". . . and everything else is lies.”

I had a talk with Bill, one of my best friends, yesterday. He’s the only practicing Christian that I know. I mean, I’ve met thousands of people who claim to be “Christian,” but Bill is the only person I know who actually lives his life the way that Jesus Christ spoke of in the New Testament. Years ago, a Racine man was dying of cancer. He was in a rehabilitation hospital in Kenosha, but his funding snafu-ed and they tossed him out. Trust me, despite what you may believe or have heard about “safety nets” in our society, this is not uncommon. The man was literally living on the streets while his jaw rotted away. Bill took the guy into his home and gave him his living room and couch to live on. Bill paid for the man’s prescriptions and ran errands for him regularly. He cared for the man for months, until Medicaid or Medicare or whoever finally straightened out their act and put the man in a hospital, where he died within a couple of weeks. I never heard Bill say much about what he had done for the man other than “this is what Jesus would do.” To my mind, that simple act shames all the glory-glory-hallelujahs sung on any Sunday morning or all the filthy money scammed by snake oil salesmen of “faith.”

Bill is 61 and I’m almost 58. I believe that he has suffered more physical problems than I have, or at least more serious ones, but we’re both caring for our mothers and I have the more demanding situation in that regard. We were reminiscing yesterday about the 16 years that we’ve known each other and where we have come in that time. We met in Alcoholics Anonymous, when we were both struggling to stay sober. Like me, Bill has become disillusioned with the practice of AA in the Racine area, though not with basic AA principles themselves. It mirrors our experience with Christianity: wonderful, glorious, even perfect principles; but the people “practicing” it lie and lie, and then they lie some more.

In the time that I’ve known Bill, I’ve envied him his faith. I’ve always thought how reassuring it must be to be so certain about the big questions, to be so sure that a loving presence is behind all of this insanity. As we reflected yesterday on family and friends and life and faith, Bill said something that deeply disturbed me. He said, “In the end, all you have is family, maybe one or two trusted friends, and everything else is lies.” ‘And everything else is lies’ – that is sooo OrbsCorbsian, so me, so sad . . . It upset me to think that the man I most admire for his faith and living his faith would come to the same conclusion that I have.

I come on this site and post all sorts of crazy stuff because I’m a crazy guy. I use satire and sarcasm extensively because it is so easy to hoist liars by their own petards, and occasionally it is funny, too. But the fact of the matter is that I am deeply offended by liars, especially by those in power (government, religion, etc.) who lie to those they lord over. I believe that the offense registers within me on the most basic level of my being. My transformation as a human in Alcoholics Anonymous was forged on the anvil of honesty - brutal, frank, searing honesty. Ever been on the “hot seat” in a group therapy session? That’s what it’s like, only 24 hours a day, every day. That’s how you stay sober, that’s how you face up to what you are and what you’ve done, that’s how you put yourself in a position to be changed. Nothing, but nothing happens with lies, except more lies. Yet lies is all that we are offered over and over again, whether it is the lies of advertising or the lies of the media or the lies of our politicians or the lies of the pulpit. They’re all cowards, every last one of them, without the intestinal fortitude to admit to who and what they are, and why they do what they do. I call them pigs because they have traded in their essential humanity for lies. Hogs. Swine. Oink-oink.

I was so hoping for something reassuring from Bill yesterday. It was not to be. I guess that means my exhortation of “Party on!” is still the only alternative to real change around here. Enjoy your lies and your liars, Racine. You’ve paid dearly for them.