aliens among us

Subtitle: “I got spanked at My Church! Oh come on! Give me a break!”

Subsubtitle: My new nickname, and proving my street vibe once and for all!

I don’t know If I will ever have the time to finish this series on transparency. It seems like all kinds of things are getting in the way. After all the promises I’ve made on here, I’m going to keep trying to finish up the “story” of my easter sabbath adventure with transparency and arrogance. I hope you all have the patience to hang in there with me, but I’ll understand if you move on. I’m feeling like moving on without me too. (grin)

I’ll start you off with a guessing game. Which of the Jerry Springer Show Security guys in that picture do you think I got my new nickname from? More after the “more” break.

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Subtitle: I got spanked at My Church! Oh come on! Give me a break!”

Subsubtitle: Confession: 3. A written or oral statement acknowledging guilt, made by one who has been accused or charged with an offense.

I like that definition best, because you don’t often hear people express it that way. What? He confessed AFTER he got caught? Oh Big Huge Deal! Anybody can do that! Look at me! I’m better than him! I confessed before getting caught! Yeah baby! I’m a much better sinner than he is!

Ever thought that? I know I have. Hah! I said it before anybody accused me of it! Woo Hoo! Look at me! Come on now. Your turn. (grin)

Today’s installment of “As the paravane turns your stomach” will include (should I say preclude since it comes before and once again prevents me from getting to the older stuff?) a confession from yesterday. More after the more break.

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eh. parts is parts. Lil juicy nuggets oh wisdom. Taste great! More filling! And by filling, we mean exactly that! (grin)
Seriously though, the latest installment is really long. What trick o’ blogging can I borrow to make it shorter without compromising the beautiful integrity and gift of wisdom and literary delight that is the paravane at his most profound and exuberant? Of course! Divy it up even further and spread it out over the entire weekend! Like publish 2 or 3 times today and a couple of more tomorrow! Boy! Are you guys in for an Experience! Well, OK, so you LC’er’s have one every weekend. Big deal. Don’t rain on my parade! Oh wait..I already did that post…

Transparency Revisited Part 4.3 had to be divided up into 4 parts. At least. Because it’s so very very long otherwise. Sorry bout this. I’ll try not to let it happen again. (grin)

But I have to start you out with this. If you don’t read Floating Axhead by now, you aren’t worthy! michael, Scott…can I be on yer blogging team? Oh come on! I’ll be nice! I work cheap too! just a bucket o nuggets a day! What? What do you mean you don’t get paid! Forget I asked. (grin)

Editorial Update: It’s after 9pm, and I haven’t gotten the chance to follow up on this. We were at church from 10:26am-3pm. It was fun, but I forget how much just walking around chatting with these people can wear me out mentally and emotionally. They are fun, but they challenge me. I actually felt I had to confess something to Jack today. I don’t confess things! You aliens do that! I should be able to put that in one of the 3 parts I’m planning for tomorrow to finish this series. This is going to be my last attempt at a series this way. If I EVER do this again, I’m going to take like a month to write all parts with no editing or additions afterwards so I can just zap them up here. This not being spontaneously creative is hard! I’m not so envious of Anne Jackson anymore. OK maybe still just a tad. I mean come on Anne…a picture of a post it note with “WHAT IF…” on it and you get 80 comments? I give up! You Rule! (grin)

So, I am still going to finish this series. The rest will have to be tomorrow. Gnight all. God bless.

Subtitle: I got spanked at My Church! Oh come on! Give me a break!”

Re-subtitled: Assumptions

My wife commented this on another blog:

“excellent post.. very real.. i have made an agreement to stay away from the blogs that jimmy posts and reads at (which are the only ones i ever read anyway)….i can only in the future email you to keep my promise.”

There was a lot of good stuff in her comment, but this is what jumped out and slapped me upside the head. She assumed this based on an argument we had earlier that day in which I yelled at her “DON’T COMMENT ON MY BLOGS! FIND YOUR OWN BLOGS TO COMMENT ON!”

I assumed that we had gotten past this rash statement on my part, and we were “fine” about all this blogging stuff again. She assumed that we had reached some kind of agreement where I presumed to have the authority to banish her from the blogs I read. Assumptions are fun, aren’t they? sigh…

I assumed this post was going to go in a completely different direction. Instead, it’s become about assumptions. I’m betting you all assumed it would be about what I said it would be about. It might, but like me, you’ll have to hold your assumptions until the end of the post. I’m learning to do that. The hard way. More after the “more” link.

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a guest blog by jimmy’s wife

Faith is not believing that God can, it is knowing that He will.

being transparent with other people makes about 98 percent of them major uncomfortable. (learned from watching and Choosing who i call a friend. i have 4 friends in my life and my jimmy. with any of these 4 friends i can talk about anything and everything and do. they are the same way back. after having to live the first 17 years of life in total light social fluff since i was beaten and raped by two elders (one being my father); i *always* had to have a happy face on and pretend all was well.. well it wasn’t well… not at all. we went to church and i hated God with a passion like no other.

but to get back to the point; at 17 i married and left that house and i swore i would always say and do and be who i was. if people didn’t like it; tough. not people i wanted to be around. i worked (and that was to put on a professional face and not too much of the real me leaked through). i was rarely a person that people felt comfortable around at work. there is a term my friends and i use to describe those unable or unwilling to be real on any personal level. we call them happy happy joy joy people. the two types mix like oil and water.

i learned… i struggled to grow. God helped me to see that even though i hated him; he didn’t hate me. i worked at a library and books would come my way and in such a way and order that i developed an extremely strong relationship with God. a knowing that you know. don’t give me dogma… i don’t need it. in Him i live and move and have my being. i don’t need any church. i went back to a church where i knew i could learn the lesson of getting me more and more out of the way; and just be there to interact with prisoners and others in church in a truly loving caring way. to let God’s light shine.. see; i can’t tolerate not being what God is called me to be or do and this is where i was called to go.

to wrap it up; i don’t know how people live that have no one to speak truth to. how’s the kids? how’s the weather? no questioning whatsoever of dogma presented…. can’t do it. people that can live at that level i truly do not understand and they are way way the majority on this planet. so Jen; i’m very glad you can really open up to your husband. i’m glad you have that one intimate relationship. i know most marriages do not even offer that (mine does as well) and i shudder and wonder; how do people live like that??

my purpose in life is to grow and to become less and less of me so i can get out of God’s way. which leaves me wondering how do the other 98 percent live? i truly don’t understand it.

a very intimate post you posted. the first time i have ever really *seen* you. powerful.

much care;
jimmy’s wife

—

This part is by me, jimmy paravane.
My wife responded to a comment that jenn wrote on my blog. When I read it, I thought “I always have a hard time describing my wife’s faith to others, and here she put it in a comment where few people will see it.” I asked if she would allow me to post her comment here as my first guest blog post. She said yes! She also said she doesn’t like the word “faith” as I define it, so I asked her for her definition.

This was more important to me than continuing my series on Transparency today. I don’t believe what my wife believes. I don’t have that much faith in God. You see, I don’t trust God as much as my wife does. I believe that my wife has faith. She doesn’t even think of it as faith. “a knowing that you know”. I don’t really understand it because I’m trying to do so logically. She knows it.

Subtitle: WordPress Dashboard Blog Stats: aliens among us – Best Day Ever: 126 — Tuesday, March 25, 2008

While I work up the nerve to stop thinking it out over and over, and even acting it out for my wife while in nothing but my underwear(what? I just got out of the shower and she was reading my blog and I wanted to know what she thought of what I was thinking on 4.2 so far. She’s my wife, I can act stuff out for her while in nothing but my underwear if I want. Get over it.grin) and ACTUALLY post “Transparency Revisited: Part 4.2, Subtitle: I got spanked at My Church! Oh come on! Give me a break!”, I’m going to take a page from a very successful blogger and give you a short (OK short for me) statement and then ask all you viewers a highly commentable (hint) question. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to my run-on sentence tendency. (grin)

Statement: I’m still extremely jealous of Anne Jackson. She makes blogging look easy (she has the nerve to have more than one blog, and write books, and have a family life, and a job, etc…). It’s not that easy when you pour your heart and soul out there and it feels like you’re just pouring it out on the ground. “Why God why? Why FlowerDust or Cindy Beall? Even that weird jimmy paravane has gotten almost 3000 Views in less than 90 days! And 126 views on his best day ever! Why not me?” Yes, it was a good day for view hits for me. My best ever so far! What’s really “interesting” to me is that my comment count on my highest number of Views in one day is…wait for it….None. Zip. Nada. (sigh)

Question: Is your Blog as popular as you think it should be?

Uhm…Cindy Beall? I was looking for your post that you did on 25,000 views in less than 90 days, and I stumbled across this one while doing so: Link Love, and uhm, I couldn’t help notice that I’m not in there. So what if I haven’t bothered to check your blogroll page until just now! Why aren’t I on there? I’ve blogged about you, praised you, done just about everything but try to bribe you with flowers and money. Or bothered to ask you to put me on your blogroll, because come on! I’m the paravane! I’m famous! I shouldn’t have to ask! (grin)

OK I’m cheating. That’s another statement. (Anne, Cindy, you know I’m just teasing, right? those links were just too perfect to pass up on my “best” day ever. grin) Might as well go whole hog and ask another uncomfortable question:

Are you on all the blogrolls you think you deserve to be on?

Subtitle Part 4.1: What’s my motive?

I don’t want to write this one. So I’m going to forgo writing my usual, well organized, humorous and sometimes touching masterpiece of logic, and just ramble. Hmm? What do you mean that’s what I usually do! Get thee behind me Satan!…oh wait, that’s not my line. Oh well. I am going to have to divide Part 4 up into well, parts. Otherwise it’s going to be way too long. You see, God spanked me this weekend. He spanked me hard, thoroughly, with mercy but without leaving me any doubt whatsoever that I was getting an old fashion whoopin. For my own good. I really hate when He does that. But He did it. I didn’t understand what was going on at first, so I kept going back for more. And He just kept on spanking my pride like nobody’s business. I’ll explain after the (look, I’m getting tired of trying to make the “more after the break thing seem clever. A format change may be coming. Fair warning) break. (grin)

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Subtitle: “Maybe I’m the one Who is…The schizophrenic psycho…”

avery did it again. avery commented: “so that’s what you meant by transparency…” Once again, he gets a post as a response. avery, you gotta stop that. People might get jealous. (grin) Ready? Roll camera….and…ACTION!
CUT! I forgot something…Oh yeah! After the break. (grin)

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subtitle: the suddenness of arrogance.

avery commented on Part 2, and boy was I relieved! I was writing my response to him when i realized I was writing Part 3. So avery, sorry but you’ve just become famous. I’m turning my response to your comment into a Post! OK people, come on. By now you know what has to happen before you get to read anymore. After the break. (grin)

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We interrupt this series on Transparency to bring you this important announcement on the growing problem of medical smurfing!

I almost forgot about church tonight. I’m still getting use to the idea that I go to my church twice a week. So, Transparency part 3 is delayed. Instead, here’s a warning about medical smurfing and how it might be encroaching YOUR community, your church, possibly even your family! Learn now before it’s too late! After the break, of course. (grin)

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