Leonardo, you can shut up now

So, Billy was relaxing on his sofa with a great friend last night, halfway watching the Oscars, but probably more focused on caressing the Woodford Reserve Double Oaked that was sitting in his bullet glass - and yes it was neat.  Billy was also thinking about all the movies that he did not see this year and wondering "how'd I miss that", then remembering it was a busy year after all.

But then came the best actor award, Billy wanted Matt Damon to win, even though the Martian was a little . . . well lets just say if you watched Castaway and you watched Apollo 11, well put them together and keep your $12 in your pocket.  But then the award went to Leonardo DiCaprio.   As he began to talk, Billy said out loud to his friend "well that boy has grown up into a nice young man".  Well, then Leo got to a pivot point in his speech, at which point he should have PIVOTED and sat his ass down but instead, he kept talking.  He made these statements:

"Making The Revenant was about man’s relationship to the natural world. A world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow."

Okay Leoretardo, from my quick research, the filming of this movie was delayed until May -Aug 2015.  Really, are you that freaking surprised you had trouble finding snow cowboy?  I could go on but . . . . 

Then he continued:

"Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed ... Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted."

Leo DiCapitated, WTF dude, okay just two points that Billy must say:

(1) Your an actor you idiot, steam up the windows of a car with Kate Winslet (who may or may not have been watching the Oscar's with me) stand at the front of a ship and declare you are king of the world, but don't mistake our fondness of your acting with the fact that we don't give a crap about your political agenda. 

(2) Climate change, FKA Global Warming.  Come on Leo, read an 8th grade science book and get over this.  Yes, the world's climate is changing but there is absolutely nothing you, or I, or the collective humanity and all the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there can do about it.  It changes every day, it changes every week, year, decade, century, just ask the dinosaurs man.  It sucks, but so does death but you can't stop that either.  

(and the next 2) "The most urgent threat facing our entire species" - now you have just pissed ole Billy Hill off.   I would have walked up on that stage and just bitch slapped your ass for that one Leo, one big slap for every member of our species that has died at the hand of radical islamic terrorism.  Tell them that a hot Sunday afternoon is more threatening than having your head sawed off by a dull blade because you professed to be something other than a radical Islamic Muslim, or every fatherless or motherless child at home who did not see their mom or dad come back.  You snotty nosed, imbecile and spoiled little brat you.  

So, Ms Winslet, I take back my comment, he did not grow up into a fine young man, he just turned into a chubbier, older actor that wants to appear intelligent and politically cool, but to anyone with a decent high school education that is not trying to get into your pockets or enslave you to big government, Leo just looked like a buffoon.  Hey Hollywood, read your script in front of the camera like you are paid to do, and thank the public at the Oscars for giving you their money to be entertained, but save your political garbage talk for your multi-million dollar parties that you attend in your eco-friendly private jets while you pretend to give a crap about the billions and billions of underprivileged people.  You are all just like Sally Struthers, totally consuming and wasting all the resources rather than giving them to those that you purport to give a damn about.  Take your little golden naked man and go home Leo learn to shut up a little earlier.  Actually, maybe we should start modeling the Oscar after Sally, just a thought.  

Billy Hill here, I like it neat.    

Rahab or Rehab?

So, Billy Hill has a buddy that is recently divorced.  Billy Hill and his buddy were talking the other day over a snort of Woodford Reserve Double Oaked (highly recommended) and his buddy laid out this Rubik’s cube of a dilemma for Billy to pontificate.  It has been haunting Billy every since and so, he is just putting it out there, sort of like giving a cold to someone else, so that he can get rid of it.  That is how it works right?  You sneeze and give the cold to someone else then you walk away a free man?  So, you put your dilemma out there for others to read and that pretty much takes it off your back?  Right?  We shall see. 

It is clear that the wounds from a bad marriage, an ugly divorce, a crappy dad, or any of a variety of other emotionally charged situations (death of a loved one, sexual abuse, physical and/or emotional abandonment, an abortion, etc.) are real and need healing.  The first step is to admit you are hurt and wounded and then try to identify what those wounds are.  This in and of itself can be a tough task.  It takes time, reflection, honesty with yourself, listening to others, and sometimes some wisdom from Above.  But the hardest part is just admitting it.  As a grade A, "number 1 in his class", bad ass, Billy gets that, even though he has never been hurt himself or wounded, he can see how those that actually have a soul could be wounded.  Billy, incidentally, does not have a soul, nor a heart for that matter. Who needs a heart when the only thing flowing through his slightly clean copper veins is bourbon, and yes its neat.  

But accepting the truth and identifying the wounds is not enough, you then have the whole issue of tending to those wounds.  Some wounds are worse than others and may require immediate triage.  But in general, there are two things that can be done.  (1) heal the wounds by medicating them or (2) simply get rid of the pain by anesthetizing the wounds (apply something that numbs the pain) – obviously, you could do both as well.

If you do not know what the wounds are, obviously all efforts will most likely be fruitless.  Bengay does nothing for a broken leg.  You cannot heal a sucking chest wound by taking a shot of morphine.  But once you know what the wounds are, you now have an even more arduous task of finding out what medicates the wound versus what anesthetizes the wound.  The first makes it better, the latter just makes the pain go away but does not heal the wound. 

If you only anesthetize the pain of a wound, you run the risk of never healing or even making the wound worse.  For instance, if you anesthetize a broken bone so you can walk, you most likely will cause more damage without even knowing it, that is until the bone comes poking out of your skin (sorry Billy just threw up in his mount a little bit).  So, for physical injuries, this is all easy peasy, but for emotional, spiritual and mental wounds, how in the world do you know what medicates and what numbs?

Suppose the wound is rejection and abandonment, closing yourself off from the world can prevent further hurt, but is it going to bring healing?  Likewise, jumping into another romantic relationship may anesthetize the hurt and pain but most likely does not medicate it. In addition, if the other person in the romantic relationship figures out that they are simply an aspirin or a shot of nitrous oxide, you could find yourself right back in the battle field getting more of the same wounds that you just openly shared with your hit of nitrous oxide that gets pissed off and starts poking you in the same wounds.  In addition, you may find that you just inflicted some wounds on the innocent party as well.  Well, crap!  That is not cool at all. 

Anesthesia is easy to find.  Bourbon, tobacco, pornography, a prostitute, sleeping which is sort of like a self induced coma, sleeping around, work, entertainment, eating, you get the point – it is a Rahab.  But, what medicates, what is the Rehab?

What about pouring into friends, mission work or the homeless shelter, all of these could simply be to anesthetize as well but, they have a nice gleam of righteousness so it seems like you are doing the right thing.  But, it may just operate to numb not heal. 

So should you close off from the world and just pour into the Word?  Is this all we have? Seeking after an intangible, inaudible, invisible God in an effort to bring healing for our hurting, our longing to be touched and held, our hunger to be accepted and desired, our craving to be loved and understood and understood AND loved?  Can this intangible God give a hug?  Can he hold you and say “it is going to be okay”?  After all, the promise in Revelations of wiping your tears away isn’t realized until your dead right? 

How do we find the right medication and avoid simply anesthetizing the wound?  Is it okay to have some anesthesia to bring comfort while we still seek for and apply medication?  

Identify the wound then identify the proper medication.  "Right Billy, and just how in the hell do you do that" says a questioning voice at a nearby keyboard?  Well, there is always the puppy swarm.  Surely that unconditional love would help.  Why can’t God give us a good old supernatural puppy swarm?  You may not realize this because you are probably not as smart as Billy but hey, doctors are just human body enginerds.  They only have a limited repertwar (or repertoire for your French speaking folk) of medications, a playbook and experience to tell them what works based on the perceived symptoms.  They apply it and if it does not work, they try something different.  Maybe that is what Billy’s friend needs to do, become his own emotional enginerd.  Press in to things that lift the darkness and don’t bite.  If it bites, try something else.  Then after a bit, step away for a time and see if there was healing (medication).  But if the same level of pain comes back, then perhaps it was just numbing (anesthesia).  Press back into the former and flee from the latter, I mean like don't pack your bags or a sandwich flee, just F L E E.  Cling to the Rehab and run away from Rahab.  But don’t forget, even Rahab had a bit of Rehab herself so don’t go killing Rahab, it isn’t about her, or him or it, or the bourbon.  It is not the vise that makes it a vise, it is the viser or the viseree (Billy sometimes is his own lexographer).  Billy Hill scratches his head and walks away thinking to himself “whew, I am exhausted but now its your problem, Billy is going to go grab a bourbon” because Billy, well he ain’t got no wounds, he’s a bad ass. 

Billy Hill here, I like it neat

Of Mice And Men

Subtitle: Of MiceHamster And MenBilly

So, Billy has some offspring.  That may come as a surprise if you know him but he does cause you don't have to have a license to do so.  So, one of his offspring convinced Billy that it was ready to have a pet.  But Billy does not do pets very well.  Billy does not like pets because, well they don't wear underwear .  And just like I ain't gonna let you in my house naked, I sure as hell ain't gonna let some animal in my house naked.  But, after many tears and pleadings and the lack of imagination to come up with more excuses, we ended up with a hamster, named Sonny or Sunny, Billy is not sure which, he has not bothered to ask.

It was last Saturday after coming home from what was just a tolerable visit to the park with the offsprings, and rushing to head out the door in the next 45 minutes for the next thing on the todo list, that screaming ruptured in Billy Hill's dwelling.  Incomprehensible as it was, Billy could tell it was coming from offspring number 2's bedroom and had something to do with the hamster.  Upon arrival at said bedroom, Billy learned that the cage door to S_nny's dwelling was open and it was now vacant.  Billy called all hands on deck for the search party, but no one responded.  Offspring 2 just kept shivering in a panic and the others were just not interested in playing.  So, Billy looked for a few minutes, gave up and said, well, we have to go.  This was met with great objection but Billy is bigger and badassier than said offspring so they loaded up in the truck and headed out.  But before doing so, offspring 2 came up with a pretty good idea, at least Billy thought so.  Offspring 2 put S_nny's now vacant dwelling on the floor, opened the door and put food inside.  Then offspring 2 put flour all around the cage - self-rising flour (not sure if that is important but wanted to be clear on the recipe).  The theory, as presented to Billy Hill from offspring 2 was that S_nny would come and get the food, maybe stay in the cage, but if not, it would walk through the flour and then we could follow the footprints.  Billy swallowed his Blanton's, nodded with approval, and climbed in the truck.

Turns out the  Billy delegation picked up someone else's offspring that evening and so offspring 2 had another house guest for a sleepover.  When we arrived home, it was audibly declared that the scheme had worked, S_nny came and ate food and there were foot prints leading under the bed.  Not bothering to look, Billy just accepted this as true and advised offspring 2 to pull everything out from under the bed and find the dang rodent.  The search was fruitless.  So, Billy is thinking, that is not really what I would call "worked", but it was a good attempt.

It was 1 in the morning that Billy was awakened from a wonderful sleep by two little ones at his door screaming something about S_nny being in the garbage can in offspring 2's bedroom.  Evidently, when the hamster climbed out of the cage onto the dresser, it then fell into the garbage can - which Billy thought waxed poetic.  The offspring 2 and guest had heard S_nny crawling around in the garbage can but the hamster could not get out because, it is a tall garbage can - at least for a hamster. But at 1 AM, all Billy wanted to do was sleep and he said, maybe loudly but not sure "well don't bother me, just grab the thing and put it in the dang cage".  So they left and Billy rolled over to return back to sleep in a peaceful household that no longer had a hamster at large.  Within 20 minutes, the house was silent, and all were were asleep, S_nny locked away, but Billy was laying on his back with his eyes wide open thinking . . . .

If S_nny fell into the garbage can and could not get out, then what the hell walked through the self-rising flour . . . . . . .

Billy Hill here, I like it neat

That Really Gets My Goat

Ever play that trick “do you want a Hertz Doughnut”? 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlmiTWW0baQ&feature=youtu.be
Just like sneaking up and scaring the crap out of someone, that game is really only funny for the one playing the trick.  But sometimes it happens, someone does something foolishly that hurts someone else.  Sometimes people are just down right mean and do things to intentionally hurt someone one.  Yeah, Billy even has a friend that is a bit P.O.’d right now cause someone keyed his truck down one side, across the back and up the other.   As he told the story to Billy, Billy had to laugh a bit inside (but not on the outside cause his friend was not in a good place) because keying someone’s care is the quintessential passive aggressive move that really requires the recipient of the meanness to dig down deep and forgive a total faceless and nameless (and balless honestly) assailant.   

But, what is this whole “I have to forgive” gig all about?  How do you really forgive someone?  Is it even possible.  Do you have to do what God did, offer up your son?  Or can you just grab a goat and cut him open?  How do you forgive someone that sins against you, how can it be atoned?  When someone hurts you, it is not like the event comes and goes and only hurts you once.  No, it lodges in your mind, soul and heart and comes up again and again and again.  And then, if you are like Billy, every time you tell a story it gets infused with much more emotion and elaboration making the hurt even bigger than it even originally was.  The hurt can never be reconciled.  We hold on to it, justifying the placement of pain or hurt on the other person (or some random person we want to punish for our hurt) we withdraw from the person, etc.  As it festers and as we relive it, the interest on the debt compounds greatly.    So you are trying to forgive but the wrong is actually growing in your mind. 

Someone told Billy one time, that forgiving someone does not mean you forget, it just means that you are not holding the other person accountable for the grievance either in this life or the life to come.  So, I am supposed to forgive rather than to abide in the hurt and revenge.  And each time I think “you sorry bastard I am going to get you for this” I have to stop and say, “oh heck, that’s right, that debt exists no more, even though it still hurts like hell.”  But wait, IF I forgive someone for a hurt they bestowed upon me, then basically they get away with it!  I can’t let THAT happen.  I mean, I know that God says that I am forgiven, and so, technically I guess I “got away with it” also, or did I.  Do I truly believe, accept and embrace God’s promise of forgiveness?  Or do I view Him as still punishing me for my sin, keeping a record, making me pay the debt? 

This is an odd path for me to go down.  It sort of reminds me of repelling.  It is very very tough to make that first lean over a cliff backwards.  It is difficult because I think that if I forgive you, it is not going to be over.  I am going to remember this again, and the hurt will come back just like it is today.  And so, not only do I have to forgive you today, I have to forgive you tomorrow also.  Then the next day it comes up, and even the next next.  Maybe the memory will diminish with time, maybe the hurt will heal eventually.  But, maybe not.   Do memories last an eternity? Well, I guess tomorrow I will look and see. 

Billy Hill here, I like it neat.