A Sort of Restful, Eternal Parting Shot.

You know what? I just kind of had an epiphany, here. Well, okay, not "just." More like a couple months ago, but I just got around to finishing the post!

That epiphany? And this is a Sunday God Blog Theology post, so you know it's along that line. The epiphany?

My stalker's a Christian. She's got Good News.

I'm Christian too. You guys know that? Oh, man. It's sweet. As my buddy Paul used to say, it's "The deal." Paul was usually talking about something other than Christianity when he invoked that phrase, but still: it fits.

See, my stalker and I, she, look. Due to the fact that she never accepted that I need a friendship to be a consensual matter; due to the fact that I will never at this point after many things I haven't explicitly mentioned - I will never at this point ever believe she is harmless to me (she's quite formidable in fact) - due to the accumulation of aversion and caution I've amassed towards her, I won't ever want her in any part of my life. So if that's the case from where I stand, then...she and I are irreparably severed. Sundered from each other in this life. But that's cool!

BECAUSE GUESS WHAT?

That's cool, because why?

Because I am a Christian.

And because so is she!

And because I am a Christian, I can forgive her. Unconditionally! I did some time ago, actually. Let go whatever gripe I might've used to have. And I do admit - I used to have gripe! Mightily. But forgiveness is easy, so easy. It feels like it actually harms you, to carry ill will around with you on the inside, you know? But it feels like nothing but good, to let go of all that and unconditionally forgive!

It's not a risk, even to forgive someone you want nothing to do with, ever, forever. You don't owe that person a fat piece of your life or anything, just to prove you forgave! Unconditional forgiveness carries no conditions with it. Unconditional means there's nothing you have to prove.

Neither does forgiveness mean you need to make room in your life for a person with whom your interactions have been overwhelmingly and mutually poisonous. For goodness sake - I've fallen away from people I've loved, with whom I've had no grievance at all. Just from the pull of the currents of life! There is not a greater obligation upon us to give people who pursue and hurt us access. Sometimes forgiveness just means: you let go everything, and you let go blame for the bad as you do.

You will always have to direct and channel your life, your efforts, your attentions and intentions. You can't give and you don't owe the whole world a piece of you - there are many more billions of people in this world more than those who we can meaningfully touch. I try to put myself where I can do the most good, and keep myself away from what hurts my ability to do good.

So the unconditional forgiveness is one reason it's cool, but...Why Else is it cool?

Well, of course! It's cool because, in the end - because I am a Christian, and she is a Christian - in the end, no matter how sundered we are in this life, Christ has us both. So the theory goes, hers AND mine. So we're cool!

That's today's lesson. Practical concerns for personal safety are only for this life!

Jesus has got us both.

I know Jesus has me. I surrendered to that sweet fact shortly after being born, and Lord I've given in to it again and again, so many times since then. So many times. What can take me out of Christ's love? What can take me out of Christ's grace? What can sunder me from being one, from being part of the body of Christ on Earth?

Well, shoot. I don't even want to formulate the hypotheticals on that one. It sounds like science fiction to me. If I weren't aware that all things were "technically possible," I'd say it's impossible!

Let's just guardedly say that for anything to come in at this point and sunder me from living in the light of Christ, well I'd say: it's impractical. And I mean that in the technical sense, such as Einstein said that time travel was likely impractical (even though possible theoretically). I believe by "impractical", "unable to be put into practice," Einstein's take was that the amount of energy necessary to perform the feat exceeded by a large factor all of the available energy in the universe. And besides which (though here I elaborate), it would likely require novel materials not extant in the periodic table, to withstand those forces in a way that could ever meaningfully "make the trip." Anyway even in the original assertion, I'm kind of paraphrasing, here. I'm sure it cuts more beautifully, brutally to the core in the original German.

Point is, I'm pretty cocky about how little anybody including me can do anything to keep Christ from having already forgiven me, and having already saved my lame ass. I mean, they taught me all about that shit in Catholic School! I believed it the first time. And I believed it every single time. Albeit, possibly they did not deliberately teach it to me quite so bold? They might have tried to shimmy some odd qualifications onto it. I might have "read into it" a bit. Same basic difference in the final analysis!

Bottom line, hey. I was saved, and I have been saved, and I am saved. Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the light - and what a wide way and a deep truth and a bright light that is! She's saved, too?

Cool.

Then she can leave me the hell alone. She can leave me the hell alone, in this life. And in heaven, after a couple fifty billion years' worth of nigh-unendurable bliss, well who knows, maybe I'll get curious and look her up? See if she's up there. See if all her big talk was enough to make the cut. Big talker that I myself am, I'd be surprised if it wasn't! After all, it's not one's talk or one's walk that makes a difference in these matters. One sacrifice mattered. In all of time. And all I've ever done is yield myself up to it. I believe I would call it a sacrament.

True, true, I've been and I still am a bit rambunctious and combative! Faith settles in so deep, but belief never rested easy in me. I like to poke and question, and clash and harass (myself, that is, mostly) and much good and no ill has it ever done me! Maybe I had to be Israel to achieve Islam (in Christ, of course). But what can I say? I've loved it! And I love it, and I'm bah-dah-bah-BAH BAH, lovin' it still.

Um. My apologies. I don't mean to talk in cant. Sometimes I get on a tear! "Israel" = "Fought With God." "Islam" = submission to God.

I have no regrets at this point. I don't have a problem with my guard, in this world. It's up! Oh, yes it is up. Not for nothing is my guard up. I've got work to do, for the love of it in this life! I'd rather not cut myself, or be cut short. But I have no regrets, about that or anything else. This world will kill 'em all. And God will sort us out.

So, yeah! That's good news in itself. All of that there constitutes my future plan! I go through life trusting in God and that my soul is resting in good hands, but knowing also that here on earth, my life is in my own hands. I go forth with my guard where it needs to be; delicate and fragile as my body is - desirous as I am of not letting slip this gift. As far as my stalker goes, my epiphany is, between her and me if each of us is true to what we say we believe, well then shit! We can let this life go.

Just between us, we can let this life go.

Am I right or am I wrong? Can there be a case left to press? A case, that compels either she or I to have business between us, that needs be attended to in this life? As opposed to between me and Jesus? Covered! As opposed to between me and the 6+ billion other people besides her who I also have not happened to ever meet, and have no driving specific need to, particularly? Is there unfinished business, now between us? Here? On Earth?

No, there really isn't. There can not possibly be. I'm already square with the Lord. And hell, that's all I or anyone else ever need. There's nothing else to square. So...as far as I can tell, she can leave me the hell alone! Right? Right?

See ya in heaven, bitch!