Today when I woke up I was so out of it I got up and made coffee in order to help me make it to the shower. Have you ever awakened in such a state that you had a hard time keeping your balance during your first steps? That’s me today.

I probably need to sterilize my bedroom. Wash the mattress cover and dust ruffle, mop under the bed, dust everything in sight, and get more of that Clorox allergy spray. I may also get a memory foam pillow. When I was a kid, a doctor told my mother I couldn’t have feather pillows, and at the time, he was wrong. Maybe he’s right now.

I still haven’t recovered from the time change. That’s weird. Usually it doesn’t bother me at all. I tried melatonin, but the results were not great. I tended to wake up in the middle of the night. I don’t know if that’s the melatonin or something else.

I strongly suspect that when you have a good prayer life, and there are people that need your help, God will literally wake you up so you can pray. Maybe that’s what’s happening now. I am determined to be thankful for the opportunity, but I think you know how that works. “Thanks for giving me this chance to pray, and boy would I thank you even more if you gave someone else the chance tomorrow. That would be just great, because I hate to hog the righteousness.”

Here’s a good question for everyone. Have you ever been shaken up by an answer to prayer? I’ll explain. Usually when I pray for things, I find myself praying for things that are likely to happen regardless of whether I pray. “Keep me safe.” “Help me find the car keys.” But sometimes I pray for things that are extremely unlikely to happen without divine intervention. One example: I pray that people I know will become Christians. That’s a tough one, because it involves manipulating beings who have free will, and it also involves a decision that is subject to tremendous cultural bias.

People who are not Christians are often very contemptuous of Christianity; praying for them to change is a little like praying that I will give up Christianity and become a Scientologist or a Mormon. Many people see Christianity as beneath their level of sophistication, and they may see Christians as rubes and suckers. The thought of having their cool friends look down on them is too much to bear. Often, the barrier is pride. It feels great, thinking you’re more clever than people who picked the wrong religion. That’s something I need to watch, as a matter of fact.

Why is it that American Buddhists are so stuck up? Can someone explain that to me? Buddhists can’t wait to tell you they’re Buddhists; it’s as if they think they won the Nobel Prize. The real message, much of the time isn’t “I’m a Buddhist.” It’s “I am smarter and more moral than you.” Isn’t bragging about your morality and humility sort of oxymoronic?

Was Buddha stuck up? Isn’t that bad karma? And why do so many Westerners assume Asians have deep wisdom? One look at Asia is all you need to realize how kooky that idea is. Life in Asia is pretty awful, and it always has been. How come the deep wisdom isn’t kicking in and fixing things? Also, if human beings are recycled, how come there are six billion of us now? Where did all the new souls come from? Maybe a lot of us are recently promoted ants and cockroaches.

If you were a cockroach not too long ago, what do you have to be arrogant about? You must have been a mighty impressive cockroach. And if you insist on being arrogant, why be arrogant toward other human beings? The appropriate thing would be to lord it over all the folks who are still cockroaches.

I often think one big draw of Buddhism is that it enables you to work on yourself without having to oppose or even acknowledge sin. That’s pleasant, because it means you never have to take a stand, and you never have to give anything up because it’s sinful. This is probably why gays love Buddhism. You can be gay and be a full-blown, hardcore Buddhist. In order to be a gay Christian or Jew, you have to mangle the Bible pretty badly.

Some non-Christians feel brave and strong because they don’t need the “crutch” of an “imaginary” God. Unlike those weak Christians who chose to be torn apart in the Coliseum rather than deny God. Wow, what crutch-dependent weaklings. That isn’t courage. Real courage is standing up in a room full of your fellow unbelievers, saying you believe exactly what they do. I guess.

It takes real bravery to do things that make your life easier. That must be how it works.

I have never understood how anyone could feel smug about thinking for himself, while espousing beliefs that tend to bring him approval and acceptance. I think the funniest examples are on college campuses. Kids who rebel by doing and saying exactly what their teachers tell them to. Tenured professors who pretend it’s brave to spout rhetoric their bosses agree with. How is it brave to speak out, when you can’t be fired for it? You can’t “Question Authority” by agreeing with everyone who has power over you. The proper term for that is “toadying.”

I’m off on a tangent. All I’m saying is, it’s a big deal when a prayer involving changing another person’s mind is answered. I was using prayers regarding religious choices as examples.

Not long ago, I had a prayer granted, and it had seemed so unlikely, I literally looked up and thanked God in a state of confusion and amazement. I always try to believe God will grant my requests, but the human mind is a funny place where a belief and its opposite can exist at the same time; when you say you believe something, you usually mean you have less doubt than belief. So when God comes along and crushes the remaining doubt, it wakes you right up. Are all believers like me? Maybe Moses was startled when God parted the Red Sea.

It’s funny; faith is not constant in a given person. It varies in degree. I suppose it would be impossible, on my worst day, to convince me that God doesn’t exist. On the other hand, it can be a big shock when he does something really bold that forces me to realize he’s really there.

Let me know if it has ever happened to you. Meanwhile I better suck it up and clean that bedroom.