The Hole in my Soul

   You know, a lot of times I can depend on this blog as a resource to document my thoughts of the day. It's a great tool because first of all, nobody reads it. So it's largely private. If someone should stumble upon it and find interest in it, well then good for them. But for the most part, it's a way to vent and will probably never come to light. Unless something happens to me. Which would be horrible but I mean - LOOK AT ALL THESE RESOURCES TO FIND OUT ABOUT ME! It would be impossible for anyone to say I didn't write anything I was thinking down. So I mean, there's always that.
   It's been quite a while since I've written anything new so if you're reading this in a stream of one post to the next, you may notice some incontinuity. You'll get over it. I haven't changed a whole lot and I doubt I really will. I have several documented ways to go and see what I've thought of myself (and a lot of other things) since 1991, when I made my first journal. Luckily there's no electronic copy of anything I've written prior to about 2004 but either way, if anyone is ever looking, I have at least 3 volumes of things in the drawer of my office. If I am to leave this world suddenly, that's where my innermost thoughts could be discovered. Just please don't judge me too harshly.
   Lately I have been on a bit of a skid, spiritually. I've been asking a lot of people out there if they understand their purpose. What are we here for? What's the meaning of all of this? I went tailgating this past weekend at the LSU-Idaho game and obviously there was a lot of boozing and eating and people talking to each other and drunken revelry and all this. Just like there was last week for the LSU-Washington game. Unfortunately I don't remember a whole lot from either contest, but I do remember one resounding thing: Is our purpose to just sit there and consume? To party? To make babies? Or to help our common man? Because if so, one of those things is not like the other. And for the most part, we're dropping the ball.
   The following day as I'm nursing a hangover, and it's usually a Sunday coincidentally, I'm feeling a little low. Not just because of the hangover but because I feel an emptiness. Flashback to a couple of weeks ago, truth be told. On a random weekend evening before football season where I asked myself "What else can I do here on earth?" You put that together with a couple of blowout tailgate post-recovery periods, and eventually it's a screaming question, getting louder and louder. What else can I do? To help people? To help myself? To help this world? And I just keep asking and asking.
   There's a non-denomination megachurch here in town called The Healing Place. A lot of people go there and do the whole lift-up-your-arms-in-praise and sing "Our God Is An Awesome God" and the whole shabang. Recently they have hit a little patch of bad news when their pastor, the honorable Dino Rizzo, abruptly resigned. In a town as small as Baton Rouge, this is earth shattering news to a whole lot of people. I think something like 8000 people usually attend their 12pm Sunday service. I mean, that's a lot of people. And it goes on in this massive stadium-like structure they've built, with all the waterfalls and globes and crosses and lasers that money can buy. For the longest time, I've wondered what they had going on over there that was so attractive to the average dude out looking for redemption. What reels them in? Well I guess it's the charisma of their preachers. They must be good. They must be real good.
   On many a Sunday evening (again, conversely nursing a hangover) I'll tune into the Joel Osteen program on whatever channel it's on. And this man - just WOW. He can put on a show. And I'll be one hundred percent honest with you, it's catchy. I prayed along with him and I felt the spark. Not that I felt compelled to just go give him a bunch of money but still, he's good. It was people like him, and the fact that I hear this Healing Place is so awesome, it got me questioning my own direction on where my faith was headed. Could this be the hole in my soul I've been looking to fill? Maybe so, maybe not. I'll get back to that.
   But first of all, let's take a look at where my faith was. Where I'd gotten to in spirituality, to finally be sitting at the crossroads of the megachurch and about to dive in....

TO BE CONTINUED.