Prophet Margin

"You singers are spineless

as you sing your senseless

songs to the mindless"

-Public Enemy

I am a prophet.

Of God.

I am not boasting, because frankly, I’m terrible at it.  In the “real world” I would have been fired almost immediately.  

Worst job I ever had.

Ok, I take that back. Kinda.  It’s also the best job ever.  But it is terribly demanding.  Everyday is a struggle not to feel inadequate.  That does sound terrible, doesn’t it?

There is a whole lot more to it than that, though.  The highs are infinitely better...and more permanent, more consistent.

And you do improve in time.  Sometimes it feels like that anyway, like maybe it gets easier.  But hey, I am still considered the ‘new guy’.

Seventy-three years old and I’m the new guy.

No, I haven’t been a prophet for seventy-three years.  Maybe five or so.  It’s hard to tell when it really started, because I only realized it yesterday.

It’s true, though.  A minor prophet, for sure, and I don’t know if its a permanent position or not.  I’m trying to hold on to it, but like I said, my work ethic is not what it used to be.  And I’m old enough that being stubborn is a reflex.

But I am also old enough to have met myself and therefore aware of my own quirks.

See, part of my problem with being a prophet is this:

God will give me a nugget, and instead of using it wisely, or sometimes in addition to trying to use it wisely, I’ll climb up on a higher horse, and start looking down instead of across. Sometimes just a little bit so it takes me some time to identify it, but eventually, I always throw my ignorance out there for everyone to see, and off runs the horse without me.

Also, I have a tendency to take the nugget and mess with it so much, and over-analyze it until its bent and faded version of its original majesty.  Its like playing telephone- that game where you whisper to one person who tells the next, who tells the next, and so on.  By the end you can often no longer recognize the original message.

The quest for wisdom is tough for an idiot like me.  I’ll bet it’s worse for them smart fellas.  At my age, thats all thats left, if you’re lucky.  Both knees are shot, left hip is no longer human, but some synthetic plastic ball that makes me limp as a constant reminder.  I can’t see much past the length of my arm, and nothing closer than my elbow.  I’ve heard a few people say my hearing is going, but I don’t think so.  After all, I heard them say that, right?

I don’t mean to complain, but I can barely help it.  Wait and see.

Scratch that last.  Conduct unbecoming of a prophet, penalty, first down.

By the way, God is hilarious.  Sometimes its not funny at all.  Maybe it will be in a few years, I don’t know.

Also, my faith is wavy at best.  And sometimes when I receive an epiphany to share with the world, I later find out it was common sense.  That’ll cause you to doubt your prophet-ness every time.  So, I haven’t completely ruled out that I am utterly and completely full of shit.

Another problem with people like me is that we think we understand that the ego is undesirable, and so we pretend to ignore it.  The act itself has the opposite effect, and actually feeds the ego.  The truth of the matter is that we are incredibly self-centered.  So much so that we will do anything to justify our own existence and often believe that we are destined for greatness.

Naturally, that line of thought also keeps me questioning the sanity of my claim to be a prophet.  So there I am, back at the beginning, circling over and over.  It is my hope that all of life’s rings of paradox will knit together into a tapestry that reveals the truth.

I’m expecting a comic strip.

Year before last, I was on a roll.  It got to a point that whenever I asked for answers, I got them.  Sometimes I didn’t like them.  Most of the time they made me uncomfortable.  And when I found out what He had in mind for me, I lost it.

I tried to quit;  I was hellbent on a cycle of self destruction.  Way old enough to know better, but that didn’t matter.  Actually, I think it made it worse because I was old enough to get away with being crazy.   For instance, one time I...