Rapt Attention – The Day of the Big Yeet?

By: JANA GREENE

Boy, it’s been a whole minute since I’ve written one word. But this Rapture thing today has got me reminiscing. About a time I sat in my pastor’s office at 15 years old with two pieces of paper in hand – one with a page full of questions to ask about predestination. The other? HOW DO I PREPARE FOR THE RAPTURE?

And before you ask if I’m making light of the Rapture with blasphemy, let me assure you, I made NO light of it for almost my whole life. I took that stuff seriously.

Have you ever seen the movie “Mermaids,” with Cher, Winona Ryder, and Christina Ricci? When it came out in 1990, I was 21 and the family joke was still that I was still the Charlotte Flax of the family.

Virginal, unnecessarily pious, scared out of my MOTHER EFFING mind of a God I believed was the Old Testament OG, willing to save an incestuous family with a drunk at the helm in an Ark, while thousands of “less holy” human beings are drowned like river rats in the rising tides of doom.

But I digress.

What teenager is wringing her hands about such lofty theological worries? One with terrible anxiety and a crushing need to please people. And to please God, of course.

“That’s a big subject for one so young,” I remember he said. And the next half hour he danced around it, when all I wanted him to say was that I was on Santa-God’s “Nice List,” and clear of the “Naughty” one. No such luck. If you are not predestined for Heaven, you wouldn’t even know it. You either aren’t or you are, and you can’t earn it. Good luck, Kid!

(That pastor would be fired a couple of years later for sexually harassed several women in the church and having a full-blown affair with another. Freaking creeper. Perverts do not deserve positions in power, but HAHAHAHAHAHA! That does NOT seem to matter anymore! I don’t think you are ALLOWED to be in a position in power nowadays WITHOUT being a pervert!)

Even that didn’t deter me from wanting to dedicate my life to Christ…

And dedicate it again. And again.

And in case God was out that day and my attendance went unacknowledged, dedicate it AGAIN.

Am I in, or not? WHAT IS THE SECRET HANDSHAKE!!???

I have made so many altar-calls in my day, I wore the aisle carpets out. Each time begging God to save my heathen friends so that they too could be caught up in the clouds and not suffer the fiery furnace of Hell. And I really, really hope I am predestined, please God, please please, AMEN.

THE RAPTURE? I took that stuff especially to HEART.

For fifty years, I woke up every day wondering if we would we even hear it over the cacophony of chaos we find ourselves in? (Another thing I believe is that we are CURRENTLY in Hell. We are God experiencing himself through the human element in our humanity, both light and shadows. This is where we learn. This is where we suffer.

My current theology is that one day – one glorious day – we will all share Christ-consciousness. It will be an indwelling of Oneness, not a mass yeet up in the clouds. Sharing God’s mind. (And before you think that’s out of the realm of possibility, look around you. Did you ever think this would be happening? Evil is having its rave, and I know we all feel like we are crowd-surfing madness.)

It’s insanity right now, Dear Ones. I know it is.

But keep looking for the light. Keep BEING the light, somehow. (Good thing I am less Charlotte Flax, and more of who I was created to be.)

I will land on love.

I will land on peace.

I will live out my days without fear of a Sky Daddy who is waiting to smite ‘n yeet us. But seek out the FATHER, who is only ever love.

A father that doesn’t leave our sides, even as we surf the madness.

I hope you decide to land on love, too.

Peace be with you. ❤

September 23, 2025 0

Safeguarding Sobriety (in the Sh*tshow)

By: JANA GREENE

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but please don’t pick up a drink because of all this. Statistics show that the need for liver transplants has risen by 300% since the beginning of Covid – as the stress of the pandemic has pushed so many into alcoholism.
This gestures wildly is every bit as terrifying; don’t allow it to push you.
I know you are hurting, freaked out, panicked. For an alcoholic, that’s very scary territory. Our own minds tell us unwinding with a drink will chill us out. We fight the urges to drink, yes. But we are also fighting our own brains. Our own bodies. Our disease.
I know it’s easy to say … who cares anyway, as mad as the world has gone!?
ME. I CARE.
So many people care, sweet friend.
You are loved, and we need to be of soundest mind to figure out where we can serve next, how we can be the antidote to the hate. Hating is easy, and any old addiction will fall right in line. But loving is hard. Fighting is hard. And requires soberness of mind, and fire of belly.
Listen, Beloveds:
There is absolutely nothing that using won’t make worse, I promise. Nothing. And the good people of America need you – your love, your example, your strength for whatever crazy is ahead.
Use your tools. Call your people. Plunk your ass in a seat at a meeting. Lean into your spirituality. Ask God for help. Practice self care.
Just don’t pick up a drink. Please. You’ve worked so hard. I SEE YOU. Stay strong.

November 6, 2024 2

Ditching the (presidential) Pep Rally

By: JANA GREENE

I am trying to be in my ‘soft’ era, ya’ll. Soft blankets. Soft words. Soft environment.

Instead, I feel like I am perpetually living out reality as a high school pep rally. Because that’s what this political season feels like. In my schools, you got extra credit for attending the pep rallies.

But I cannot believe these are the people who made it through all the tryouts.

Like a pep rally for a high school football team getting ready to play its biggest game of the season against the rival school. If that high school were run by preschoolers who haven’t learned civility yet – they don’t yet know how not to interrupt each other, they brag about what’s in their lunchbox (my lunchbox is the best lunchbox, it has Lunchables in it. Lunchables with the M & Ms, the BEST Lunchables in the best lunchbox, everybody says it. Nobody else can compare. NANNY NANNY BOO BOO. )

Also, the tantrums are *chef’s kiss* immaculate. I’ve never seen a toddler have a better tantrum, and I raised two very spirited daughters who overachieved in tantruming.

So, we have all the elements:

“FIGHTIN’ WORDS!

LOUD RALLIES!

YARD SIGNS!

DRUMBEATS OF WAR!

POM POMS IN YOUR FACE (whether you want them or not, patooey.)

GOOOOOOooooooo TEAM!!

On second thought, perhaps a middle school pep rally is a more fitting comparison, on account of everyone throws shade 24/7, makes up rumors, and no one has done their homework.

It gives me SUCH the ick. One team being ickier than the other, but American politics are really just candidates hoping to be offered an “athletic scholarship” so they can skate by at our expense, do no real work, and hook up with the head cheerleader. (Or the porn star.)

Now, for most of my adult life, I have been extremely patriotic and political. I swung the way of my ancestors as if there were no other way available to me. The past several years I have switched sides, but not with glee and positive expectation, because the whole system is broken. There is no pep in this rally.

Having several chronic illnesses – one that might eventually end my life – I have had the ridiculously extravagant luxury of having health insurance. But millions of sick people like me are going without care and treatment. And that, too, bothers me enough to pick a team.

KAMALA HARRIS IS HER NAME, UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE IS HER GAME?

*pom poms still flailing, even as the cheerleading squad’s pyramid collapses*

So, while I am trying to have a NICE SOFT ERA over here, we have a Presidential election on less than a month. There is no softness about that. It’s a hard, cold, rabid process from nomination to election. I’ve chosen my team, because she supports a few key issues that are important to me, and also because she is not Trump. I think that’s a determining factor for many of us, whether we admit it or not.

I like Harris just fine, but not passionately. If she gets elected, we shall see is passion ensues. I’m skipping the pep rally, even though my classmates will accuse me of having no “school spirit.”

As we draw near to the actual game, what a quandary – the world’s biggest pep rally, and nobody is winning the game.

Especially not us.

October 7, 2024 0

Quicksand, Lava, Dodgeball, and Modern Politics

By: JANA GREENE

I hate all the ugliness; we are seeing regarding politics right now. Is it just me, or does it seem like a whole preschool is running the world? Presidential candidates that can’t wait their turn to talk? Grown men calling names. It reminds me of the childhood games we used to play.

For instance, we Gen-ex’ers were warned about quicksand an inordinate amount, considering not one of us have ever seen quicksand in the wild.

What to do if you get stuck in quicksand was peer-reviewed, 3rd grade cannon. Because somebody’s uncle’s cousin got stuck in it for real for real and knew just what to do. All you need is a mule and a rope, and the ability to NOT panic (which disqualifies me immediately,) and who doesn’t have those lying around? Living in this political climate is fighting quicksand. We are all trying to stay still, so as not to upset the sucky mud. But got damn, it sure feels like we are going under. After getting the equivalent of a Batchelor’s Degree on the subject, one could rest easy, knowing as long as your mule was surefooted, you would be okay, except for the fact that…

THE FLOOR IS LAVA. I had one particular friend in second grade who claimed to have seen a real volcano in Baltimore (Land of Volcanos) and wanted to teach us how to escape certain vaporization using her mother’s white sofa. My friend (who said don’t worry, her mom wouldn’t mind) gave a quick and formal lecture before throwing every single cushion on the floor so that it would resemble the rock face of the volcano. To escape the liquid fire, we must all be so careful not to fall on the floor, er, lava. We were training in earnest before my friend’s mother came in, notices five barefoot little girls jumping across her good furniture, and did her best impression of Pele, Hawaiian Goddess of Fire. We sacrificed ourselves to the goddess by wading into the lava to fix her sacred volcano. But that brings us to the most dangerous, politic-resembling childhood game of all:

Dodgeball, baby. The premise of dodgeball, for you who were born after the 70’s, early 80’s, was to bodily injure your opponent by throwing a hard, red rubber ball at your thigh until it makes a BOINK! noise that reverberates thorough a tri-county area and knocks you clean off your feet. This is actually the closest I’ve ever come to being an athlete. Nobody in my whole school knew who I was, UNTIL dodgeball, and then I was a favorite literal target. Politicians are pretty much playing Dystopian Earth Dodgeball, which is when you don’t even need a physical ball to win. BOINK! from sea to shining sea, until nobody is standing, and everyone hates each other.

So, in conclusion, my opinion is that we are all in quicksand, and it’s sucking us down – lowest common denominator-style. Bit by bit, second by second, until we are at the end of the rope, up to our eyeballs in utter bullshit, unable to have a voice. And if ever the floor has ever been lava, it’s now. As far as the eye can see, Pele is still spewing. We teeter and totter on our little rocks, afraid falling in would amount to our demise, all while The Man makes it impossible to stand. To my spirit, the last several years has felt like I’m in a State Championship Dodgeball Tournament. Chaos. Lines being formed – not to include us, but to destroy us, one BOINK at a time. My “dodging” game is a mess, but the balls keep coming. THEY JUST KEEP COMING.

God bless us all, what a mess. People with the mental and emotional maturation of children are begging for our votes. Children teaching children, again, just like 3rd Grade.

We can do better. And we must.

September 24, 2024 0

Ugh, Politics. – a little poetry jam

By: JANA GREENE

The world is raging

flags are blazing,

furrowed brows,

and hateful eyes.

And so we get

what we’ve always gotten,

and act like

it’s a big surprise.

Never mind

the deafening roar,

the promises empty,

and outright lies.

Don’t feed the fears

Or give them years

with which to blind

our open eyes.

And so we get

what we’ve always got,

words from the sharp tongues

who carry clout,

deciding for us

what we’re about.

August 26, 2024 0