No Needs of Any Kind

No Needs of Any Kind

       by Rugrat Doug

              if i needed you would you come to me

I bumped into this sermon recently while going through files I was disgarding in a move to downsize our piles of stupidly hoarded stuff. I was preaching at our local Kleine Gemeinde church in Kleefeld, Manitoba one Sunday a few years ago and it got away on me. It was a Sunday in late winter and we had all been cold too much and warm too seldom for too long and my hunger for joy must have brought about that state in me that happens now and then where I find myself temporarily believing that snow is wet, boys are girls, clouds are sun, sin is good, good is sin, money is desirable and pieces are the whole. So, instead of preaching on the topic I had prepared taking the lectionary into account, something about the way that heaven will provide all of us with peace and all our needs will be met in good time, I preached extempore that we have too many requirements to start with. It did not go over well as you can imagine.

       I started thus. "Babies have needs. If there is one thing we know about them, that is it. Milk, hugs, diaper stuff, smiles, attention, sweetnesses from the faces hovering above them, rocking, and so many different ways of saying, 'You are special!' Yes, from early on we humans want to be affirmed. 'You are special!" we need to hear our whole lives long. Milksops is what we are. When we achieve an action it is immediately followed by a need for praise. 'Did I perform well?' one asks the other. 'Yes, Honey, you were spendid!' replies that one. She, in turn, wishes for comment on the effectiveness of her person. 'Did I make you feel good? Do I still turn you on?' And in reply, 'Oh! Sandra. You are so pretty still. At fifty how many women do you know who look as good as you? How many have such firm breasts at your age?' At seventy-five, mother to her son speaks thus: 'Son, you should really come over more often and visit. It's been two weeks since you drove over here to see me! I know you are busy but I love you so much!' And son, to placate her: 'Mother, I love you, too. Very much. You are always so good to me. I will try to come again soon, okay? I miss you, too, when I am not there for a while.' Sister on the phone: 'John, brother, how are you!?' While he is answering, as if she has not heard him, she shouts out, 'I love you so very much, John!' This is a comment not really meant to shore up John's ego or sense of self worth but her own, if you examine it at all for its overtones. He will soon reply that he does, too, in return, love her to distraction, as brothers love their sisters. And prayer: 'God, please forgive my sins. I repent. I have been bad. I should not have taken the carburetor off the Cadillac of that gentleman but it was so tempting and I knew we needed the money to make our mortgage this month. He did not really need a replacement carb, but it did need work, and so I changed it. I won't do it again. I love you, Lord!' And so on. People need always to be made to feel big about themselves."

       I preached this. I left for home after the service without an invitation to lunch. I woke Monday regretting that I had done so. I am, some years later, not interested in preaching anymore. I read more for my own diversion now. Though diversion it is not exactly since I am of the opinion that much reading for the sake of entertainment when there are so many philosophical values concerning Being to be understood is disgusting. Just now I am reading Heidegger's four volumes on Nietzsche. It is lovely outside my window, not yet winter, and I smell the comfort of toast being made in the kitchen.