Why I Am A Christian

Why I Am A Christian
Neifert, B. K.. Flirations with A'te. Kindle Direct Publishing, 2020. pp. 6 - 38. Text.

Why I Am A Christian

Why I Am a Christian
I address this topic again today
The reason I'm a Christian.
But I will reveal more about my character in this
Poem, things I hope my readers can relate to.

Just by looking at the words I write
Just by looking at my behavior
I can tell that I'm alright.
I can tell I'm not a bad person
Nor am I, objectively, this evil person
That I fear being.
I spend almost all day thinking
Praying, watching YouTube---not for entertainment---
So I can find random inspirations for my poetry.
So, I'm not lazy.
I spend about six hours a day working.
I go out, and I talk to the local clerks about Jesus.
I do all of these things...

In my heart, though,
I feel like I'm the Antichrist.
In my heart I feel like I'm the Beast or False Prophet.
In my head I know it's not true.
In my heart, I look at every little thing I get wrong
And I realize how short I've fallen.
It's why I'm a Christian.
Every one of those sins
I commit on a daily basis.
Any one of them could be the ticket to hell
If I hadn't Jesus as my "Parachute"
As a street preacher Ray Comfort puts it.



But, I look at my fellow "Christians"
And I see them swear.
I see them drink.
I see them hide their sex lives
From everyone else.
I see them, and I can make no distinction between
Them or an unbeliever.
Sometimes I feel like they are the worse off.
And I look at my behavior,
How I don't get anything,
And I wonder... I truly wonder...
"Am I the bad person?
"Is sin okay?
"If I'm criticized by everyone else
"For trying to live a life for Jesus
"And these people say, 'Jesus saved me.'
"Is sin okay?"

Because Jesus forgives
I suppose I wonder if this is a sign that
I'm allowed to go out and have the kinds of "Fun"
That everyone else is having.
There is a feeling I got
How they feel.
It is a good feeling
But nowhere near as good as the melancholy
Of knowing I hadn't done anything wrong.

Yet... therein lies the problem.
What have I done wrong that I don't know about?
What hidden sins testify to my guilt and shame?
What if there are sins I'm committing that
I have completely forgotten about?

See, Christians are happy to sin flagrantly.
They believe that because Jesus saved them
It gives them license to do whatever they want.
They believe that the offering plate is good enough
For their charity.
They believe that the alter call is good enough
For their confession of faith.

I try to live out my faith, and strange questions arise.
"What if I'm sinning, and I mean really sinning
"And I don't even know it?
"What if they are right?
"What if Jesus lets us sin a little bit
"So we don't do what I do and try not to sin
"And some evil thing in us starts sinning all the more?"

Because I don't know why people reject me.
I don't know why people hate me.
I see my behavior on a daily basis
Is par excellence.
I don't swear.
I don't drink.
I'm not stingy.
About the only thing I watch on TV is the nightly ball game.
I work;
I never play.
I try to be as kind to everyone around me as I can.
I try to make everyone feel good about themselves
When I'm around.
I correct people's bad behaviors.
And I wonder if all of this is for nothing
Because I haven't figured out the trick to being a Christian.
Just sin a little bit
So you don't repress it
And become worse.
So all of that sin doesn't get squashed into your subconscious
And you have to question whether your dreams were real.
Whether you were sleep walking.

Because I don't know why Christians and Gentiles hate me.
It must be some hidden sins I don't know about
And I see the Christian way
Of sinning only a little bit
Just so you don't blow your top and do something really stupid.
Maybe righteousness and love
Are meant to be tied up with playing violent video games
Going out and having one night stands
Cussing like a sailor
And hating your brother.

All I know is that I know those things are wrong
And I have no memory of doing any of them
In the past five years.
I feel a lot better knowing that.
But there hangs over my head the question
Of whether some primitive force in me
Doesn't want to do that
And everyone else has figured it out.
I just haven't.
Being righteous makes you unrighteous
And hate, anger, fear and abuse
Are what is good for you
Because then you don't pent those up
And commit worse felonies.

I have no recall of having committed a crime;
So, perhaps that's the eerie nature of it.
You commit crimes because you want to avoid them.

But... I know I will avoid committing crimes;
Even the lesser ones
Because I know it is right.
Should I be damned for trying to follow
God's law, and loving Jesus
Then I'll be damned
Because I see that it must have been false from the very start.
I will see religion as worthless
Unless it is to give to the widow in her time of distress
And to bridle the tongue.




To bridle the tongue doesn't mean to ramble on like I am doing
Whether in prayer, or to people.
It means to not make others feel bad.

But, of course, Christians are akin to believing in magic now
So any mean thing you say to someone,
That is okay.
But simply don't commit the cardinal sin
Of having an opinion that might be wrong;
Don't commit the cardinal sin of trying to live out the Gospel.
Also, don't commit the cardinal sin of feeling like you have done something wrong.
We all know that Christ's sacrifice means we now get to hide it
And when a sin is called to our remembrance, we must be the first to push it way
Down into our belly.
For there is only one sin, and that's getting caught.
To a Christian.

See, bridling the tongue means
Not speaking a word of hoodoo
In your car while praying to God.
The very place you should feel safe
The world watches and condemns every word
Brought to the LORD in prayer.

That is the cardinal sin
Of being honest with God
And making your thoughts known to Him.
The cardinal sin is correcting your fellow Christian
When they get something morally wrong.
But rather, debate about esoteric doctrines is
What fixes a soul;
A Christian can have sex, twerk and smoke marijuana
Just so long as he has the right ideas about the Trinity
He is saved.


Hypocrites.
You’d rather the magic of Fairyland...
And I can trace Fairyland to my earliest writings.
There it is, in its infancy.
All of my delusions stored up for their final
Climax

So...

What is Fairyland?
It is hell.
It is the hell I’ve had to endure for nearly ten years now.
All of it.

It is hell on earth.
It is mental illness.
It is delusion.
It is insanity.

Is it persuasive?
I hope everyone knows it is Christianity.
It is the insanity of a religion
What must be true
If the earth is flat.
If evolution were not true.

Where will it go?

I see Christianity as a dying religion.
Fairyland is my last plea with Christians
Not to let the religion die.
It’s not because I’m unchristian that I say this.
Only that I see a bunch of my absurd Giants
In Jotunheim smashing hammers against their heads
Walking around like imbeciles
Pretending, covering their eyes.


Do know, Christians...
Fairyland is your Christianity.
It is the absurd religion I’ve had to endure
For ten years, believing the Earth were flat
And not believing in evolution.

I make this plea to you
Not to let your religion die
Because it is the religion of truth.

Do not enter into a land of Werewolves 
Spells and incantations
Because it is just a strong delusion.
As you had your delusion
I had mine.

There is meaning...
There is metaphor.
I just don’t believe Christians
You are actually ready to comprehend
The absurdity of your beliefs.
The way you strongly hold to traditions
Built in the church
That prevent humanity from growing.

You, rather, are creating hell on earth
By not following what the Gospel preaches.

It’s not science that makes Christ God.
Whatever specious claim we have to science
This Fairyland is your science.
It is the science of Christianity.
In all its absurdities, in all its casuistry
In all its creative glory
This Fairyland must be true
If you want to hold onto beliefs 
That are time and again proven false.


But, I say that Christianity is the true religion.
It is because it proves itself morally right
When no other religion can.
It explains the moral universe better than any religion
Ever could.

Rather than part hairs about time dilation
Explaining how Genesis were real
Why cannot you have faith in a God Who is all powerful?
With your limited understanding
Why do you try to annul my faith
By explaining how Jesus was knit in the womb?
Because when you deny the mystery of Christ
You deny the nature of what Christ is:
A divine miracle.
And I’m afraid that once you’ve entered into Fairyland
You will not be as strong as I am to come out of it.
You will wallow there, in your pig’s mud
Believing in Nethanim and Vampires.

Need you explain miracles?
Need you question them as I have?
Because you undoubtedly will
When you enter into this absurd reality
I’ve wandered through for ten years.

Just have simple faith.
Like I will have simple faith.
It’s all there, in Bitter Medicine.
It shows the path to Fairyland.
It shows how I would soon enter into it
As my entire life was thrown into a crazed lunacy
Of reverberating philosophies and echo chambers
Of delusions.

Do you really want me to live in a world of spells and incantations?
Do you really expect me to believe in the power of your word over reality?
Do you really think that by yelling at a tree enough times
You will get it to move?

Let me be clear.
Trees can move.
But by God’s power.
How many of you have listened to me
Make prediction after prediction that hasn’t come true?
If faith were the agency by which miracles happened
And I mean belief, not practice
Then I would be twice over a billionaire
And the Earth ended a dozen times.

Our words contain no power.
We do not live in a reality of words
And spiritual warfare like you understand it.

There is spiritual warfare.
Very real, when you wake up
And decide to be kind to your friends and family
Instead of backbiting and regrettably egotistical.

I was egotistical for ten years
Living in Fairyland.
I’m afraid you won’t leave it
Because you need the artificial reality, fairies and pixies,
To supplement your lost touch on reality,

Need you know that Saint George is just a story
And that dragons do not exist?
Need you know that bathing in blood does not make you any younger?
Need you know that by eating a Kiwana Melon
You will not have eternal youth?
Need you know these things
Or do I have to tell you?
If you feel deluded
It’s your own fault
Not mine, for speaking exactly what God wanted me to speak.
The delusory world you’ll end up in
If you don’t shape up and start believing and knowing only Christ.

Because I don’t want you ending up here.
I don’t want you questioning your very reality
Or having to believe in fairytales as a cracked crutch
To lean on.
This isn’t even milk
It’s chaff.
They’re just stories.

Magic is not real.
It’s just, you believe in it because your preachers practice it.
They have people in wheel chairs tuck their legs beneath them
And then in your ecstatic desire to believe in miracles
You see what is impossible.
They have you come to the alter and say a magic prayer.
Prayers do nothing
Save God give the command.

No... pray eagerly to God
Every day, every morning
Every night. Tremble on your bed like I do
Every day you wake up
Knowing this hell could be yours
If you make the wrong move.
If you do the wrong thing.
Tremble. Rejoice. Eat.
Drink. But remember Fairyland is only a lie
That you believe.
So stop believing in it.

Christ, He is not a lie.
Christ is true.
How do I know this?
Because I’ve seen healings.
I’ve seen demons cast out.
I’ve seen miracles.
O’ the spiritual does exist
Christians.
Don’t let yourselves be fooled.

But do not live in a world of utter fairytales
To supplement the things you cannot know.
Whatever you know
It should be that people are hungry, and they need fed.
It should be that hard work should be enjoyed
And puts food in your mouths.
It should be that there is good,
And yes, there is evil.

Because you do not need to enter into a realm of Fairytales
To supplement the reality you know exists.
Just let go of your superstitions.
As, underlying the whole message of what I wrote
Is that it is, in all truth, just a story.
And we ought to believe in Evolution and a spherical earth
And that the earth were old.
Because it’s crazy not to.
If all the witnesses of the world
People who have been to space
People who have carbon dated rocks
People who have studied the natural sciences
You speciously claim to study...
If they claim something that you utterly refuse to claim
Will you not loose the bonds of Christ
In the little ones you seem to want to save?

Will they not turn from Christ?
Utterly and deceitfully they will think we’re crazy
As you think I’m crazy.

I’m coming out of this realm
Into a more tangible realm
Because I needed to see with my eyes
What I had already known.
And I will never loose Christ
Because Christ is as real to me as my little finger
Or my own house.
He is someone I see
Through the moral observations
And how the earth moves
To a law accordingly.
It is His law which the earth moves to.

I will not bow down to an idol.
I will not say to the work of my hands,
“Behold! My God!”
Because of thirteen kings
There are no kings save one
And that is Jesus, the LORD.

Need you believe in miracles
Christians
And then deny the miracle talked about in scripture?
He cannot confess Jesus as LORD
Who is an unbeliever?
I’ve seen this little tiny miracle a thousand times!
I myself could not even put it on my tongue
Because I was even once in rebellion.
And you still believe the earth is flat
And that the earth is young
And that there is no evolution
But you cannot believe that only a saved person can confess
Jesus as LORD.
Shame on you
Because miracles are real
But not the ones found in Fairyland.
Also, 
 
There is good.
I can see it every day.
I can feel it.
Things like love.
Things like sadness—which can be good
If it’s over something like the death of a loved one
Or a long term relationship being lost
Which feels an awful lot like death.
That second phrase there
It’s not the good part
That I believe.
It’s that other pesky part.
That there is evil.
That someone you’ve known a lifetime
Can leave... and it feels like they died.
But it’s a constant mourning
Because you know they still exist
Somewhere on the Earth
Just unobtainable.
Responsible love
Says that someone you’ve dated for ten plus years
Or even been married to
You should not leave.
You should keep your private parts
For theirs only; if it’s a romance.
 
It’s not because it spreads disease.
It’s not because it is somehow dangerous.
It’s because people love, and love very hard.
And when you put your whole faith into someone
Else, and loving them, and then they leave
That’s more dangerous than AIDs.
That’s losing something that was a huge part of your life.
And people are somehow okay with that.
I can’t be... it’s why I’ll never accept Atheism
Or the spirit of the world.
I will never, because I can’t.
I cannot justify breaking apart long lasting bonds.
I cannot justify losing love
Even if that person irritates you
And you hate them.
Hate is ephemeral
And it’s expressed by a small person.
 
To be irritated
Or to see the Hallmark happy endings
Where the good guy previously being dated
Is always surrendered
For the good guy not being dated...
It’s serial monogamy.
And Serial Monogamy is proven not to work
Except in an unhealthy culture.
 
Yes... you are supposed to be close to people
Friends, family, spouses
For an entire lifetime.
When we fill these voids with people
Who are mere acquaintances
It’s impossible.
They are small pegs
Falling through a gaping hole.
 
It’s this that’s the core of my Christianity.
Injustice exists.
Good exists.
And I see the world floundering
Trying to discover the way around this problem.
If we just try to remove this part of us
Called love, then we can actually obtain happiness.
I know that the part of us that makes us happy is love.
I’m one of only a few people who can remember this.
But, silly enough, people try to remove their long term relationships
Friends from five years old
Lovers they’ve spent twenty years with...
It always ends up in disaster.
Maybe not for you
But the fictive family
The cousins who only associated through you
The long distances it takes just to see the people you love
And splitting the family into two
Where a child is tasked with the daunting reality
Of striving to know which family to ally with.
There is always this choice
Either the mother’s family
Or the father’s, but you love them both.
 
And I see the modern world struggling with this problem
As if they’ve already found the solution to it.
Divorce, of course.
Removing the people from your life who matter most.
Fixing your life by finding “Safe” relationships.
Calling all genuine emotions “Toxic.”
And it seems that we live in a superficial culture
That has therapists for friends
But sadly no one else.
And I happen to love these people...
Never think for a second that I don’t.
I suffer monumentally, and I know what is the cause of my suffering.
Other divorced children tend to just accept it
And follow the vain notions of society
Ready to divorce their lovers
At a whim, and have three fathers to four different children.
The children never even knowing their siblings
Because the mother’s wrath cannot stand the father
And the children who loved that mother
Though not their own
Now must never see her again.
 
Do you understand that my religion answers these questions?
It answers these questions quite satisfactorily.
Do the hard work and keep your relationships.
If there were ever a core part of my religion
That kept me a Christian it was that.
That I can tell the therapist to fly a kite
In my own, polite way
When they suggest I remove my mother from my life.
That was the moment I realized the insanity of it all.
My own mother, who as some of you might know
Played Itsy-Bitsy Spider with me
Was the sacrificial lamb to my happiness
On the altar of Therapy.
No... it wasn’t to simply say that relationships are hard.
People will be furious;
They will do sometimes the most hurtful and bitter things.
It was the therapist’s offering
Of my mother.
What if it had been my dad?
What if it had been my brother?
What if it had been my best friends?
What if it had been my grandmother?
Each of them has injured me in momentous ways.
My dad has said a few times he wished I never was born.
My brother has been caught hating my flagrant guts.
My best friends have thought it just to kill me.
My grandmother had sympathized with my mother’s nastiest
Thing she’d ever done to me.
 
I suppose I should remove all these toxic people.
My aunt whose stupid counsel nearly lost me everything I worked for.
My uncle, her husband, who could have basically called me stupid—this the least injurious of them all.
 
What would life be without these people?
Therapy rules a life, and you remove from your life
The people, like little effigies sacrificed
At the Bohemian Grove.
You can’t succumb to the religion of the world
And it’s why I am a Christian.
Because the world’s notions make no sense.
They would have me let go of everyone who ever loved me
Everyone I loved, to create superficial relationships with people.
And I know this feeling...
It’s why I cannot believe in the Fairy Tale of Therapy.
I cannot believe in codependency and narcissism.
I’ve been in a relationship of Codependency and Narcissism.
It’s six to one, half the dozen the other.
 
There is one edifying philosophy
And that’s remove the mote from your own eye.
That my mother taught me
And I had foolishly thought it came from the Gospel of  Thomas.

Then I thought

Society.
It is not a good meaning.
I can love someone
With my whole heart
But they can be gone the next day.
In my jaded heart there is meaning...
I strive for it.
I still believe in it.
Somewhere in me I accept that there is.
But, like Marc's coming to Christianity
I find my current Jadedness to be everything I hate.
 
My face is the face of that idiot poet
Only with blue eyes and not brown.
I have hair. He is bald.
How the words become the sole meaning.
The words... the ideas.
Comfort becomes the sole meaning of life.
Warm showers.
The pleasure of wet dreams.
Desiring to love whoever I marry.
 
On one hand, I cannot stand a religion
That abdicates murderers
That lets people continue doing what is wrong.
On the other hand, I cannot stand myself
Who, knowing what is right, still does what is wrong.
 
I don't think Christ abdicates murderers.
The fact that justice exists is good enough for me.
Jadedness... for doing what was always right.
I'm jaded. Like Marc I come to this notion
That I am jaded. The conversations in my book
Are so real... so loving.
My conversations in real life are always about ideas.
Trying to save the world from utter destruction.
Globally, of course, i don't want to live in nooks of rocks
And crevices of mountains.
So, I eloquently tell my speech
And give my warnings.
 
I know I am wrong.
I know my jadedness is evil
And it is everything I absolutely hate.
In me, embodied in me somewhere
Is the very thing I despise
And I know it is in everyone
Because they put it in me.
It was me who corrupted myself;
I tell myself it because it is wise.
I corrupted myself,
And the reason I doubt my salvation
Is because I know for honoring God
For doing what I could
It means nothing.
A man who murdered
A man who stole
A man who destroyed
A man who pillaged and plundered
Could be loved by God more than I am.
And I look at God,
And see all of my hard work
All of my efforts
They mean nothing.
 
It is why I believe in Him,
Though, because my jadedness is evil.
My sin is evil.
Confused, I don't know why God would choose a man
Who did all of this over me.
It's like everything I have could be taken from me.
It could be stolen by some shadow
By some apparition, and God could make it alright.
It's like God, being infinitely wiser than me
Could justify a murderer, a sinner
A thief and a fool. That He could take everything from me
And give it to someone who flagrantly hates Him.
This is the Christian's God, the one who hates me
And loves them.
 
Conversations seem alright.
My book is full of them...
How I don't converse like that.
Maybe my conversation is unrighteous.
Maybe I must suffer because I tried to do what was right.
Gloriously the Christians sing the praise
Of the murderer, the thief, the killer
The Rambler, the Gambler and the Backbiter.
Gloriously, they love him because he hadn't tried to do what was right.
Gloriously, they love him because he can talk on their level
And talk like Marc and Erin do.
Intimately, about small inconsequential things.
 
And I look at this,
And I say to myself, "It is a sin worth going to hell for
"For being damned, that I cannot make cute talk
"And be interested in people's nothings.
"That is a sin, and how lofty my ideal is
"And how everything I write is for the aim
"Of bringing society to function.
"It is a sin, because society comes and goes.
"I'm worried about being taken to a gulag
"When I should be more worried about offending my brother."
 
Yet, I talk at the restaurant with my only brother
And right in front of me is my only friend
And beside me is the man who conceived me
And it seems to me that my brother has more enjoyment
Talking about important things
Than talking about nothings.
He gets more enjoyment out of being told the truth
And being challenged.
In love, of course I challenge him.
Small nothings aside...
Do I sin for gaining knowledge and wisdom?
I know at the outset knowledge and wisdom profits nothing
Because I can be easily thrown into prison
Like the Russian authors I read
For nothing but my voice.
Why do I cry?
Why do I publish?
Why do I strive to speak the truth?
 
Christians say, "You are a naughty, naughty man
"Because we can hear your thoughts
"And we can know your impure desires!
"We can read that little flash of lust you had
"Sitting next to the girl you barely know
"The thought you had; we know it.
"We like the murderer. Because at least he
"He, tells us what we want to hear.
"He tells us, and loves so much
"And has a nice life,
"And a beautiful girlfriend
"And children.
"We want to hear from him."
 
Rightly, I cannot argue with you.
I have none of these things.
My only friend has another friend
Whom he loves more than me.
My brother barely comes to visit.
My dad is always angry at me.
I cannot say that many people love me.
You are right.
I can see my jadedness
I can see my thoughts
And my own blasphemes.
I know the extent of my sin.
You would prefer Absalom as your prince.
You would prefer Barabbas as your guide.
Because I have thought inopportunely
And the whole of Christianity knows it
Therefore I must suffer the penalty.
For thoughts and words
Are weightier than deeds.
 
Thus, I see my own sin
And I can only say, "Yes, Christ
"It is my sin. I offer it up to You
"Because I cannot, like my characters
"Get engaged in the meaningless talk
"That I loved at one point.
"I cannot... though I wish to.
"I understand."
 
More often than not,
This is why I'm a Christian.

And why I’m not another faith:
I come to this often topic...
Of why I'm not a Buddhist.
At the beginning of my life
I said of myself  I was a "Christian Buddhist."
It was then said, "Those terms are antithetical."

Certainly, they are.
Buddhism is a religion that praises suffering
As if it were the only meaning in life.
Suffering, to suffer...
Suffer in pleasure, suffer in pain
Suffer in war, suffering, suffering, suffering.
And after all of the suffering,
The meaninglessness,
The sitting among the tombs,
One's greatest aspiration is to die.

That is the highest ideal of Buddhism.
Not to go to heaven...
No... simply to stop the reincarnation cycle.
It is what is called, "Nirvana."
Nirvana is not heaven.
It simply is not.
Greeks and Egyptians have heaven
Yet their gods are vain, and will war among one another.
Viking's heaven is to fight over a goblet and pork chop.
Islam's heaven is nice, but how do you get there?
Do you just do a lot of good?
And what about people who did a lot of bad?
Do they just have to work off their good?
Like the Hindus and Buddhists have Karma
Evil must be worked off?
Because I see how evil I am today...
Being much more loving and kind than most people
And I see the extent of my evil
And I know Karma is a backward cur;---
It makes a murderer never suffer once
And puts a good man who has a conscience out on the street.
It kind of invalidates itself, doesn't it?
The happiest people seem to be the most vile in my experience.
So... we know it doesn't exist.
Christians know this happens. They know...
They expect it... They often guarantee it.
Hindus the same, but there never is a real reward.
Hindus believe the ultimate goal is to be annihilated.
Westerners believe in heaven,
They believe in Hindu's heaven,
They believe in Islam's heaven...
A nice little garden you go to
Where you get to make love and eat and drink.
Rightly, Westerners think all religions have heaven.
Very few religions do, outside of Western traditions.
Because, we believe in Heaven, we know there's a heaven
And all religions aside, we know it's there.

I talked to a so called "Religions Scholar."
He said, "All religions have heaven."
No... there are about seven religions practiced today.
Four of them do not believe in heaven,
Two of them do, and another just has no faith.
All the others I tend to reject...
Not because they didn't survive...
My religion won't in a little while.
How do I know this?
Because men don't want to believe in the truth, anymore.
A persecuted Minority can be right
If that minority has the truth on their side.
Christianity does.

Why I'm not an atheist,
The simple reason is because it's insane.
John Lennon says, "All you need is love,"
But he beat his wife.
If his character is anything to display
If Atheist, then I want nothing to do with their religion
Or lack thereof.

I'm not Agnostic, because it's stupid.
If I half believed in God
Then I'd better pick some religion
And make sure it's right.
Only one seems to advocate truth...
"Turn the other cheek"
"Give to those who ask"
"Murderers will be torn to pieces"
"Frivolous sex is not right."
One of those I'm sure
Most of you don't believe in...
The last one.
And granted, your civilization sucks.
I have to live in it.
I don't want to.
And, I see ya'll suffer like the Buddhists do
Not believing in Fairy Tales
When the Fairy Tale simply says you're in control of your own fortune.
Bad fortune? Probably bad people.
Not all the time...
Because they are happy.
I imagine people who live today
Are as happy as a Psychopath
Skinning a sheep or something.
Some pleasure is there...
I know.
But, there are better pleasures.
Buddhism believes it's not so.
Christianity affirms that there is good.
I think most religions forget that
Or try to say they don't,
But then when you look at it...
It's actually a perfect engine for state craft.---
Christianity doesn't seem to be.
It seems to scorn capitalism
Communism
Socialism.
Everyone wants Jesus to be on their side...
Jesus' side was weighing a shekel
For a pound of wheat.
And how much better would society be
If that's what we did?
"No, because Modern society is so advanced."
You do have TVs. Want a cookie?
Because that's about as advanced as we got in the past 100 years.
I call that a dark age.
And that's, also, why I'm not an atheist.

And the reason I'm not a Muslim
It must be added here...
If you took every bad thing, thought
Idea---I did say the "B" word in an earlier draft---
And tallied it up in a day...
And say gave me time in hell for it...
I'm a student of La Rochefoucauld's maxims.
I understand that would be my entire life
Spent in hell... and whatever sins I committed in hell
I'd spend that much more time in hell.
A cycle, a cycle, a cycle.
Christians like to believe I'm evil...
Atheists like to believe I'm stupid...
The other religions like to believe my religion is true
Because clearly I make a case for it
And they realize, "Huh... this makes sense."
And Muslims who look at this would say,
"But Hell is so bad, that it burns away your evil."
Every Muslim, listen to this.
I do nothing on the account of a day, beside rarely say the "B" word
That, in your eyes, would constitute as sin.
In my eyes, in my heart, I know how desperate I am.
I understand that I write this poem half to convert you
The other half is to eat.
I understand that I want love
Half because it will make me better,
The other half is because I want to eat.
I understand that I don't like clothes
Yet I buy them... and have a lot more than Jesus recommended.
I understand I argue...
I understand I am hard to deal with...
I understand I insult people...
And though I do it all with the best intentions...
Converting a soul...
Removing a mote...
Discouraging bad behavior...
It is all sin.
At my best, it's filthy rags.
You, yourself, are the same.
You worship Allah, what you call god
And “he is pleased with you...”
Your desire to be rich
To eat...
To have wives...
To have children...
To protect your own...
And then my religion,
God dies for you.
Did your god die for you?
He doesn't even want you to be filled with him.
He wants you to bow to a stone
And he wants you to sit and say a repetitious prayer
Five times a day.
He wants you to fast once a year.
He wants you to go to Mecca to worship that rock.
Why? My God, you worship Him by feeding the homeless.
You do it by being kind to a person in a wheelchair.
Yours, you do it by bowing to a book, a rock,
And that's all Allah is, I'm afraid.
He's a book. He's a rock.
And you look at Christians.
They worship a book.
They worship a rock.
So does the rest of the earth.
Me, I say the "B" word,
And I know how bad I am.
I know it... I see it... I hate it...
And your god says it goes away by touching your head
To a rock every day.
My God says, "I'll take it out of you."
And He does.
Day by day, it disappears little by little
And that's the proof I have that He is LORD.

I don't doubt Muslims are good people...
Or Hindus, or Buddhists, or Atheists, or Jews,
I just doubt their religion is what made them good.
Often, what's good in them is the very God I worship
And when that starts fading,
It's normally about the time that they get ensconced in their faiths.
Me... I get ensconced in my faith, too.
It's simply to do what's right,
To know I'll never be fully good,
And to just say, "I'll do my best,
"And Jesus will do the rest."
Because my God said, "He who feeds the least of these
"Feeds me."
All worship in my religion
Is centered around how you treat others.
It's not prayers, Hail Mary's
Or anything of the sort.
It rather is a religion about love.
Love sometimes rebukes.
My friends sit across from me
Gets angry that I said something that was right...
He leaves...
My religion is that it won't be the last time we ever talk.
My family hurts me...
My friends abandon me...
My religion is that I'll put in the effort needed to mend those wounds.
Because surely every other religion is about
How everyone around you isn't perfect.
Christianity is about how you aren't perfect.
And yet you should strive to be.

So, what about Christianity today?
Often our greatest so called “sin”
Is to not believe "We are saved."
Though, Christ said the honored servant
Is the one who said, "We are unprofitable,
"We just did what you asked."
In me there is a subconscious resistance to it.
I learned from Christian radio
That the only sin is to call yourself unworthy.
Often I hear them talk about good things.
Paul said, "When with the gentiles
"Act as the gentiles."
So I do. I do.
I see the hypocrisy of the church
Elevating a wicked man
Who has so called "Faith"
Over an unrighteous man
Who says, "I see all of this deadness inside of me;
"LORD, I am not worthy."
The Publican and Tax Collector
The little child who learned about things
Before he ought to have
He beats his chest and says, "I am unworthy."

But I learn from Christian radio
That I am worthy.
I learn that it is a sin to question my salvation.
I learn it is a sin to fear going to hell.
I learn to be prideful.
It's on in my car every day.
It really is
Because I strive to honor God with everything I do.
I just know on judgment day
I don't know what I would say.
Pride is lifted up in my heart right now.
Great, swelling pride.
Like the Pharisee
I say, "I am glad I am not like other men."
And rightly I am glad I'm not like other men.
I am glad that I have the Christ as my salvation.
Like the Publican, there is an angst in my heart
Saying, "LORD, what have I ever done?
"What have I done that was worthy?
"My greatest achievements were sin
"My prophecies were erring
"My heart was askance.
"What, LORD, what have I done that was so wonderful?
"In my heart I know what I did not do
"In my heart I know the little tinge of pride
"That says, 'I did good.'"
Yet, it is my greatest achievement
That was a sin.
My greatest righteousness
Was a sin; I sin
And God cleans up after me.
I sin, and God says, "It's alright, I'll use it to help others."

The mass of individuals who listen to me
Say, "I don't like Brandon."
Why don't they like me?
"I don't like him because he's lifted up."
I am lifted up with pride.
I know... I do not want an unjust wage.
I want to eat, drink and be satisfied.
It is a sin in our nation.
A cycle, a trap.
To want to eat, drink and be satisfied.
To work sixty hours a week
For some small amount of money
That can barely buy you a roof
A car, and something to eat
That is righteous.
But, the hard labor that someone does
That does not get paid, it is not really work.
It is not because of some corruption that he doesn't get paid.
It must be because the market is a god,
And the market is a king.

Christians accuse me of being lazy.
I hear it in their sermons,
Yet when there is a Lion in the Street
I tame it. I do not run away.
And I find it strange.
Because Christians are convinced that work
Is only work if you do not like it.
So with the rest of the world
Which doesn't seem to be what God asks.
He seems to say, "Enjoy your labors."
So me, with great pride in my heart
Wanting a just balance,
Wanting to eat and be free---
I do not want to ramble and gamble
And travel all over the Earth
Playing card games and trusting in card tricks...
I want to have a sure future.
Because there is only two options:
Compromise on having enough to only strive,
Or, compromise by doing even greater sin
To earn too much bread, so much that you could never eat it all.
And this is the economy Christians worship.
The economy of haves and have nots.
The supreme of the shekel that says
"I will give you a fair bushel of grain
"But a meal I will give you for an hour's labor.
"For I know you have no grinding wheel
"And I know you have not time to prepare a meal.
"Yet, for a lees,
"I will exact all your labor.
"And I will make sure you require a lees to live."

And I look at this, and I see ample land
Ample corn and wheat growing
I see great heads of corn
Great heads of grain
I see great crops of sweet fruits
And juiced vegetables.
I say to myself, "For all of this,
"I see people can eat,
"Yet why do people go hungry?"
I look, and I see Christians say,
"It is because men are lazy."
I see my brother,
Strive to simply get on his feet
Working sixty hours a week,
I say, "Maybe he is a great waster."
Yet, I understand a man has to eat.
To eat, it costs about 400 shekels a month.
To pay the lees, it costs about 1,500 shekels a month.
That is the whole.
And it takes hours at all times of the day and night
To make this motley sum.
Which leaves little time for love.
Was not love what God built the planet for?
The Christians all surf around this issue,
Saying, "Make time for love."
There is no time for love! Do you not get it Christians?
Yet, you want me to partake of this economy
And yet I have my product right here.
You call it foolish.
I see my foolishness.
I am prideful.
I am ashamed.
Because I hear every day,
As your cardinal theology
"Do not fear God, it is a sin.
"Believe you are perfect in all your ways,
"Yet do not get discouraged by your sin!
"Great things await a man of faith
"Who simply believes real hard
"He can make a coin materialize out of a fish’s mouth."
I saw Christ do that once... I don't know if I can
Nor if I should when I have attained riches and wealth of wisdom.
Where is my food?
It is because I am lazy...
That I work all day, and am kind.
But my kindness is not sufficient
Because you feel condemned.
You feel condemned?
So feel condemned... if your conscience pricks you
And makes for you righteousness.

To understand,
Christians, like Cain
Honor Christ through their putting forth the hoe.
I, like Abel, honor God by tending the sheep.
I am not a shepherd;---
I am simply a writer.
Like so many others
Yet because of corruption I do not eat.
Where is my income?
I do not have it.
I am accounted lazy
Because I haven't a cancerous sweet
To give you, but rather a wholesome meal.
And yet you quite foolishly proclaim,
"Paul said if a man could make all things plain
"And had not love...”
I make all things plain. I have love.
Love spares not the rod.
But, you believe the rod is hatred.
You believe it unwise to strike the child
For foolishness.
I, I tell my parents every day,
"What could we have done?"
I say, "You could have used a rod of correction."
They say, "But it is evil."
I say, "I am evil
"Yet God loves me enough to correct me."
This is why I am not rich.
This is why I am not fed with my own labor.
Because the LORD rebukes me with this generation
To show me, "This was you...
"O foolish son, and you made them this way
"By your bad example.
"For now you are wise, and great vexed
"By the foolishness of this generation.
"You repented, but I do not know what to do with this people
"Because unlike you, they do not welcome the softer rod
"But rather desire the rod of my indignation
"Who praises them through and through
"Because he knows they will not have portions
"But you, you, be glad for he steals from you
"By my command; the rod has made its effect in you
"Which was wisdom, and righteousness and Glory.
"Now, tell it to this generation."
Yet they would not listen
Those who were twice as much a son of hell as I was.