Self-loathing

[create_destiny]

The need for blank VHS tapes engulfs me. I am repulsed by my desires and driven to despair by my addiction to cheap, black, athletic socks. I deeply regret this willful error and shall no doubt suffer karmically for this sin. What sin you may ask? I confess in shame, "I'm going to Wal-mart tonight."

And it's not just for socks and blank video tapes, folks. It gets even worse. I'm looking for a substitute for attentive gardening, also known as "Super Thrive."

I have this tendency to bring plants to the brink of death with neglect, and then, with much anxiety, lamentation and guilt I do everything within my power to revive them.

Every time I plant a garden I tell myself, "This garden is a metaphor for the state of your soul. Nothing will grow in this poisoned, cursed spot which is fit only for noxious weeds, horrifyingly freaky bugs, and grotesque decay."

"God will not let my garden grow," I reason with myself, "in order to show me just how wretched and depraved I've become." With much sorrow and grief I till my garden and plant my seeds. Sweet, life-giving tears of repentance do not come--only fruitless self-loathing.

In spite of this futile fatalism, I water the garden every so often, just to see, if by chance, God will forgive me and cause something to grow. Maybe, just maybe, Love will conquer all, even me, fallen and wretched American that I am.

If something grows, it will mean God forgives me and has shown me a sign of rich mercy.

Something grew last year and I watched the fruit fall and rot on the ground.

Comments

I understand!

[another-butter.livejournal.com]

Every year I toil with the labors of tilling my 10x4 garden plot. Every year. I spend time planting and composting. Waiting for those little seeds to sprout. Tenderly plucking the fruit of my labor...Oh, the glory...

Then by August, I could care less. I've given up weeding, watering, picking, caring.

[reload-reloop.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's easier to let the garden go to grass...

But even grass can look good if you take proper care of it. And God will show you that the grass is greener on your side of the fence. :)

Now... what do you need all those blank VHS tapes for?

[kidzero.livejournal.com]

I think that's the first time I've ever heard anyone use gardeing as a metaphor for the state of their soul.

Interesting.

The black socks and VHS tapes part worries me a bit though. ;)

[ygolonac.livejournal.com]

I have also commited the sin of shopping at Walmart. For similar reasons to yours (not socks and blank tapes, but just stuff that I thought I needed right away). I need to make a flail that I can use to scourge myself after such foul deeds.

The last time I went to Walmart, when I thought I absolutely had to have a new computer game and Walmart was the only place that had any copies left, I had the box in my greedy little hands, was walking to the checkout and suddenly was overcome with revulsion. Tossed the box in some sale bin and left with a nice feeling.

The closest I've ever had to a garden is a plant an ex-roomie's girlfriend gave me for watching her dog for a week. Somehow, it still lives after about 5 years of neglect. I water it when I notice it and I've stuck a few of those plant feeding stakes in it's pot a few times. I suppose it still being alive after being neglected like that is a fitting metaphor for my soul.

[whosplittheatom.livejournal.com]

mowing one's yard is a most despicable act. tending one's garden is futility, even if only because the tending itself, and the garden, and the one doing the tending, are all just miniscule parts in a much greater Chaos.

gardening represents the best humans can do with their own souls, using their own concepts of order; nice, well-tended little rows, free of "weeds", and of course straight and evenly-symmetrical.

the Creation contains no "weeds".

let it go. your garden and your soul. "weeds" will grow up. things will die, other things will be born. it will fly in the face of every notion you ever tried to believe in. but watch, observe, listen, and feel its rhythms - how much more LIFE there is in the wild, the undomesticated, the feral? how could a soul live any other way, but unfettered?

Chaos spins its own implicit forms of order, they surround us at every turn; but how absurd that we think that we can impose our own linear-minded ideas of "order" onto Nature, or that (even worse) the Divine somehow is the image and justification of human order...?

we each project to be 'God' what we each need or want to be 'God' at that particular moment in our lives, I think.

It all grows, and falls, and rots, and grows up again. ever the same, ever changing.

*shrugs*

[createdestiny.livejournal.com]

The creation does contain weeds and some of them will sting you or make you sick if you eat them.

[whosplittheatom.livejournal.com]

so then we are justified in declaring them "bad" or "evil", from our own frame of reference that we've imagined is synonymous with the Absolute Truth of the Universe?

I don't know man, that one's seriously way out of my league. I defer to whatever authority is possessed by whatever higher authorities you hold over yourself. that ball's in their court, not mine. sorry I said anything to begin with, I guess...

[sweetspyder.livejournal.com]

I take good care of my plants at first,but then something goes awry. The weeds hold them hostage. And my tools become rusty. :)