Ack!!! Infernal Christians! Always being so...so...nice. I tried to bait this guy with rude, unsolicited posts (see previous entry 5/25) and all he did was forgive me and pray for my soul.

Hey, wait a minute...(snaps fingers)...if I can get folks to pray for my soul, does that mean I can still be bad and go to heaven? Hmm. There is potential in this. Anyway, Mr. Paul is obviously a sweet guy. Here is his message:

Name: paul mcmonagle
E-Mail: mcmonps@auburn.edu
Date/Time: 6/20/01 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: Church Membership?
Body:
well, i'm sad to see you being so cynical about the subject, but church membership is something i feel is very important to a christian. it gives you a forum to listen to God's living word and be instructed as to how to live your life. i can understand why you are so seemingly dead set against christianity, but i assure you, Christ was alive. Christ did die. and Christ will return. i will be praying for you clay. my email is mcmonps@auburn.edu and my aol screenname is abida420. please feel free to i.m. me or email me. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Here is my original message:

Clay Sails on 6/20/01 11:28 AM said:
>>Please register me as being definitely not in favor of church membership. Church is boring and christian brainwashing is SOOOOOO tiresome to behold. Here is my obligatory book/bible quote to make it seem like I know morea bout the truth about what the hell is going on in the world that other people:
>>
>>"Tell a lie over and over and you look like a fool. Tell it for 2000 years and you look like a Christian."
>> -- Alistar Crowley, Book of Nom
>>
>>-- Clay Sails

So I tried to re-register the Christian site www.lordofhosts.com (they dumped me after my first series of postings) in order to thank Mr. Paul (sincerely) for being so nice, and my email address on the registration page linked automatically to the FBI !!! Cool. I love the FBI's site. Saves me from having to type the address in myself.

Of course, now I'm going to have to sign up under a different alias and explain to them that the First Amendment allows me to freely express myself in this country, short of threatening people of course. And obviously the webmasters can block my free expression if they wish, or have the FBI lock me up for being an asshole, or they can simply pray for me and ignore me like Mr. Paul does, which is really the best solution. What do y'all think? (knocks on monitor) Yoohoo, anybody out there?

Here's a letter I wrote to one of my Semester at Sea friends.

Hey Jen,

Good to hear from you, as always.

As usual, life is life around here. I start school in the Fall, though I'm oddly unenthusiastic about it. I think its just the melancholic humors of my spleen that keeps me that way. I could use a good leeching.

I assume you are still in India, though I know you plan to return sometime soon. Back to Narragansett for you will it be? I wonder if it will seem smaller to you after having spent so much time in big India. I visited L.A. a few weeks ago and even though it was a rare time of year there (green and lovely), it didn't feel like mine anymore. C'est la vie. That's the price of wanderlust.

I hear that people sometimes have trouble re-acclimatizing themselves to the American way of life after having been gone. Maybe U.S. customs will do you a favor and hang you by your toes upon re-entry to purge your innards of all of those exotic flukes. Probably some snuffly guy in a lab coat will collect them in a pan and whisk them away to the Center for Disease Control for development into biological weapons. (Sorry, just amusing myself on a Thursday afternoon)

I know you've probably seen too much to talk about in just some email, but what does India look like away from its roilling, terrible cities? Lush and bejungled? Dry? See any elephants or monkeys or cobras? I'd like to see some of those old Hindu temples -- the ones tucked away in remote cloud forests, covered with vines and bat guano and screaming monkeys. Maybe they no longer exist that way, if they ever did.

Anyway...

Write back when you get a chance.

Do you ever just think to yourself "man, I could just go nuts for a creamsickle right now"?

Yeah, well me, too.

Guess what? Somebody just gave me one and I'm *EATING IT RIGHT NOW*. Mmmm.

I could sit here and stuff an endless parade of creamsickles into my face until the world turned orange and I floated off to heaven.

The lady who gave it to me left a whole box in the freezer. How immeasurably uncool would it be if I snuk in there and ate several more?

Simply put, I am the worst dresser I know. Sure, others of you may wear tighty-whities and sweat pants with crotch-holes to work, or (free) wrinkled credit card promo t-shirts, but check me out today:

I have my brand-new Kohls orange and brown plaid button-down shirt. No problem there, kinda "grungy", 90s hip, etc.

Its tucked into a reversable belt (set to black) with a dull brass buckle, which in turn is wrapped around tight, faded black khakis.

The pants terminate a 3 full inches above brown leather Payless tennis shoes with *huge* rubber soles, and display for all the world to see my jaunty, white Target tube socks.

Note to file: I was trying to look nice this morning.

What would I like to be wearing?
One of those huge 4' grass sombreros from "South of the Border" and a six-gun. And an eye-patch. The rest wouldn't matter much. On second thought, I'd have a six-gun in one holster and a bottle of tequila in the other. Or I'd have a bandoleer with lollypops on it. People wouldn't mess with me then.

Mmmm. Nothing like a soft PB & J sandwich and a glass of tepid tap water for lunch. You know what that smell reminds me of (no, not poverty y' wiseass)? It reminds me of being a kid at my Aunt Kay's house. She used to watch me and my friend Matt Miller. She had two little babies then -- my cousins -- who are all grown up now (*sniff*). Her house always smelled like handy wipes and that powdery, cloying stink of soft baby poo. That's what PB & J on the nose always reminds me of.

*Sigh* I guess you can't go back.

On other fronts, my renewed committment to pb & j has led to a solution to the age-old and somewhat mysterious issue of how exactly is best to construct a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Some folks advocate spreading the peanut butter on one slice and the jelly on the same slice, then slapping the two together. Other folks say the only way to make one is to put peanut butter on one side, jelly on the other, and uniting the two into one unit. I'd say the latter group most definitely had it right. With the first method, you cannot help but get peanut butter on the knife as you spread the jelly. This leads to contamination of the jelly jar which, with the added chance of spoilage due to mixing foods, could even be a health hazard. I'm surprised the FDA hasn't already ruled on this one.

I'm not an inherently bad guy, but getting into trouble is just too much fun to resist. A few days ago, in a moment of ire at the self-righteous moralizing that many Christians feel obliged to ruin everybody else's fun with, I decided to join a Christian message board and engage in some honest dialogue. Here are the fruits of my sojourn. (Note: if you are a kid or in any way sensitive about what you read, skip it.)


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rachel Swank on 6/4/01 1:56 PM said:

>>
>>I am looking for help in building a debate for/against church membership. Any insite/bible verses? Thanks!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Please register me as being definitely not in favor of church membership. Church is boring and christian brainwashing is SOOOOOO tiresome to behold. Here is my obligatory book/bible quote to make it seem like I know more about the truth about what the hell is going on in the world that other people:

"Tell a lie over and over and you look like a fool. Tell it for 2000 years and you look like a Christian."
-- Alistar Crowley, Book of Nom

-- Clay Sails






>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dennis on 6/10/01 11:56 AM said:

>>
>>"Hell & Heaven are only inches away from each other!"
>>
>>Wow! What the heck does that mean? I heard this phrase in a song recently by Rick Mullens. I kept thinking about what the song writer might have meant by it. I pondered it and found what he meant. Let's put our thinking caps on and go into the "deep" mode.
>>
>>Revelation 1:16: In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
>>Revelation 2:12: "To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.
>>
>>Revelation 2:16: Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
>>
>>Ephesians 6:17: Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
>>
>>Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
>>
>>There is a scripture in the Old Testament that I heard a teaching on several years ago. I cannot find it for reference here for you. If you know please email me so I can pass it on. In the story, upon the sacrificial altar where there was a slaughtered bull, fire come down from God and separated the meat from the fat. This was God's way of revealing that there is a difference between the spirit and the soul of each of us. The two are so very close and even overlap that it is a challenge to distinguish the two from each other. I understand that the secular study of the human psyche believes that it has a handle on what human kind is all about. But science is very limited to observation, as it should be. Where science steps over the boundaries of its own definition, is when it starts to draw conclusions from other than observation. Then it steps into theory. As we go through our life's journey here on planet Earth, it is appears to us that the soul & spirit are intertwined. But they are distinct and separate.
>>
>>At the time that the scriptures above where written, society certainly was different than today. Swords were a weapon for battle. But the sword owner used it for many things other than just a means to self-defense. One could use it for poking animals out of the way, chopping some fire wood, used as a machette in the woods, as a pry-bar to move something, like a rock, out of the way, stick it in the ground to hang your turban onto as you took a nap, or whatever. But the reference to the "two-edged" sword was a different type of sword. It was a short sword carried on the belt. It was kept sharp and was not used as a "tool" as the battle sword was. So the reference in scripture, in a time several thousands of years ago, was referring to a long sharp knife that could cut fat off of meat, for example. This symbolism being that the Word of God is SHARPER then any two-edged sword. The word of God distinguishes the differences between the spirit from the soul of man. The word of God can and will separate your soul from your spirit, WHICH ARE ONLY INCHES AWAY FROM EACH OTHER (figuretively speaking)!
>>
>>Man is a TRIUNE being, i.e., body (physical), soul (non-physical, i.e., the mind, emotions, will - in poetry and scripture, it is often called the "heart"), and spirit (spiritual - not only non-physical, but non-dimentional & non-spatial. The part of us where God allows us to communicate with Him, for God is spirit. Where only the Spirit of Truth can reveal itself to us. [Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,] i.e., God's image is TRIUNE [Father, Son, Holy Spirit], He is LOVE, He is SPIRIT, He is LIFE!)
>>
>>So if "Heaven and Hell are only inches away from each other", we must be dealing with a place between the soul & spirit.
>>
>>Psalm 51:17: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. [i.e., the broken spirit and contrite heart (soul) of the person]
>>Isaiah 57:15: For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
>>
>>1 John 4:1-3 (KJV) "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world."
>>Romans 10:9 - "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth [body] the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart [soul] that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved [your spirit].
>>
>>As a Christian, your spirit is saved (made alive by God - "born again"), your soul is being saved (by Him by you abiding in Him), and your body will be saved (by Him at the rapture or resurrection). Your only contribution to your salvation is accepting the FREE gift that He offers to you! (Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.)
>>
>>Have any questions? Comments? LMK!
>>
>>Later!
>>
>>Dennis Harnisch
>>
>> "Gun Kontrol Kills!"
>> www.gunkontrolkills.50megs.com
>>
>>P.S. I know that my Redeemer lives!
>> I spoke with Him this morning!
>> www.soul-food.50megs.com
>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dennis,

Wow! I had a similar epiphany the other day. I was eating out my mistress and I smelled something horrible. I said "that doesn't smell like pussy". I opened my eyes and, in the glimmering light of the menorah, I saw that I was eating her asshole.

"I'faith!" I cried, "I had no idea that the two were but inches away from each other."


-- Clay Sails

Hi. I am Clay Sails. This is my daily soapbox. If you're looking for what I ate for breakfast and my favorite movie, you might find it here. More likely you'll just find a series of observations and correspondences from my recent life. Warning: I'm nice but I'm mean, I'm foul but I'm fair, and I don't care if you don't like what I say or do, though feel free to contact me and tell me anyway! Here is my email address:

sailingacrossamerica@hotmail.com

For how smart people are, I am constantly amazed at how dumb they are. This will be a recurring theme in my posts. Take the following cases:

Case #1:
Today while working at a real-estate development firm just outside of Baltimore, I opened a letter from a guy in a subdivision nearby:
"Dear Developer," it read, "since moving here in January, the clover in my yard has grown out of control. I am afraid that it will bring with it a profusion of bees that might sting my 2-year old daughter. Please spray it at your earliest convenience."

I sat stunned for a moment, before discovering my indignation.

What? What kind of ignoramus fears clover more than herbicides? Ever hear of agent orange? Your kid is not going to tiptoe through the tulips very long if she's got suppurating ulcers on her ankles.

Case #2: Yesterday, while hiking up at Cunningham Falls with J, we came across a guy (17) sitting in the trail with a rattlesnake in his hands.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," he said back.

I nodded to the snake, "ever handled a rattlesnake before?"

He shook his head, "nope."

The snake, I must say, was handling this much better than either myself or J (whom absolutely hates snakes). The snake just rattled lazily and slithered away at a rate of about 1 inch per hour.

"Ever see the Crocodile Hunter?" the kid said.

(What? you're handling an extremely venemous reptile in the middle of the friggin' wilderness and the only thing you can relate it to is a friggin' tv show?) (Side rant: Kids these days have it all. When I was a kid we had to carve our rattlesnakes with jackknives.)

[6/25/2001 12:15:10 PM | clay sails]
Here is a fun little exchange I had with the good sport who runs both thedevil.com and theangel.com:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clay Sails"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 2:11 PM
Subject: *yawn*

How boring. I wanted thedevil.com and I got theangel.com

I am properly admonished.

Now I'll have to go find a porn site to fulfill my bored-at-work
websurfing fix.

From: "The Angel"
To: "Clay Sails"
Subject: Re: *yawn*
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 00:26:58 -0400

No....you can not defeat my purpose for you that easily. Now go get
baptized. You know you want it.

The Angel


>----- Original Message -----
From: "Clay Sails"
To:
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 9:13 AM
Subject: Re: *yawn*

Damn, its too late. I was baptized against my will as a baby. Can the Angel
unbaptize me? Thats what I *really* want.

From: "The Angel"
To: "Clay Sails"
Subject: Re: *yawn*
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 17:45:26 -0400

Don't worry then. Infant baptisms for the forgiveness of sins are not
biblical. So your hell bound status may yet persevere :-)

The Angel

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clay Sails"
To:
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: *yawn*

I wonder if Hell will be cold, or hot, or both? Likely it will be neither,
or just the summation of my worst fears. In that case, Hell will be endless
church service. ;)

From: "The Devil"
To: "Clay Sails"
Subject: Re: *yawn*
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 18:21:22 -0400

Read Luke chapter 16 and start in verse 19 and continue to verse 31.

Then tell me if that sounds funny.

Love,

The Devil



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