But it is a broken world.  And the thing about my job, I'm on the front lines.  That's bar tending for  you.  You're on your own front line of great danger as well.  But you're on the world's front line.  In a broken world.  And you're the guy giving out compassion.  Compassion to sinners.

And you know, this sounds kind of silly, I mean, like, to compare, but I make note of this because, obviously, Jesus was on the front lines.  He met people where they were.  They didn't have to go to the temple to see him, though, yes, he did teach there.  But that's not our complete picture of him, just keeping it to a temple.  His good stuff is out on the road.  Healing people.  A sermon from a hilltop, convenient so they could see and hear him.  The lakeside.

The front line is dangerous.  You can get dragged down, swept along into foolish things that will mark your life, when you don't know the nature of the world.

Jesus didn't have a woman, a wife, a girlfriend.  To hug or hold him or cook him dinner when he came home at the end of a long day.  Think of it, Jesus, and even he doesn't have a girlfriend.  No healing hand to touch him and hold him and tell him he's okay, a little bit of support, the comfort to truly be himself in a comfortable place.  He went to the city, to be, effectively, in the hospitality industry.  Bread, wine.  A few good words.  A friend of poor fishermen, the publican, the whoever.

It's a broken world, and the people in it are lost sheep.  Why is it broken?  Exactly?  I don't know, there are probably many ways to say it.  Ego?  Chakras out of whack?  Selfishness?  Materialism?  Drunkenness?  Pleasure seeking.

I know drunkenness, though I try not to, more and more these days.  I've fallen to that voice of Satan.   So often, and at such absolutely crucial points...  I would almost even not fight at this point against it anymore...  The horrors wreaked upon my life, the broken relationship...  But I can only then admit that I know the world is broken, and that worldly logic is not going to fix it.  Personally, I know this.  Quite well.

But there is a will, albeit a fallible one.  The will is there, an inner reality, an inner voice.  It preaches compassion, shows it to all, but at a certain point it matures, realizes better what it must do.  It does not help the world to maintain the illusion.  It is not good for your own health, as you've known a long time from personal experience, waking up hurting and sad, tired.  Sometimes you have to participate, but finally you cannot ignore the lessons you've learned.

We know what happened to Jesus, as that story is told, a lot of emphasis on the brutal aspect of the world he lived in.  Barbaric.  Some people seem to suggest that he did it so we wouldn't have to.  Have to fall to that fate...  He died so we don't have to.  So they say, whatever it means, comforting.

Every day I get up and there's that depressing voice.  Reminding me of how I failed, how I wasn't a man, how a girl was just being a girl, how, despite your great feelings for her and the appropriateness of the match, I dunno, doc, something came between something.  Something came between me being me, doing what I wanted, the way I wanted to be.  And it was doubt, some form of it, some...  something.

And the book I wrote, well, it's true, it's ending is realistic, there are some Christian parts to it, and some thought in it, but because he doesn't get the girl in the end, that makes it ultimately a tale of moral failure, of human weakness, or just the possibilities of character, good and bad, in the human being.  Or how a mind can mess with you, make you do hugely counterproductive things.

The front lines are scary.   There's always someone to wear you down, have a drink.  Have a drink with me.  And then I keep on, unable to stop, and the next day, there's the bad voice again.

I know, some people would tell you that it is they who are on the front lines.  Like soldiers, cops, city schoolteachers.  Sure.  Economic business leaders, providing jobs.  Even those who are creating the latest newest restaurant bar whatever.  Front lines are we.  Sure.  But  I guess that's not how I see it, Doctor, not in my experience.

Maybe that means I can finally move on.  I would hope.  But then I wouldn't be on the front lines.  I wouldn't be there for the sheep.

It's strange.  Here we are at the culminating point in history, given so many gifts of Relativity, great art, and who is here at the middle of the drama playing out, but some guy who wasn't the best student from a certain professional angle, who know has to tend bar the rest of his life....