Wednesday. Tell me it's Wednesday.

Because this week has to be at least half over. I'm exhausted already. Developing love-hate relationship with new job. Love: The People. The Thinking. The focus of the work. Hate: Picking my way through complicated problems that started way before I got there, and feeling like I'm never going to get on top of it all. Whine over. I'll get over it.

But because my brain has been toasted to extra-crispy and it's only Wednesday, here's the random brain dump du jour:

I really want to write a long, articulate, oh-so-intellectual post about Republican Evangelical-ish Christianity, with links and cites and all that crap, but I'll never get around to it, so here's the unedited brain dump.

I don't get it. The Evangelicals will say it's because I'm a Catholic, and maybe this is so, but all I know is that what I am hearing bears no resemblance to the stuff those nice guitar-playing sisters taught me in the 60s-70s. I'm really starting to think about why the Republican Christians are always quoting the Old Testament instead of the New. Because it's pretty clear that though they Praise Jaysus, they don't like His message. They're really damn glad He SAVED them from their SINS so by ACCEPTING HIM AS THEIR SAVIOR they are on the express elevator to heaven, unlike the rest of us rabble who have doubts about our worthiness and think that maybe this is something you have to actively earn by how you live your life. But that's a Catholic thing, and I've been told off on that one for years and years. But I can't get the Conservative Republican Christian model I keep running up against. It doesn't work with anything I understand about what Jesus taught, which, if you actually read it, ain't too far from the trendier Buddhist stuff so widely embraced in our culture.

Republican Christians don't want no truck with no Buddhist stuff, and not a hell of a lot with Christ's words, either. It was mighty damn nice of Him to die for them, but listen to what He said? Eeew. So not their style. The avowed Christian Right Wing response to Katrina I've heard lately just made my head spin. I don't claim much more than a passing familiarity with the New Testament, but I'm doing a major HUH?

"Blessed are the poor...." somehow doesn't work with "Well, why were they living there? It's their own fault! Helping them is just enabling them! They don't deserve government HANDOUTS! We have to do something, of course, we're Christians and it's expected of us, it's the "Christian Thing To Do," but what is wrong with them? Why they are poor? It's their own lack of personal responsibility!"

I really wish some Born Again Republican could point me to the Bible verse where Jesus said that helping the poor is just enabling them. Or where He bitched at them for being poor and lectured on their lack of personal responsibility. Because, yeah, I'm just a Catholic and y'all have been telling me for years that we don't know the Bible so it must be true. Somewhere, Jesus must say that blaming the poor for their poverty is acceptable. I can't find it, but that's probably just me.


And while I'm ranting - is it absolutely necessary, if you wish to be Born Again, to have a lurid personal story that would make Jerry Springer need to take a moment to recover? Damn.

And it has ever been thus. Get a few Born Agains in a room and the competition begins - who was the Bigger Sinner before Being Saved???? BA 1: I drank and slept around. BA 2: I drank, slept around and beat my kids. BA 3: I drank, slept around, beat my kids, can't name their daddies, stabbed a guy in a parking lot, and shot heroin! And on it goes, until bystanders are just reeling.

Me, I think this is the best case the Catholics have for confessing to a priest. Dump your shit on him and move on, honey - if you really felt cleansed of your sins maybe you wouldn't have to compulsively talk about them to total strangers at inappropriate times. Because maybe, just maybe, the total strangers don't want to know, are really wondering why you are talking about it whenever anyone challenges your POV, and, honestly, your background just puts your political views into a crisper perspective. You might try arguing the issues instead of playing Your Born Again Card, because for many of us, it just doesn't work. There are times when it is appropriate to share such a story - when offering it to help someone else who is dealing with serious personal issues, it could be justified. When using it to justify blaming total strangers for being poor, it's hard for bystanders to believe that you aren't still fucked up, Born Again or not.

I remind myself that there are really admirable people who are identified as Evangelicals - Jimmy Carter springs to mind - who would never make the cut for tabloid TV and who must be way more disgusted with these freaks than I am. But, damn. The run of the mill encounter is scary - so narcissistic, so Yes I Really AM OKAY NOW!!!!! Yeah. I'll just back away quietly, because you're creeping me out.

Don't Think of an Elephant absolutely rocks. It's not really about the Christian issue, but it brings the language and values into clarity. I'm hearing the same old crap with a new analytical tool - I've always sensed these things, but I didn't have the vocabulary to analyze it. I think that must be what it's like to be a dog. They sense it, they know it instinctively, but without the human vocabulary, it doesn't count.

I'm gonna go knit a sock. Socks always make sense.