God gave us the capacity to sin. Free Will allows to make choices, to choose God’s Will for us as our own choice. Or we can choose to act selfishly for our ends.
Transformation begins when we see the damage that our selfish acts cause. Our selfish acts wound the Very Heart of God, when we hurt another human being. It is the knowledge of whom we are hurting, both human and Divine, that compel us to abandon our selfishness and embrace the Divine. We come to see the pain of brokenness when feel the pain of those we have hurt.

Note: This is my first foray into erotic fiction. Comments are welcome. Criticism urged. Plagiarism, No.
Here it was 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. Jimmy had just secured the last lug nut with the air wrench, completing the tire change. New tires too. Not a lot of profit, just enough to not feel to bad about taking Felicia out to dinner tonight or tomorrow. He looked at the completed work order stack, the work in progress stack and  the pending stack  All orders were nestled snugly in the completed stack. Wanda, his office manager, could handle the customers coming in to pay and pick up their vehicles. He was done for the week, ready for the weekend, a long weekend with Labor Day on Monday. In addition, the children were on their way to Felicia’s parents’ house and a special Grandchildren Spoil-A-Thon was in the works for them. What the Heck, it’s the end of summer; the kids are deserving of some spoiling. The text from Felicia as he left the parking lot confirmed the children were at Gram’s.

Turning out of the parking lot, he wondered how long had it been since He and Felicia had been completely alone, child-free and carefree for 72 hours.  Plenty to ponder, nothing to plan.  After all, who wants sex on a schedule? A stallion at stud? Perhaps. A scheduling freak? For sure.

It did not seem like a long drive home. He saw her Volvo in the driveway. She’s back, he thought. He let himself in, finding the house strangely quiet, except for the music, emanating from the bedroom. Beethoven’s Fifth. Final movement. Her music; the drama in the chords and orchestration meant one thing. He knew what to expect. Quietly treading the stairs, he spied her through the crack in the door he knew she purposely left ajar. He saw her on the bed, the flowered red silk kimono, open and gathered and bunched at her waist, her thighs open. With one hand, she spread her labia, the other guided the wand vibrator up and down on her exposed sex. Fascinated, he watched as she moved it, varying pressure, directing it from lips to clitoris, elusively teasing herself, then hard and direct.

He felt his cock hardening as she approached her climax, her body tensing and she screamed as she came and came and came again. He knew what would follow and each time she squirted he was astonished as the first time he saw her squirt,soaking the towel placed beneath her ass.

She was quiet in her afterglow.  After a few minutes, she sensed his presence.

“Hello Big Boy” (her pet name for him)

“Hello yourself Slut (his pet name for her). That was some show.”

“Wanna see the replay?”

Sure enough, she had the camera on a tripod, positioned to record her “Quality Alone Time.”

“I see your mind is as dirty as it was the night we got it on in the back of that hearse I was fixing in the shop.”

“‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’. John Keats said that. And what is more beautiful than a dirty mind coupled with a passionate heart?”

“Amen, Slut. Now get your ass out of bed, pour me some iced tea, and join me in the shower. We have three days to play like we’ve never played before. And don’t worry about what to wear this weekend.”

I made some posts on Facebook recently. One was a link to a story on Vatican Radio about a Catholic activist in Vietnam who was released from prison. He was put there for demonstrating for political and religious liberty in Vietnam.
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/10/03/vietnam_frees_catholic_activist_after_three_years_in_prison/1107847
These are things we take for granted in the USA.
The second was a comment I made:
“Where did we get the idea that having sex is a right? Or that having sex will make us happy? just wondering that’s all.”
Let’s get back to the title. The desire to detach ourselves from the travail of this world is shared by many. Businesses like Anheuser-Busch (or its successor) or the Mexican drug cartels are more than happy to facilitate this detachment. I don’t need to mention the advertising or entertainment industries, do I? Seems like no matter how hard we try to escape, reality always catches up. So our foray into numbness is always short-lived. And we never quite get numb, because we know the fix, or the endorphins, always wear off.
Were Karl Marx alive today, I think he might transpose some words in his famous statement, “Opium is the religion of the people.” We keep trying to consume our way into happiness. What we get is more damage , further intrusions of reality, from addiction to bankruptcy, STI’s, or the basic guilt and remorse we feel for treating people like instruments for our gratification.
The newly-freed Vietnamese political prisoner was jailed because he engaged and challenged his country. Religion was hardly his opium. It was anything but.

This vacation saw me getting back to an exercise regimen. I did a 40 minute walk on the beach Monday. Wednesday, I decided that $10/visit is a small price to pay for a little satisfaction and aliveness. So I  spent the. ten bucks and went to the Y. The Outer Banks YMCA is a nice facility. The locker room is a tad spartan, but there is a sauna.

I already shared about Wednesday’s swim. Thursday I swam 2050 meters. Yesterday I did 1650 meters. My stomach was a little unsettled, so I stopped at 1650 meters, just over a mile. The great feeling post-workout is that sense of emotional well-being and euphorbia that an aerobic workout provides.

Diet-wise, I have been been eating lots of grilled seafood. The scale at the Y appears to be inaccurate. So I will check my weight at home.

I am sitting in a rental condo in Duck, North Carolina. The sausage links are frying in the pan, an infomercial for the Bissel Symphony.is playing on the tube, and, outside the mist and wind of the tail end of a Nor’Easter make a mockery of our. “sun n’ fun” vacation.  Enough TV. I just started Glenn Gould’s recording of J.S. Bach’s  Goldberg Variations.  It is one recording that I must have. 

Despite the rain, this vacation has been great. I went to the Outer Banks YMCA yesterday and, after paying the $10 guest fee, I swam 1750 meters. I had not done a swim workout in forever. My weight loss plan has derailed and II have felt uneasy for about two months. That changed on this trip.  I have been reading, spending time with my wife, eating some fresh, local seafood, walking, swimming and generally enjoying myself.

The book I am reading is The Slave from Laura Antonio’s The Marketplace Series. She tells a good story., making this fantasy of “voluntary”  human trafficking seem plausible.

Have a new tablet computer. I am using the hunt and peck keyboard and I don’t”t think the italic font went off. Oh well. Deal with it.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!.