Pedicures and the church

I took my Veteran's Holiday on Friday because of work obligations on Tuesday.  I did something nice for myself.  I got a pedicure.  Best Nails is where I go and it is a rather large establishment with a lot of friendly employees.  Manicures, pedicures, waxing, etc.  They do it all.  I normally go on a Saturday or Sunday when it is really busy so I was looking forward to being there during the week when I hoped it would be less so.  I was not disappointed.

I walked in and looked around.  They had a comfortable number of customers sprinkled about and the atmosphere was not as chaotic. I was greeted by the owner, asked what I needed, and picked a nail polish color.  Same as always.

Like every other salon, the pedicure chairs are lined up against the wall facing the center of the room. If any of your chair neighbors are loud, you are privy to phone conversations, text messaging, and conversations between them and their nail technician or one of their neighbors.  It won't come as a shock to any of you that I don't like idle chit-chat so I keep my communications to a minimum.  I go there to relax, not be stressed out thinking about what other stupid shit will come out of my mouth.  Not everyone feels the same as I and it was my awesome pleasure to be treated to one of my neighbor's non-stop verbal diarrhea.

She was probably in her fifties and wore her make-up less on the natural side but not quite clown. Her bottled blond hair looked nice but from two chairs down I thought it could use a good dose of conditioning to help with the dryness.  Just observations, folks.  No judgment here.

She never stopped talking.  Really.  Occasionally the long suffering nail tech would interject one thought or sentence but it was pretty much a soliloquy.  A one woman show.  Besides being fascinated that one person could talk so much without a script or input from anyone else, I was handling it up to the point when these words carried over to me, "God will help you but you have to believe.  You have to believe 100% because if you don't, it won't happen.  He will provide you the money you lost before.  We all makes mistakes in the past but if we believe, He will make up the difference."

This is one of the reasons I don't attend church anymore.  Yes, I 'm Jewish.  I have been since birth and will always define myself as Jew no matter where my spiritual journey takes me.  As a freshman in college I discovered Jesus and for about fifteen years I was active in the church.  It's a whole other mile long blog topic as to why I left the church but suffice it to say this is one of reasons.  Is God really not big enough to make things happen if we have a moment of doubt?  Is God that heartless that He would not want to give us what we want and/or need if we don't believe 100%?  Does our heart and behavior have that much power because that is what this says to us.  It tells us that God can only move if we do something that can be next to impossible.  It is this way of thinking that pushed me away.  God is love is also preached.  Really?  Is this a good representation of love?  Is this how love works?  If it is, I don't want any part of it.  I can't believe in a God that will only help me if I first believe 100%.

After leaving the church and rejecting the traditional idea of God, my spiritual journey continues to this day.  I still believe in some kind of higher power.  One of my theories is that this is all a huge experiment.  I liken when the asteroid hit the earth and the dinosaurs were destroyed to when a kid messes up his Lincoln Log creation to start again.

So, after I heard this lady preaching to a captive audience, I put on my make believe ear muffs and tuned out.  You know what that is.  You've done it yourself.  I went to my Happy Place.  I dialed down the present and got comfy with my imagination.  I got so comfy that I found the bravery to have my eyebrows waxed for the first time ever!  I am a movie star, people.