Lamentations Loves Company Part One

What I've done here is go verse by verse and used Jeremiah's style of lamenting to complain about various aspects of Ohio and Winter that suck. You may want to grab your Bible and read the original verses and compare them to my verses. I don't know if that would make the experience more or less funny to you; I guess it depends on your sense of humor. Do what you want.

1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become wet and cold and unbearable and buried about a foot underneath accumulated precipitation!

2 She weepeth sore in the night, or she would if her tears weren't absolutely frozen on her cheeks! Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her. The rich ones have gone to Florida and the lower-to-middle-class ones are counting down the days till spring in their facebook statuses.

3 Everyone in Ohio is gone into captivity because of snow blocking their driveways and freezing their will to live till it hardens into a bitter globule of will to press the snooze button repeatedly and only eat hot cocoa and stale Christmas cookies.

4 The roads do mourn, because none driving on them are clean of salt stains or cool and free with their driving techniques. 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock were never clung to so tensely while eyes twitch spastically, locked on the road, painfully and desperately scanning every inch of its faded, rutted surface for invisible ice.

5 Ohio's adversaries are temperatures, her electric companies prosper; for the poor hath turned on their Big Lots space heaters amidst the multitude of her below-zero nights: and their children are even sick of being told to go out and build snowmen when what mom and dad really mean is "shovel the drive."

6 And speaking of children, even the teenage daughters have lost all their beauty because there is not and never will be anything attractive about layers. They add weight, moreso than the camera or anything else; I'm just straight up saying that, so stop lying to yourself, Land's End catalog. Furthermore, cold saps your strength, so also the teenage boys are in trouble, if anyone cares about that. Abigail's Note: 'Ol Jeremy didn't give me much to work with in this verse.
7 Ohioans remember in these days of their affliction and of their miseries all the pleasant things that other people have simply because they live in the deserts of the South West; namely, NOT SNOW. They have not snow. A complete and glorious lack of anything resembling the possibility that snow would ever exist there. And they none did help us: the snowless states saw us, and did mock at our scarves and boots and snow shovels.

8 Ohio hath grievously sinned; that's the only explanation for its 40 ° N latitude. All that honored her despise her, because they hadn't been here in Winter before now. Yea, she sigheth, and icicles break off gutters and shatter with a gut-wrenching sound calculated perfectly to haunt a man forever.

9 Her filthiness is covered for a few seconds by that pristine snow Christmas cards flaunt like it's sumpin'. Then the SUV's churn it up into the consistency and color of a smoothie made with lots of crushed ice and a handful of horse manure. O Lord, behold our affliction, for we hate driving in this stuff.

10 The snow hath spread out over all pleasant things, like grass. The cold hath entered into the sanctuary of our snuggies, which is where cold hath been forbidden to creep in.

11 All the Ohioans sigh. They seek beaches; they would give anything for the sight of a palm tree and a stretch of hot sand in the pink glow of a Caribbean sunset to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for in this cold, the sight of the unhelpful sun has become vile.

12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that live in Hawaii? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the feast day of his revenge. Yea, it hath been said, it is a dish best served.... You get the picture.

13 From above hath He sent unsettling creaks and pops into my bones, and the cold prevaileth against them: He hath spread ice right outside my door and hath turned me back inside. He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the LORD hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
Abigail's Note: This verse is 100% Jeremiah. I couldn't figure out how to turn it into a joke and/or legitimate complaint about how much Ohio sucks. There's probably an important point about the human condition in there, though, so pay attention.
15 The LORD hath buried under snow all mighty things in the midst of Ohio: He hath called an assembly of vicious little flakes of murderous cold and wetness to crush everyone unfortunate enough to live here: the LORD hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of some idiot who mistook living and working in Ohio for part of America's "Land of Opportunity" shtick, as in a winepress.

16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is a land that is far south from my current location. My children are as yet unborn, because I don't feel right bringing them into this cruel part of the world. Also, I wouldn't marry a guy who hangs around Ohio like that's a normal thing for a sane human being to do. (Guess it's not true that thing they say about girls marrying men who are like their [the girls'] fathers)

17 Ohioans spread forth their hands, and there is none to comfort them: the LORD hath commanded concerning Ohioans, that snow and sleet should be round about them: the North is basically having its period, and if that's not the best analogy for winter EVER, I don't know what is. Virtual high five, Jeremiah! Wish I could TARDIS you a Pulitzer for that one.
18 The LORD is righteous, but I have rebelled against his ideas on cold weather and my proximity to it. I pray you, all people, behold how much you don't want God's plan for you to be "Live in the same little city in Ohio for your entire life."

19 I called for more sunshine, for warm breezes coming off the Gulf of Mexico, lazy days stretched out on a towel on a beach, but they were just castles in the air.

20 Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for every fibre of my being rebels against the idea of being cold: abroad the wind cuts like a sword, at home everything is as boring as being dead.

21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: the wind hath heard my troubles and laughed as it blew away my cries. The snowflakes dance gleefully that Thou hast done it. Thou wilt bring the first day of summer, and they shall be like unto me.

22 Let all their cold nature come before thee; and do unto them as thou hast done unto me for living in a place with seasons; for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. And I'm freezing my butt off.

I'm Back! Start of a New Series of Articles

          Tonight part of an overheard phone conversation inspired me to start writing non-fiction prose again. "That must have been some phone conversation, Abigail," you might say, in what I imagine is a Russian accent because I like Russian accents. "No, sexy Russian person," I reply to you, and then quickly add, "did I just say that last part out loud?" "Huh?" you politely feign ignorance. "All you said was 'No.'" "Oh, OK," I answer, relieved. What I meant to say after "no" was that it was actually not such an extraordinary phone conversation. It was my dad on the phone, talking about who-knows-what, while I was making tea. I overheard him explain the convoluted way in which he is now meeting up again with someone who helped him with his campaign to get elected to the School Board in 1989. "Small world," he concluded his musings. "No, dad," I idly mentally chided him. "It is not a small world. It is the fact that you have not left Ohio since 1989. If you stand in the same spot for 21 years, even lightning would have run out of other places to touch down and will hit you twice."
          Lately I have been writing only poetry, almost no prose; and of that prose, a tiny fraction of it has been non-fiction, and of that non-fiction, all of it has been facebook statuses. So why did this overheard bit of malarkey and a random clever thought break that pattern? It was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. I have lived in Ohio for the past twenty-two years, and I have wanted to leave for the past fourteen years. I am now completely insane, and to stave off homicidal rage, I have turned to creative writing as a sort of therapy. If eventually one of my posts consists of page after page of  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy notify the police in my area immediately.
          While brainstorming about a creative way to whine about things I can't control, I came up with the sentence "I don't know who wrote Lamentations, but he was probably in Ohio in January when he wrote it." That gave me an idea for a five-part project that will not only be a spiritually edifying Bible study but will also be weird and funny and, I hope, a little different from most mopy contributions from people who live in a horrible place for no apparent reason when they could easily rob a bank and move somewhere warm.

          Jeremiah was a Jew, and I don't think I have to tell anybody that the Jews have collectively had a tough time of it. Perhaps if you've heard one story of oppression, you've heard them all. Perhaps the holocaust was just another Egypt. Really, if you look at history as a whole, it feels like God was playing Mad Libs and, creatively, repeatedly changed up the "Noun preceded by the word evil" but kept putting the word "Jews" on the line that said "Name of Person Who Is Going to Get Royally Screwed."
          Jeremiah lived in a time when the Jews were being oppressed by Babylon, who, I believe, were more classy than Hitler. They did their oppressing in style, with lions and hanging gardens and such. This made no difference at all to Jeremiah, however. The man was majorly depressed for being opressed. He wrote an entire book lamenting the state his nation was in due to Babylonian hijinks.
          Well, Jeremiah the Jew in Babylon, I am Abigail the Ohioan in January, and I totally know how you feel, man. No one else in my family wants to live anywhere but in this, the shittiest of states. How can I leave my loved ones behind for gentler climes? I love them and yet I don't understand them at all. Ohio is basically Canada, and Canada is basically The Arctic. I don't understand the logic behind some places being declared habitable, but I intend to find the Committee for Declaring Places Habitable's website and send them a strongly worded e-mail about everything north of South Carolina. I refuse to leave my house until two-digit numbers that start with 8 show up on my computer's thermometer feature.
          They say misery loves company, so when it's blizzarding and my internet connection is down, I think of you, Jeremiah of Bible fame. Man, let's get together and cry into our beers, lamenting most eloquently in tragic tandem.

ladies and gentlemen, Jeremiah and Abigail present to you:

A Basically Canada in cooperation with The Old Testament production:

Lamentations Loves Company

Part 1
Part 2 - coming soon
Part 3 - coming soon
Part 4 - coming soon
Part 5 - coming soon

Block

The worst thing about writer's block is you can't even write about how frustrated you feel when you have it.

And if that's not the best quote ever about writer's block... feel free to quote me anyway.

Today We're Sharing

I didn't start this blog as a place to journal or talk about myself and my life. This blog's purpose is to write meaningful - even inspiring, if I do say so myself - articles that have at least two quotable sentences in each paragraph (because, considering how the world is going, I believe eventually everyone will be famous enough to be quoted by someone).

However, today I am going to share a little of my journey through life; just a snippet, a single moment in time as I grow and mature spiritually. Today's spiritual pit stop was... instructive, I suppose. I think it should be shared, passed on to others.

So here goes. After you finish reading this, go to this webpage:

http://www.bibleprobe.com/abortion.htm

If the pictures about a fourth of the way down the page don't make you burst into tears or have some other violent emotional reaction, YOU HAVE NO SOUL.

For the past year or so I've become increasingly detached from reality and I had thought I was becoming a psychopath (that word doesn't mean what you think it means; look it up). I was seriously beginning to doubt if any part of my soul was left, and if it was, is God going to save it. (I still think the answer to that may be a big fat no, but at least I've got a brighter hope now than I did before.)

Today I did a google search trying to find the latest statistics on how many abortions happen per day, and I found that website. I guess God wanted to reassure me that I still could experience emotion, because I looked at those pictures in shock for a few seconds, whispering a phrase generally used as blasphemy, but I think I meant it more in the sense of literally saying "Oh my God." There wasn't much else to say. Then I exploded into tears like I haven't since... well, probably since I was a baby myself.

There's a warning above the pictures that says some people may not want to look at them because it might make them sick. Good! If you're human, you should get sick over this. Look at those pictures. I don't care if a kitten posed holding a fake gun is all it takes to give you a heart attack. Sensitive as a sweet old lady in Victorian England or with a heart hard and cold as a stone, you need to see these pictures of the reality of abortion. You can't hide from the truth. The truth always hurts, but you can't get away from it. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you sick to your stomach, weep uncontrollably, and give you the most painful freedom you've ever had, but for Christ's sake you will be free.

Now do something with that freedom.

Quote me, re-post the whole article, shave your head, wave signs, shoot an abortion doctor (Um, don't actually do that. We're pro-life here, remember? Not pro-shooting-victims-who-have-lived-longer-than-some-other-victims). I don't care what you do, but do something. Doing something means freedom, apathy means slavery to the way things are.

The Writer's Words

Words.

Words are the writer's friends and the writer's enemies. They make me feel safe and secure, happy and satisfied, and they hold me prisoner until I've written them all down. The writer bending over a piece of paper or the keyboard of a computer is bending under the cutting whip of the cruelest slave master since Rameses II. And the reward is only fleeting, but the reward is heaven. The only satisfaction intrinsic in discovering the perfect word is a satisfaction that lasts for half the time it takes for a pondering to become a realization. It's an elusive millisecond, a non-existent fraction. It can't be measured, it can only be felt. It can't register on a scientific instrument, but it can addict a person so hard that they become a writer for life.

Words.

I can't write them all down. How many words are there in the world? There are more than I can learn. If I want to get anything done, I have to ignore the irritant of the factual knowledge that I'll never even finish skimming the cream off the top of the potential of all the words to know, to say, to read -all the words to write. In the haze of just writing, facts settle into the background and sit there like berry-colored lumps of juicy luminosity shining through a thick fog. They're real, but I don't look at them. I feel them, and if I let myself feel too much of them, it burns. But mostly I blissfully ignore them and just write. I don't want to know how much I don't know, I just want to devour as much knowledge as I can as fast as I can.

Words.

Words can make me wealthy. Words can make me famous. I can be a Homer or a Shakespeare or a Charles Dickens or a J.K. Rowling. The words I write can make people feel things. They can make people laugh. If they're very good words, they can make people cry. The words are tools, they're just a means to an end. Or so I keep telling myself. Somehow, I keep forgetting that the words are supposed to be working for me, and I start serving the words, worshiping at the altar of the words, doing whatever I can for the words, searching for days on end like a lost child hopelessly seeking a glimpse of a familiar face, looking for the right words, all in the hope that I'll get a smile or a pat on the head from those wonderful, wonderful words. I love them, I'd die for them, and they're just spiky black figures on a stark white page.

Words.

Damn.

Who am I? I'm a writer.

Will my words last forever? Will they be forgotten after today? Will they be rediscovered in the far future? Will they have any influence? Will anyone even read them at all?

Who am I? I'm nobody. But feel free to quote me anyway.

The Alpha and the Omega

Comprehensive is a comforting word. It feels like a promise; it feels like perfection. If you pick up a book with the word "comprehensive" in the title, you feel guaranteed that whatever you need to know about the subject of the book will be in there. And you sigh as you realize all you have to do now is find it.

A popular slangy way to say "comprehensive" is "A to Z". If a book or website or person claims to have or know such-and-such "A to Z!" (the exclamation point seems to be a mandatory part of the phrase) it is claiming that nothing has been left out and no stone has been left unturned - indeed, not even one letter of the alphabet has been left in peace during the creator's exhaustive search for and organization of information on the topic of interest.

As tacky and commercial as the term "A to Z" seems compared to a solid, Latin-derived word like "comprehensive," it is more expressively visceral. It reaches more people at a level easily understood since their childhood. Just as Jesus Christ is our justification and sanctification, so does expressiveness justify and sanctify grammatically improper terms. The Bible, translated into language even a child could understand (for good reason; see Luke 18:16, Matthew 19:14 and Matthew 18:3) has always been a book of the people and the people's language.

It is not surprising then that in the last book of the Bible we find that familiar comforting guarantee, as contemporary and apropos of the moment as A to Z filing systems, that God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. It is a simple statement of truth in simple terms anyone can understand. It speaks to the common sense in humanity which is so unpretentious that language with its rules shuns it as too common. Yet the Bible does not deal with pretentious rules, airs and propriety. God speaks to people, not ideas. His words to us tell us who He is, and in no uncertain terms.

"I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." I am everything! God is saying. I am all you will ever need. Not only am I all you will ever need, I am all you are able to need. Everything leads back to Me. Without Me there is nothing, not even a void-of-space nothing, because that's a definable concept and therefore is something. Nothing.

God is everything. He was here before us and he will be here after us. The buck stops here, right back where it started. There is no escaping God. He's comprehensive. Nothing is left out; nothing is left undone. Here is God's guarantee: whatever you are looking for, it is in Him. All you have to do now is find it, so start looking.

And... feel free to quote me!