wherein the lord is discussed at length

Y'all, I need to tell you something. Tonight I had a drink (okay, two) with a friend who I know because she dated my cousin but also I randomly came across her blog on LiveJournal (back in THOSE days, so we know how long ago that was) and also because we tried to be pen pals. Once. It didn't work.

We were having beers, other than for the sake of having beers, to chat about career stuff and job stuff and life stuff and any other sundry and assorted stuffs that we felt like discussing. In the midst of this conversation, Kerry dropped one of my all-time favorite phrases EVER. It's a phrase that I've rarely used in its entirety, mostly due to the penchant my best friend Holly and I have for shortening anything that can possibly be anacronized into a three-letter substitute.

In this case, we refer to a classic southern saying -- the "Come to Jesus meeting" -- as a CTJ.

Now, for those of you not in the know, the CTJ is a very particular kind of meeting/conversation/talkin' at. It is a shit-hits-the-fan, bottom of the ninth, FO REAL kind of situation. Like, if you don't figure this out and COME TO JESUS, the shit is gon' hit the fan and yo ass is goin' straight to the firey inferno.

(This does of course make me think of the Judgement House run by the local Baptist church when I was younger. It was all about his holiness, the Lord, and in said Judgement House there was a "Hell" scene that guests walked through via a long wooden bridge that TURNS OUT in the end is part of a cross leading you to Jesus HIM-OLD-SELF in heaven just-a-waitin' for you to come to the truths. What is awkward is when you have friends or acquaintainces who, say, are in your eighth grade pre-algebra class, who go to this church and have apparently been assigned the unfortunate duty of playing a condemned soul in the Hell scene. And then you look down off the wooden bridge through the fake smoke that smells like purple, through the funky red lighting, and you see that girl that let you borrow her notes last week. Why is she in Hell, you ask? And then you realize that it's all a bunch of hokum, but not before you hug the guy who's pretending to be the Lord and get your complimentary refreshments.)

Anywho.

Being able to spin a story for someone over a beer and refer to a moment in that story where somebody had to have a CTJ with somebody else and having that person just nod knowingly? THAT is life in the south. And that is a big ass "Welcome home!" to me.


cheers y'all,
elizabeth