Code smell

Rose Goute Haitian Creole Restaurant - 11/2/2024

Sunday, November 3.

8:46am (feels like 9:46am)

I voted on Thursday. Won't say for who, but if you know me at all you can probably guess.

All the metaphors about harm reduction, chess moves, and pursuing the least-worst have been said. No candidate in the history of the world has come without at least a thin residue of bullshit.

But large groups of people need avatars. This has been true since the Bronze Age, and probably before.

The real issue with me is this:

I grew up evangelical. I know the language by heart, the symbolism, the turns of phrase, the norms and peculiar taboos of this peculiar tribe of My People.

Despite odd bits of magical-thinking (playing Powerball was opening the door to demon possession), those in my orbit instilled the Seven Attributes of Love best they could as imperfect people living in an imperfect world.

But something is off. Something was always off. A flaw in fundamentals that developers might call code smell.

I could always tell none of them (my people) were ever 100-percent sold. No one was exactly itching to give all their possessions to the poor, and Matthew 19:2 always sounded a bit socialist anyway. But what do I know. Call the number on the screen and have your credit card ready. If you have the gall to question any of it, 1 Chronicles 16:22 was all the answer you need.

Wield with extreme prejudice.

Once I was old enough to learn subtext (which, for most children, is younger than adults think it is) I quickly realized lots of it wasn’t a true-true thing, but a code. A shibboleth, a secret handshake where the threat of exile amongst your peers meant questions were never asked.

The real issue.

Rising above our animal selves was the whole value prop of religion. Or at least I thought. But years of possession-fears and Armageddon culture have hardcoded our limbic systems (animal brains) into levers of control, and we no longer welcome the stranger. We've lost the capacity to call out false gods.

In the end, I wish they (my people) would just say they never believed it in the first place. That they were joking. They were always joking. These days it's like the band-aid has been ripped off and those of us who grew up believing in a kind, abundant world were the dupes on the ass-end of a forty-odd-year practical joke.  

My people: I grew up how you wanted.

Imperfect patience.

Imperfect humility.

Imperfect kindness.

Imperfect hope.

Where are you?

And why don't pics like this ever trend?

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What I’m reading: Anti-Story: The Anthology of Experimental Fiction (Philip Stevick - this is a dense read)

What I'm listening to: Dead Man Soundtrack (Neil Young)