In many things, God, country, people, law, love, the afterlife and a host of many other common household beliefs, but, in the age of reason, that all slowly changed. Some of them returned, while others worsened until what once meant something to me now only bothers the hell out of me, like Government and the tooth fairy. And it's not like I just one day woke up and thought, nah, Fuck it, I quit you Love. I, like so many others, am victim to life's relentless games. A constant flow of bullshit pounding me day in and day out. And you can't escape it. I wake to it on the morning news, battle it on the drive in to work, deal with it throughout the workday, curse at it on the drive home, and throw my hands up at it at the nightly news. The only real solace is when I am asleep, and that can sometimes be chock full of more headaches, nightmares, night sweats, wet dreams, morning wood and the dreaded insomnia. My God!
There are six (probably more, but six is enough for now) reasons why I used to believe. They are, in no specific order;
Mother
Sexual Abuse
Money
Rules
Bloodshed
Manipulation of words and events.
Generally it only takes one good reason to cause the balloon of faith for me to deflate. Someone good natured and full of love died of a terrible disease, when someone vile and evil to the core dismembers a few children, sends photos of this to the parents, gets caught and serves life in prison without parole. That's life, they say. Bullshit, I rebut. That is the system being to lenient on the real assholes. Another pin to the elastic is blatant horrors that can never be replaced, no matter how much money you pay someone. That's right, I am talking about priest touching little children. Specifically, my religions priest. And before my fellow Catholics get any ants in their pants, I know it's not just Catholic priest; however, if I cast a stone in a random direction, chances are it would smite a Catholic pedophile, before any other religious leader.
The central argument for the reason abuse is so rampant in the Catholic church happens to also be the keystone of reason that set off countless inconsistencies, and my eventual muffled admission of being Catholic whenever someone asked. If Father Flanagan could flog Molly rather than Pete in the privacy of his own confessional, a lot of this debauchery would end in the church, but someone went and made up this rule that God says in order to serve Him you must do so with a vow of celibacy. And I will not get into the reason Priest take the oath, nor the ludicrous symbolism behind the covenant, and how nuns are the multitude of wives for the Father to enjoy at his leisure. I am aware of the rules, so don't waste the time explaining them to me in the comments. If, and I stress this with enormous bold lettering not found on my drop down menu, the world worked the same way it had two hundred years ago, one could see how this vow of celibacy and faith to the All Father made logical sense. The purest of being, or at least the purest humans can be at anything, God's soldiers in the sinful world to assist the wicked, offering them a way out from their unholy lives and into the hands of Jesus. The problem with this is that times changed, but the church remained firm in its traditions.
And though it made no sense to me, I still went along with it. My thinking was this. If a man can remain a virgin his entire life and not be the least bit excited by a huge pair of tits (and was not gay, which would be awfully inconsiderate to the other Priests) he must be far more god-like than I was, so why not trust in him to an extent. Confess to him on Sunday's and feel as though I had spoke to God. Which reminds me. For those who think Mary is not a conduit to the LORD and feel pushing her aside seems a better alternative, then you might as well give up your religion because you are doing the same thing to each pastor, each "Faith Counselor", each Rabbi, each Man of God every time your confide in Him through him. Back to my point. Today's God surely compensates a little on the naughty list, because you can't have some of the values and traditions of God from 200 years ago and the God of tomorrow. It would be like asking a Caveman to teach the physics of the wheel to a bunch of Neanderthals. Think about that for a moment.
For me, asking a Priest to remain celibate is not only cruel, but not exactly what God had in mind when he created us in his image, which begs the question if God is the most powerful Hermaphrodite in the known universe. He would have to be in order to work out all the nuances of women, and how to make them mesh with men long enough to procreate. But deeming women as the forbidden fruit just contradicts, for me, a few commandments. Would this solve all of the abuse in the Catholic church? I doubt it, but it would certainly cut down on all of the abuse currently running rampant. Child touching, without all of the other stigmas attached to this, child molestation alone is enough to strip the holy representative of any God-like attachments. The accused should be (if convicted) immediately castrated. Keep in mind, The Crusades did far worse to innocent people for far lesser reason. But (and it still fucks with me to no end to know this) not only are those Priest who openly touch children not reprimanded and ostracized from the church for life, they are moved to more secluded parishes in the world with a slap on the wrist. Their victims are paid ungodly amounts of Shut-The-Fuck-Up money (settlements for those wondering) and the demon that is the media exorcised by Out of Sight, Out of Mind. But this is not the topper for me. There is one thing I have heard many times by Catholics, Priest and supporters from all around the world. I am willing to bet each and every one of you reading this has heard it, at least, a dozen times. "The Bible said His Church Would Be Condemned." This was the moment I no longer cared about my faith, and nearly dropped God in the process.
Really? One of the more heinous human acts has become, in biblical speak, an excuse for the travesties occurring in our church. And AMAZINGLY people accept this. "There are bad apples in every basket" or "you can not judge a whole religion on a few bad seeds." Yes. Yes, you can. I can because of all the other religions, only Catholics try their own. Only Catholics have a "city" to call their own. Only Catholics can openly settle cases and ship those fucking bad apples to a new basket elsewhere. In a word, I was Floored. Embarrassed. Humiliated. Ashamed. Shocked. This was not a religion I wanted to be a part of. With the information age, other religions started to have their own unbelievable stories as well. Wives killing their pastor husbands who abused them, had affairs on them, touched their kids inappropriately. Religion was suddenly the place where completely evil fucking people came together a couple of days a week to have some child touching, neighbor coveting, child porn loving dill-weed tell them God says you are all forgiven. See you same time next week for more sin forgiving. Don't forget to tip your baskets on the way out.
No. I do not believe in Religion as much as I once had. So, am I a Catholic? Someone commented that if I am not following their rules then I am not one of "them". I tend to disagree. I do so because I sat in a tiny room with a Priest. A statue of the Lord God sat on a table, a statue of the virgin Mary stood in a corner, the Pope John Paul II hung on the wall in a nice little Rembrandt painting, all looking back at me as Father Pontichello looked me in the eye and asked me. "What is God to you?" When I emerged from that confessional, a decision to baptize me (without the schooling) was made. Whatever I told the Priest, a man of God, the assigned hall monitor to the gates of heaven, it was enough for him to break and bend some rules of his church, The Catholic Church. And like any gang, once you have been jumped in, you're in for life. I may not follow the rules, but I believe in what the institution was built around. I just do not believe in the representation. When I realized there was no rule with God, when I removed all of the outside distraction, when I looked tradition into the face and spat, when I no longer allowed someone else to tell me how to believe, I found My God again...and I am grateful for that, even though my refusal to follow the rules can sometimes make me feel like an outcast. I have one advantage, I think, over my fellow Catholics. When I step inside our church and pay homage or respect or just to say hello to the best idea we have of My God, I do so without the stigma of bullshit that comes with the process. I go and I worship. I go and I make peace with my sins. I go and I listen for those few moments when Jesus is even part of the discussion (90% of the time its about everyone else) and I save face. And then I eat My God. I consume his flesh and drink his blood...wait a minute...What?
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Mama Mia Culpa!
Last time I wrote about how I felt about the connection people try to make with their murderous intentions being the calling of God, which dropped into the bucket of doubt, purged almost instantly by logic and the fact God is ALWAYS the reason for things, good or bad. Someone brought up The Virgin Mary in a comment that was certainly a topic in a later post, but I figure, why wait? As stated in earlier post, I am not the best Catholic. To be honest, I am not sure what to call me. My wife, who has studied many religions, including whatever a harikrishna (sp) is seems to think of me as an Episcopalian, or was it a Methodist??? I am not sure anymore. I like to think of me as just Scott, but that tends to make me an outsider to everyone else.
"I am not a fan of the Roman Catholic church. From their worship of Mary and saints, to their part in the Inquisition on up to today's molestation cases."
If you want to see what a person's real priorities are, then watch what they do when their life, or the life of a loved one, is in danger. When Pope John Paul II was shot, while the ambulance was rushing him to the hospital, the Pope was not praying to God or calling on the name of Jesus. He kept saying, over and over, “Mary, my mother!” Polish pilgrims placed a picture of Our Lady of Czestochowa on the throne where the Pope normally sat. People gathered around the picture. Vatican loudspeakers broadcast the prayers of the rosary. When the Pope recovered, he gave Mary all the glory for saving his life, and he made a pilgrimage to Fatima to publicly thank her.
(If Mary *is* the conduit to the Father who saved the Pope from his death, then why not thank her? What if, like all things, God is corporate based, which sounds silly but humor me, and Jesus manages the day to day business as the "Managing Messiah" and Mary the mule for all of the prayers coming in? Think about it. We pray to God for everything! even things that doesn't concern him. Do you honestly believe God cares if the NFL lockout ends or not? You think God gave Kanye West the ability to make millions of dollars, while the majority fight for a minimum wage job? Someone needs to delegate the real prayers from the BS pile.)
Jesus said, “[W]here your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12:34) Some statues of Mary have real crowns made of gold. The web sites listed in the Notes show pictures of statues of Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Lourdes wearing crowns.The statues in the pictures are replicas, and their crowns are ceramic and painted gold. But the crowns on the original statues at Fatima and Lourdes are real crowns made of real gold.
Religion is so complex and means so many things to each person, it is pointless, if not impossible, to state my case on the matter. I found that, in my own research to discover what I was, I was wasting way too much time of my life trying to slap a label around my faith to feel like I fit in with everyone, forgetting that I did not care one iota what people thought of me. This freed up a lot of time with my day. Faith became one of the first 10 questions in the 20 questions on a date scene, instead of a life-long devotion. Maybe in writing this I will find out that I am really something completely different than a Catholic. My God, maybe I am a Mormon in denial, or an Evangelical suffering from a number of deadly sins, mainly Envy in not having the bank roll that most Evangelicals have. But, for now, I am a Catholic by choice and a believer in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by soul. Now, about the Holy Mother.
For the most part, I agree with this with the exception of Mary. She has been one of the main topics I have argued, defended, countered, fought for and questioned in silence, since I started reading up on my religion. Traditionally, it feels to me like he role in a bit convoluted, depending on where you see her and who is trying to explain her to you. A lot of the time, I like to take other people's thoughts about a subject and apply it as though they were asking me a question. Before posting this, I will nutshell my own interpretation of my faith.
God removed for now, focusing solely on the two "Real People" in question. If God chose to impregnate Mary, to carry out his will and bring his son into the world to die on the cross for our sins and all, why would we not pay her some respect? Not worship her, but respect her as the vessel of the LORD and conduit between Man and God. If she was chosen by God among everyone else, and appeared to her and spoke to her and allowed her similar gifts to conduct his holy work on Earth, she is entitled for some notice. Why is it then, when someone insults our families, specifically, our mother or father, we pounce and even kill that person, yet we are so smug to say "You acknowledge the mother of Jesus?" And turn the check as though I just whipped out my penis and placed it on the table.
And here is another point to consider, Fatima.
It's not like one or two people claimed to see the same thing here, but tens of thousands of people standing around, apparently dropping acid, so they could all witness the Miracle of the Sun take place as a mass hallucination. Sounded like one hell of a trip, according to the description from people there. I used to dose when I was younger, and I can tell you I never saw the sun move closer to me with a sudden burst of intense heat that should have turned me into a pile of ash. I did see this cat in a CK coffee shop come into the bathroom, where I was having a total meltdown, look at me with a look of death, his eyes hung from their sockets, and I immediately returned to the table to explain to my friend, who was also tripping, that I had just seen a corpse. But nothing about a sun dancing in the sky. I can also tell you, first hand, that some of the explanation is due to staring at the sun for to long. Did it. Did not trip. Had an awful headache for a few hours, but did not naturally trip, otherwise I think we would see way more people randomly staring at the sun. Call me crazy.
The actual number was something like 70 thousand people, all of whom saw something very impressive. The reports did not mesh as far as Jimbo seeing what Galaxy-girl saw, but each saw something miraculous nonetheless. There comes a time in life that you just have to accept our Science can not explain everything and, because of this, not take it to mean that it did not happen. Not being able to explain something is called faith. It's also called a UFO, but this only applies if you are a ScientologistSmurfologist, blue in color and deathly afraid of cats? The Virgin Mary is just a common household name as her son, it just falls on the host to open the door and let either one or both inside for a spell.
DEVOTION TO MARY
If you want to see what a person's real priorities are, then watch what they do when their life, or the life of a loved one, is in danger. When Pope John Paul II was shot, while the ambulance was rushing him to the hospital, the Pope was not praying to God or calling on the name of Jesus. He kept saying, over and over, “Mary, my mother!” Polish pilgrims placed a picture of Our Lady of Czestochowa on the throne where the Pope normally sat. People gathered around the picture. Vatican loudspeakers broadcast the prayers of the rosary. When the Pope recovered, he gave Mary all the glory for saving his life, and he made a pilgrimage to Fatima to publicly thank her.
(If Mary *is* the conduit to the Father who saved the Pope from his death, then why not thank her? What if, like all things, God is corporate based, which sounds silly but humor me, and Jesus manages the day to day business as the "Managing Messiah" and Mary the mule for all of the prayers coming in? Think about it. We pray to God for everything! even things that doesn't concern him. Do you honestly believe God cares if the NFL lockout ends or not? You think God gave Kanye West the ability to make millions of dollars, while the majority fight for a minimum wage job? Someone needs to delegate the real prayers from the BS pile.)
Jesus said, “[W]here your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12:34) Some statues of Mary have real crowns made of gold. The web sites listed in the Notes show pictures of statues of Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Lourdes wearing crowns.The statues in the pictures are replicas, and their crowns are ceramic and painted gold. But the crowns on the original statues at Fatima and Lourdes are real crowns made of real gold.
(Again, if Fatima happened the way all those hippies proclaimed, it was Mary who appeared to them not God. To compare, it would be like enshrining Mile High Stadium with Jesus, instead of a Bronco.)
Vast sums of money are spent on some special statues of Mary. For example, the statue of Our Lady of the Pillar in Saragossa, Spain has a crown made of 25 pounds of gold and diamonds, with so many diamonds that you can hardly see the gold. In addition, it has six other crowns of gold, diamonds and emeralds. It has 365 mantles which are embroidered with gold and covered with roses of diamonds and other precious stones. It has 365 necklaces made of pearls and diamonds, and six chains of gold set with diamonds
Vast sums of money are spent on some special statues of Mary. For example, the statue of Our Lady of the Pillar in Saragossa, Spain has a crown made of 25 pounds of gold and diamonds, with so many diamonds that you can hardly see the gold. In addition, it has six other crowns of gold, diamonds and emeralds. It has 365 mantles which are embroidered with gold and covered with roses of diamonds and other precious stones. It has 365 necklaces made of pearls and diamonds, and six chains of gold set with diamonds
(this is the only one I actually get physically sick about. but, still, this has nothing to do with the Virgin Mary or God, but everything to do with the church and doesn't mean we worship the Holy Mother. It just means our church has too damn much money.)
So, I would probably be a bad (insert name of religion here) just because I personally feel like the mother of anyone should have some respect. Someone once asked me, "If you feel so strongly about Mary, why don't you observe your own mother in the same light." I told them because last I checked, I had not brought anyone back from the dead, or been nailed to a cross recently. I say recently because there is always that slight delay, the one that shows they actually considered me being nailed to a cross at some point; otherwise, why did I say it? Yeah, I guess that is my point as well.
I don't think my church is the one "true" church, nor do I think any other man made institution is the proper seat in which to sit my holy arse. I do believe it has the most history (I know, Muslims are older and more numerous) in that there are so many events in history where Roman Catholics tore across the lands, splitting faiths and heads and injecting their faith into cultures that already had an idea of who their God was. I know the bible is writhe with conflict and contradiction, and that is why I no longer see myself as a Catholic as much as a man posing as one...taking from it those values that I deem important to me, waiting, watching, listening and above all looking to the heavens for the moment someone gets it all right. When the LORD God returns to reclaim his people and all that...at least I thought that was my purpose, but then something else happened to me. I stopped praying.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Up in Arms
By now you have heard about the Norwegian, Anders Behring Breivik, who sprayed a youth camp with the wrath of God and, somehow, managed to blow up a government building. At last check, the death toll was 76, down from 92 and I stop and pause. Not to pray for the victims or families as most do. Not to look for the nearest website to bash or console, because my contributions would only infuriate me and those who support this type of behavior. I want to, instead, understand. Sure, he claims insanity, as anyone who just killed a person would, to avoid the needle themselves in 20 years or so, depending on the number of appeals and stays of execution, and a few 60 minute interviews in-between. I get all that. What continues to allude me is how such atrocities can be accepted by anyone, crazy or not, as "God's work". And forget about this lunatic. I want to know when God's Work changed from helping our fellow man by service and charity, food drives, fund raisers and volunteer work, to killing doctors who assist with abortion, protesting funerals, building anti-establishment soldiers, martyrs, separatist and holy warriors who have acted on behalf of the same God I believe in. My God.
As a kid I was never privy to the bloodshed that the Catholic church has engaged in since its institution in AD 326. I, like many other Catholics, was completely in the dark about my religion and ignorant to its openly smug presence in world politics. Ignorance is Bliss. Remember this, for I will revisit it a few times in this post both directly and indirectly. As a kid, the stories were just that-stories. As I grew older, those same stories started to impact people, fueling them beyond their own will, driving them to do great stupid feats like spend millions of dollars on billboard signs promising the date the world will end for example. Then I started to question. Not my faith, for that was an unwritten commandment thrown in by priest on Sundays; but, question my religion. My first Eyes Wide Open moment that I can recall was the Branch Dravidian's.
The long and short of it, A fellow thought he was the true Messiah, convinced some people of this (Ignorance is Bliss) apparently had sex with a 76 year old woman who dubbed him as the second coming of Christ, and then went to the funny farm for taking an ax to the side of the skull of a fellow who claimed he was the real Messiah. Turns out, both of them were wrong as they are now dead. One by fire, the other by blunt force trauma to the head. As a side thought, being Jesus is awfully painful. I always believed that God spoke through us and through our actions, but I never thought we would take that to a whole other level of disrespect and cause to be total jackasses to one another in the name of one man's interpretation of another's "gospel". I think someone should send a memo out and reeducate God's Purpose to the willing.
As a kid I was never privy to the bloodshed that the Catholic church has engaged in since its institution in AD 326. I, like many other Catholics, was completely in the dark about my religion and ignorant to its openly smug presence in world politics. Ignorance is Bliss. Remember this, for I will revisit it a few times in this post both directly and indirectly. As a kid, the stories were just that-stories. As I grew older, those same stories started to impact people, fueling them beyond their own will, driving them to do great stupid feats like spend millions of dollars on billboard signs promising the date the world will end for example. Then I started to question. Not my faith, for that was an unwritten commandment thrown in by priest on Sundays; but, question my religion. My first Eyes Wide Open moment that I can recall was the Branch Dravidian's.
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| Koresh, He's not just the Messiah, but the whole Big Shebang! |
And maybe that is the problem, people are not willing to learn what they think they already know. Poised to remain ignorant to the outside world, because in order to contribute to society one needs to know what certain guidelines mean and why rules for said guidelines exist. God, in my opinion, did not want bloodshed then or now. I'd imagine if he had wanted to keep the streets paved in gold rather than with the blood of the innocent, he would have intervened with his own son's public murder. But he didn't, did he. Instead, we are told that this was God's gift to us all, to have his son die on the cross for all our sins, even those who have yet been born to commit since, which, by the way, you get a fresh sin by proxy fetus. A sinner before you take a breath, how is that for a warm welcome to the world? But I can see the moral dilemma in giving your only human Son to a pack of wolves. The teaching here is that no matter what you do with your life, try being God of the Heavens and the Earth, but standing by powerless in stopping a rather gruesome demise for your kid. It sets the gold standard for life. Forget about baptism You can even set aside your religious differences, because The God, just allowed mortal man to murder his only son. Now, go live a live and serve me always, which is not a bad deal. Live and love and treat others as you would want to be treated. Do this, and live forever. Sounds like a deal.
This is something I shake my head at and wag a finger or two of shame towards, but these kinds of things only make me less confident in humanity, they have nothing to do with my faith and believe in God. Now, openly molesting children in the church I grew up in and wishing I could be a part of...this is a focal point in corrupting my faith through obvious cases that are quietly hushed behind closed doors and settled out of court for outrageous sums of money, and then have the priest in question not barred from the faith or subject to any number of punishments that the church itself imposed during the crusades. No, these men of the cloth get moved from one place to another with a slap on the wrist. Now I begin to tremble. I wag a finger to the churches as I pass them by. I shake my head at their smug faces and I brandish a stiff finger towards the house of My God. I could never have anyone inside my home who has been suspected of molesting a child, let alone my own; but, these men ask their guest to forgive as God forgives...My god, ignorance is bliss.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
In the Beginning...
There was light and then there was dark. My mother has been a Catholic since the moment she took her first Catholic breath in a Baptist Hospital. She grew up wanting to be a nun and she learned the prayers, the rosary, the stations of the cross and how to stand and kneel and sit down without being told to do so, or without looking from the corner of your eyes, like me, hoping the guy next to you is not waiting for you to direct him. Then she had sex at a young age and decided some things were worth cherishing, but your virginity wasn't one of them. Even though her self-esteem faltered many times after this initial contact and her vow not to have sex out of wedlock was pretty much kaput, her faith never waned no matter how many marriages she would eventually have. When she got pregnant with me, by a man who was not her husband and pretty much removed from the procedures of responsibility in having a child out of wedlock, her mind and soul was already suffering the sin of womb murder. The details are sketchy, but the short of it is that she had an abortion prior to me and swore to the LORD that if he forgave her, she would never ever commit such an atrocity again. So, she had me alone. Raised by a Catholic family with very little money, no man with a good job to support us and personal sacrifices lined up for miles on end because of it all.
The first sacrifice was swearing out motherhood in hopes of finding someone, anyone for God's sake, to take on a single mother of two. The second sacrifice was giving up her confidence and self worth, for men who were willing to take on the challenge. Men who I would have rather thrown stones at, while buried up to their neck in sand, or whom might have wanted to touch me inappropriately if left alone with them for too long. Sure, there was one guy worth the time and effort, but he was not the brightest Cock in the Hen house. His marriage to my mother ended with her chasing him out of the house with a butcher knife, because he had abruptly divorced her while long hauling to someplace in Texas. He had met a wealthy woman who wanted him all to herself, promising money and fine cars in return for his heart. His plan was to marry her, take her money and then come back to my mother. Sounded good on paper, but he might have explained himself first, before authenticating things for his sugar-mama.
My mother cried a lot of tears and prayed and prayed through many more tears, asking life's questions of Why Me? What am I doing wrong. LORD? Why have you forsaken me? As I grew older, her determination also grew more emphatic, more determined to prove "them" all wrong and completely misplaced in that her choice in men never changed, just her methods. And with each marriage came a new set of misbegotten failures that drove her closer and closer into that niche that is all to common in the mid-south, where you come to a point in your life and say to yourself, "I can climb no higher. I can drive no further. I can no longer see the light at the end of my tunnel." and just give in to the flood. A place where regret festers inside of you until you grow old and complacent and angry at the slightest thing. This is also the place where "plain sight" becomes a milky film across your cornea, like a cataract that causes you permanent blindness. Where you are smiling in the mirror each morning, but the sad sack in the mirror chooses to grimace back instead. This is the purgatory of your human existence. The place souls go to die of mind and body, but relish in spirit because the spirit is the only thing that remains within you.
The spirit. Many refer to this as the holy spirit, but I beg to differ, for if this personal self-loathing pit of despair is holy in any way, then someone direct me to the nearest hell hole, because this place reeks of self-hate under the guise of God washing away your depressive bi-polar stepping stones. The last resort before said person either cracks under the pressure of fear and loathing, or snaps and sprays a crowd of campers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with his or her righteous semi-automatic rifle. For now, I think my mother is harmless, but that could change at any moment. All she needs is the right nudge to set her pilot light aflame, either for good or total chaos. Sadly the latter is more likely, because she has had plenty of opportunity to make good of herself and chose to give herself to a stranger instead, which kind of brings this story back to the beginning for her. A circular flashback to illustrate one of the nagging notches in my belt of doubt.
Which brings me back to myself and my foray into finding My God. I might not have been directly hampered with all of the emotional letdown that my mother endured, but I was collateral damage and sometimes I wonder if collateral damage can more often than not, exceed the impact of the blow itself. I was just a kid who heard things or seen some things when no one thought I was looking, and most time it faded as I quickly found another mode of distraction. Little did I know that these bits of worry had lasting effects on me as I grew older, otherwise I would have consulted with my Yoda doll or any number of imaginary people between the ages of 5 through 12*. Surely one of them was a brain in psychology who could have offered some insight on the effects my mother's emotional failures would have on me as a Catholic. Nonetheless, I was cool without my biological father and the failed attempts by eight others who came after him...literally.
My one and only parent, the keeper of my well being and growth as a young boy, into a young man and eventually into the father I am now, was an absolute flake with no desire to be anything more than what she thought she could be, which, in a longsighted view, was an exclusive prostitute to whoever wanted to pay her for her services. And I know that sounds harsh, but the truth is an ugly bastard child who was raised by his grandmother and uncle while his mother worked at gas stations and hotels and at snaring men in her free time. A question: If my life was meant to be a constant struggle and my existence of no importance to anyone other than those people whose lives I ruin by occupying the same space as them, why was I too not aborted? Why does God want me here? Was I meant to be the sacrificial lamb to the child who did not get a chance to live before me? You see, these questions pop up now and again because when I push my mother to the edge, she reminds me how I am only here because she killed a fetus before me. As though my birth was her retribution and her offering to the LORD. "Here, thy God. Take this child as forgiveness for the life I took from you."
I had wondered about His Plan most of my life, until the day I brought life into the world myself. A Daughter, a bundle of joy that lights the face of all who see her. Even my uncle and mother, who have given up life and parade around like zombies without direction, instantly lite up in smiles and laughter whenever she is around. A face with the most amazing healing ability with just one little giggle. On my worse day, I can come home and plop onto the sofa and wish for something blunt and heavy to smash me on the head, when she runs into the room, arms wide, face wrinkled with the best smile, screaming jubilee as she grabs hold of my neck and squeezes it with her little hands, and then plants a quick little kiss onto my lips.
"Hay Daddy!"
"Hello baby-girl." I will say to her.
And nothing else matters in the world, except those moments we share together on the couch, be it a half hour episode of "The Wiggles" or just staring at the info screen with the underwater theme. Then I start to piece together the meaning of sacrifice. God's Plan always seems to find its way back to that sacred place where we all store our faith, no matter how long the void seemed to exist. We just have to look for it. Not constantly, because we will end up in that personal purgatory I mentioned earlier, but aware enough to know that when God reaches out to you and taps you on the shoulder and whispers to you with his mysterious ways "I did that." ...you will know it's Him calling and not another imaginary friend from your past.
And yet, my own faith continues to subside and part way for the logical side of my being, the constant questioning that makes me the monkey thrown out from the rest of the shit flinging colony because I wonder to myself most times, is there really a God? If I were to treat my thoughts like a pie chart, I would say I am mostly 80% in the wedge marked "Believes in God" 10% in the slice that says "Total Bullshit" and 10% in the piece that states "I don't know, but there sure as hell better be." Here is a graphical representation of my waning jittery faith. It's pretty big, but what do you expect with faith?
The first sacrifice was swearing out motherhood in hopes of finding someone, anyone for God's sake, to take on a single mother of two. The second sacrifice was giving up her confidence and self worth, for men who were willing to take on the challenge. Men who I would have rather thrown stones at, while buried up to their neck in sand, or whom might have wanted to touch me inappropriately if left alone with them for too long. Sure, there was one guy worth the time and effort, but he was not the brightest Cock in the Hen house. His marriage to my mother ended with her chasing him out of the house with a butcher knife, because he had abruptly divorced her while long hauling to someplace in Texas. He had met a wealthy woman who wanted him all to herself, promising money and fine cars in return for his heart. His plan was to marry her, take her money and then come back to my mother. Sounded good on paper, but he might have explained himself first, before authenticating things for his sugar-mama.
My mother cried a lot of tears and prayed and prayed through many more tears, asking life's questions of Why Me? What am I doing wrong. LORD? Why have you forsaken me? As I grew older, her determination also grew more emphatic, more determined to prove "them" all wrong and completely misplaced in that her choice in men never changed, just her methods. And with each marriage came a new set of misbegotten failures that drove her closer and closer into that niche that is all to common in the mid-south, where you come to a point in your life and say to yourself, "I can climb no higher. I can drive no further. I can no longer see the light at the end of my tunnel." and just give in to the flood. A place where regret festers inside of you until you grow old and complacent and angry at the slightest thing. This is also the place where "plain sight" becomes a milky film across your cornea, like a cataract that causes you permanent blindness. Where you are smiling in the mirror each morning, but the sad sack in the mirror chooses to grimace back instead. This is the purgatory of your human existence. The place souls go to die of mind and body, but relish in spirit because the spirit is the only thing that remains within you.
The spirit. Many refer to this as the holy spirit, but I beg to differ, for if this personal self-loathing pit of despair is holy in any way, then someone direct me to the nearest hell hole, because this place reeks of self-hate under the guise of God washing away your depressive bi-polar stepping stones. The last resort before said person either cracks under the pressure of fear and loathing, or snaps and sprays a crowd of campers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with his or her righteous semi-automatic rifle. For now, I think my mother is harmless, but that could change at any moment. All she needs is the right nudge to set her pilot light aflame, either for good or total chaos. Sadly the latter is more likely, because she has had plenty of opportunity to make good of herself and chose to give herself to a stranger instead, which kind of brings this story back to the beginning for her. A circular flashback to illustrate one of the nagging notches in my belt of doubt.
Which brings me back to myself and my foray into finding My God. I might not have been directly hampered with all of the emotional letdown that my mother endured, but I was collateral damage and sometimes I wonder if collateral damage can more often than not, exceed the impact of the blow itself. I was just a kid who heard things or seen some things when no one thought I was looking, and most time it faded as I quickly found another mode of distraction. Little did I know that these bits of worry had lasting effects on me as I grew older, otherwise I would have consulted with my Yoda doll or any number of imaginary people between the ages of 5 through 12*. Surely one of them was a brain in psychology who could have offered some insight on the effects my mother's emotional failures would have on me as a Catholic. Nonetheless, I was cool without my biological father and the failed attempts by eight others who came after him...literally.
My one and only parent, the keeper of my well being and growth as a young boy, into a young man and eventually into the father I am now, was an absolute flake with no desire to be anything more than what she thought she could be, which, in a longsighted view, was an exclusive prostitute to whoever wanted to pay her for her services. And I know that sounds harsh, but the truth is an ugly bastard child who was raised by his grandmother and uncle while his mother worked at gas stations and hotels and at snaring men in her free time. A question: If my life was meant to be a constant struggle and my existence of no importance to anyone other than those people whose lives I ruin by occupying the same space as them, why was I too not aborted? Why does God want me here? Was I meant to be the sacrificial lamb to the child who did not get a chance to live before me? You see, these questions pop up now and again because when I push my mother to the edge, she reminds me how I am only here because she killed a fetus before me. As though my birth was her retribution and her offering to the LORD. "Here, thy God. Take this child as forgiveness for the life I took from you."
I had wondered about His Plan most of my life, until the day I brought life into the world myself. A Daughter, a bundle of joy that lights the face of all who see her. Even my uncle and mother, who have given up life and parade around like zombies without direction, instantly lite up in smiles and laughter whenever she is around. A face with the most amazing healing ability with just one little giggle. On my worse day, I can come home and plop onto the sofa and wish for something blunt and heavy to smash me on the head, when she runs into the room, arms wide, face wrinkled with the best smile, screaming jubilee as she grabs hold of my neck and squeezes it with her little hands, and then plants a quick little kiss onto my lips.
"Hay Daddy!"
"Hello baby-girl." I will say to her.
And nothing else matters in the world, except those moments we share together on the couch, be it a half hour episode of "The Wiggles" or just staring at the info screen with the underwater theme. Then I start to piece together the meaning of sacrifice. God's Plan always seems to find its way back to that sacred place where we all store our faith, no matter how long the void seemed to exist. We just have to look for it. Not constantly, because we will end up in that personal purgatory I mentioned earlier, but aware enough to know that when God reaches out to you and taps you on the shoulder and whispers to you with his mysterious ways "I did that." ...you will know it's Him calling and not another imaginary friend from your past.
And yet, my own faith continues to subside and part way for the logical side of my being, the constant questioning that makes me the monkey thrown out from the rest of the shit flinging colony because I wonder to myself most times, is there really a God? If I were to treat my thoughts like a pie chart, I would say I am mostly 80% in the wedge marked "Believes in God" 10% in the slice that says "Total Bullshit" and 10% in the piece that states "I don't know, but there sure as hell better be." Here is a graphical representation of my waning jittery faith. It's pretty big, but what do you expect with faith?
And thus my journey begins.
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