May 18, 2006
So. I've been, for the past few years, quietly and slowly trying to work on my failings as a human being. Yeah, yeah, you don't want to hear it. Go somewhere else.It's not necessarily a religious thing, although that's maybe a little of it. I just mostly got tired of being as self-righteous and narrow-minded as all those assholes I hate. I realized one day, when railing against all those fuckwad hypocrites that I was one, myself. And that really pissed me off. Nothing worse than having the beam in one's own eye pointed out, unless it's having it pointed out to yourself, by yourself, because then there's no handy target to get mad at. So. My personal sins. I can't really count pride in there. The few things that I'm truly proud of (getting off the meth, being a good writer, being a great mom, being strong and self-sufficient, and finally, after all these years, being a decent daughter to my self-sacrificing parents) aren't really things that I am, more things that I've done. Envy? Ha!! What do I have to envy anyone? I have the most wonderful life I ever could have imagined for myself. Wrath? Oh, hell yes. I am wrathful as all get out; [Quizzilla][1] will be the first to tell you. But I'm working on that. I haven't punched a wall in months and months ;)But I've realized, just lately, that my biggest, and most grievous sin, is that I'm judgmental as fuck. Seriously. I judge everyone. I judge working mothers for what I see as their greed and screwed-up priorities. I judge vegetarians because I think they're a bunch of whiny pussies who've never had to hunt for food because there was no money in the house. I judge pro-lifers for being so judgmental, and pro-choicers for being so selfish. I judge poor people for being lazy and rich people for not having to work for a living. I judge stupid people for being so. . . well, stupid.Blogging doesn't help, really, because sometimes I get paid for being entertainingly judgmental.I'm really trying to work on it. It's slow going, believe me, but I'm getting there. It's getting to where I hardly have to remind myself to take a second and do that whole putting yourself in someone else's shoes thing. It's widened both my own perspective and the circle of people I'm willing to spend time with.I was reminded this week both of how very, very judgmental I can be, and also how there are some things that I will, to my deathbed, sit in harsh and wrathful judgment upon.A good friend of mine (oh, hell, the one person on earth I want more than anything to be more like) whom most of you know but whose name I probably shouldn't publish in conjunction with the following story for legal reasons-we'll call him "Ed"-had me down to his farm this week, where I got to spend time not only with him and his lovely wife and brilliant children, but also with his four foster children. Fuck me, I can't even type "foster children" without tearing up. Okay, so you read in the news every day about children to whom people have done horrible things.. Just this Monday I had a taxi driver whose eight-year-old granddaughter was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by her boyfriend. We're surrounded by this shit, but it doesn't really hit home (or at least it didn't for me) until you meet one. Of the children, I mean. It doesn't really become real until you spend time with a baby who you can't play "peek-a-boo" with. Until you meet a three-year-old boy who gags when liquids are put into his mouth. Until you play with children who had to be trained to not drink from the toilet, who are ecstatic when you tell them they can have a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Until you spend the night with a family of children who have to be kept home from school on Halloween.These children are beautiful. They will be intelligent once good nutrition and discipline catch up with them. They would be innocent if the people who God saw fit to give them to hadn't made a hobby of putting on masks and jumping out of closets at night and raping them.I thought I'd seen child abuse. I knew people when I was in school who had been molested and brutalized. I've seen the children of my fellow junkies running around snot-nosed and shit-assed. I thought I knew what it meant to be victimized by someone bigger and stronger than me. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I didn't know shit.I still don't know, not really. I'm not the one who has to comfort them at night because they're afraid Daddy is going to come after them with the "knife" in his pants. I've never had to sit through a four-year-old's forensic gynecological exam. I'm not the one who has to watch them go visit "Mommy" every week and then comb the lice out of their hair afterwards, and assure them that they'll never have to go back to a house where they eat cigarette butts for dinner just to fill their bellies, even though I know that if a judge is being particularly obtuse on a particular day, that's going to be a lie.And God help me, I don't know if I can ever be that person. Over dinner tonight, I told my husband that this experience has, in some ways, strengthened my resolve to join the foster care system once we have enough experience with children to do so. He said, quite wisely, "Honey, I think you're more cut out for 'vigilante' than 'foster mom'." And he's right. The first time a social worker took a child out of my home to return them to the parent who abused him, I'd march out the door with gun in hand, and face the jail time gladly. Because, after hours of prayer and meditation and introspection (known to most of you as "highway driving"), I can't find it in my heart or soul to believe that people who would do anything like that to a child have any right to be drawing breath. I can't not believe that a bullet to their brain would be anything but an act of social charity.Anyway. I was talking with "Ed" last night about the kids, and their parents."Okay. Forget the sexual abuse for a minute, if you can. God knows I can't. But anyway. The neglect! Drinking from the fucking TOILET? How goddamned lazy to you have to be to not get your baby a drink of TAP WATER?"And "Ed" starts talking like a freaking Christian. Not [Morgan's][2] TrueChristians, but a real walk-the-walk type. About how hard it must be to be a teenaged parent trying to raise multiple willful children, with no experience and no support. About how he couldn't have been a good parent at their age, about what a burden parenthood was upon them. And I'm sitting there dumbfounded.I bring up a girl I knew back in my junkie days. I used to go over to her house to do lines of crystal on a regular basis, and eat Xanax, and drink whiskey, and hook up with strange junkie boys. She was every bit as big a junkie as I, but you'd never know it to look at her five-year-old son, to whom she gave birth when she was fifteen. She got up every morning, no matter how crashed-out, or strung-out, to make him breakfast and give him a shower and see him off to pre-school. Her own bedroom might be a squalid mess of meth pipes and anal lube and used condoms, but if he was at home, there was a padlock on that door, and the rest of the house was immaculate. She blew strangers for her tweek when it was either that or spend his clothing allowance. I'm not saying she was the best mom. Fuck, I'm not even saying she was a good mom. But she illustrates the fact that no matter how fucked-up, no matter how selfish and self-destructive and addicted a person can be, they can still think of their child's welfare. Not before her own, or she wouldn't have been a goddamned junkie, but still. She's proof that drug addiction is no fucking excuse for neglecting your child.For the life of me, I cannot understand how even the most loving and forgiving of people can see a child who's been through what these children lived with every day of their lives and not wring their parents' worthless, despicable necks. I can't wrap my head around the fact that these wastes of flesh are still walking the earth. In any just world, they would have been stillborn. Not the children, the parents.I've been "taught" about Jesus' love all my life. I put that in parenthesis because hundreds, if not thousands, of people, have preached to me about their loving God, but I can count on one hand the people who actually exhibit that love in how they live their lives. "Ed" and his family constitute most of them. My mother-in-law and her mother are the others. That's it. But that's beside the point.I'm trying to not judge people. I'm trying so very, very hard to be a compassionate and loving person. But for fuck's sake, I can't get behind a God that wants me to love people who can brutalize and rape ANY child, much less their own. I can't understand how any divine plan formed by any divine being can have woven within it this much needless suffering by innocents. I woke up last night punching a wall (okay, a canvas camper shell, and my poor many-times-sprained wrist was grateful). For the first time in my life, the somnolent rage that fueled it was not for myself. I was not dreaming of hurting the people who've hurt me, but of hurting the people who hurt them.So someday, I'm going to have to account for the life I've lived, and the sentiments I've held towards my fellow human beings. And when that happens, I'm going to be truly repentant for almost all of the judgment and wrath I've heaped upon the rest of the human race. But so help me, I will hold my head high before my Creator and not be ashamed of the hate and rage that I feel towards these children's parents. If He condemns me for that, then He's not any sort of God I want to have spent my life loving and worshipping, anyway.And you know what? He's going to have some explaining to do to me, about how He could put them on the earth to begin with, and how He could give into their care helpless infants to starve and terrorize and rape. And He'd better have some pretty damned good answers then, because He sure as hell isn't giving me any in the here and now. [1]: http://www.quizilla.com/users/sweetonsno/quizzes/Which%20Deadly%20Sin%20are%20you%3F [2]: http://onehippiesopinion.blogspot.com/
Comments
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BadEnglishMajor (Bethany Jones) says...
I just want you to know that the first words out of Mrs Ed's mouth are going to be "what the hell, you punched my camper?"
May 19, 2006 at 8:17 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
BadEnglishMajor (Bethany Jones) says...
And here's a question....why should God answer to us? What authority do we have that our opinions mean anything?
May 19, 2006 at 8:24 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
OnShakedown (Chris Tackett) says...
Great post.
May 19, 2006 at 8:29 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says...
HA! The sin of arrogance is committed as soon as you question the authority and judgement of god!! This little trick is the ultimate convenience to those who wish to lead cults.
There's a lot of people that give god a lot of money. Look how many billions this country is spending on family values (I'm not even gonna waste my quote key) and shit. Is it not perfectly reasonable to expect better service?
Blasphemy and sacrilege aside, flippantly writing off evil as god's will is as much an abdication of responsibility as leaving children to drink from the toilet.
May 19, 2006 at 10:01 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...
BadEnglishMajor--I don't know, it's never been said anywhere that our opinions count in God's eyes, but I have the feeling if He really didn't give a damn what we thought, there'd be a lot more talk about fearing His holy ass than there is about loving Him (and I don't subcribe to those sects). If God wants me to love Him, then He's going to have to give me a few answers. Not a lot, I know He's a busy, busy guy, but there are a couple of big ones that I'm going to bug him about until he caves, and this is the biggest.
I know, I know, we were given free will and all that jazz, but really, how hard would it have been to leave the "stick your penis in your infant children" command out of the code? I know that a lot of folks would argue that if we want to go that route, they could question why he didn't leave the "have sex with other men" line out of it, too, but as far as I'm concerned, that's like comparing apples to child rapists.
And you know what? If God's so freaking petty that he's going to condemn me to hellfire and damnation for questioning why He could let shit like this be done to children, then He's not anyone I want to be associated with, anyway.
May 19, 2006 at 10:20 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Darth_Vader (anonymous) says...
I don't see anything wrong with questioning God, and neither did the guys who wrote the Psalms. Read some of them, they ask "why is this happening? when are you going to intervene?" Even Jesus said My God why have you forsaken me? Jesus felt abandoned at that moment. Probably just like any kid that has been abused, raped, whatever. Don't you think they think is there anyone to help me? and the answer at that moment in time is no. There isn't anyone to help.
I think we misinterpret God's control over this world. He DOES NOT have control over people. He can't use the force to change people's minds. "These are not the droids your looking for" can't be translated to "You do not want to molest your baby girl".
People get to make choices, and way to many times it's a choice of selfishness.
I have worked in youth homes with abused children. Not the brightest plan, let's take a group of molested kids and lock them in one big room together, like they did something wrong. I get mad just thinking of the stupidity of that system..... anyway, I agree that anyone that rapes a kid should forfeit their right to live.
May 19, 2006 at 10:55 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...
Crap, Darth, you're probably going to hell for making me laugh in the middle of this discussion ;)
I know He doesn't have control over what people do. I just can't get my head around why He made us capable of some of these things in the first place. The folks in the "He put these poor children here to teach YOU a lesson about compassion" camp make me want to slit my wrists.
May 19, 2006 at 11:10 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
irvindm (anonymous) says...
God gave us freedom. It's usually called "free will" among theologians. But it means God created us in his image, not as robots who would do only his bidding. The saying "God is love" isn't just a bumper sticker, it's truth. Love isn't possible without a choice. A robot can't love it's creator. But we can.
May 19, 2006 at 11:28 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Darth_Vader (anonymous) says...
That response "He put these poor children here to teach YOU a lesson about compassion" is said the same people that will say to someone at a funeral, "God took your (insert child, parent) for a reason". Like God is in the business of murdering people to teach us a lesson. That is BULLSHIT and bad theology.
It sucks that people are demented and sick. http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.d...
It makes no sense that a parent would do that or even think about doing that.
I don't think your going to get a definitive answer about why, but keep asking and don't feel bad for asking.
Unless you really want to lay responsibility somewhere. You could blame it on TV:
May 19, 2006 at 11:36 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
cvillehawk (anonymous) says...
I'm with Mitzi - I refuse to believe in anything that can't stand up to a little questioning. In fact, what use is religion at all if it doesn't have any answers for someone in crisis other than "just believe and it will all be OK"? That's no kind of help - it's a cop-out.
May 19, 2006 at 1 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...
Heh, thanks, cville. I always say, if God had really thought it was that important that I have this "blind faith", He wouldn't have made me so damned smart.
May 19, 2006 at 2:04 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
MyName (anonymous) says...
Right, I know this is opening a whole other can of worms, but have you considered that maybe the reason god "lets" these things happen is that there is no god? Or if there is one that he/she doesn't care about people?
On the other hand, I don't see how it is wrong to wonder why evil deeds go unpunished.
May 19, 2006 at 8:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says...
You KNOW I can't keep my two cents out on this one.
I am in the "There is a God" camp...and intend to stay here thank you. However, I was blessed with a mother who did not tell me that I couldn't question the things I was taught about God and religion in general. So I did (to some degree). I still do not have all the answers, and probably never will. But I'm not as uncomfortable with not knowing all the answers as I once might have been. I too am troubled by what appears to be a system where the good and bad flourish (or fail) about the same. But I have a sneaking feeling that in the long run all things will balance out. I just can't see with eternal eyes (yet).
This world's pain and suffering doesn't make good sense to me either. And Justice doesn't always come when we want it or in time to save every person from pain and suffering. But I believe true justice will come, in due time. We aren't going to be able to end human suffering without ending humans. But we can, person by person, day by day, event by event, do our best to not make others suffer. And to help out those who are suffering (through no fault of their own).
So, in that vein, "Mr. Ed" (and his whole blessed family) are walking the walk. They don't wait for God to take care of these poor children, or punish their parents for being complete and utter failures (as parents at least, and perhaps as human beings). Instead of debating how many angles can fit on the head of a pin, or whether there is a God or not, they simply waded in to the swamp that is our human condiiotion, and are doing what they can (and what 99% of people cannot or will not do) to help those less fortunate. So, in my books, they are following "the rules" by letting God (whether you believe in God or not) handle the final judgment work, while they take care of what they can to help care for those who are hurting through no fault of their own. We all have talents and gifts. The choice of how (or if) to use them is very personal. And personally, I hope more people choose to help instead of hurt others. Cause I truly believe that eventually, those who pass out pain instead of love are going to eventually get their share (and then some) back.
May 19, 2006 at 9:37 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...
MyName--you know, I think I would sleep easier at night if I *did* believe there were no God. I could write off this shit soooooo much easier if I didn't truly believe that there's someone up there bigger, wiser, and more powerful than I. I miss the peace that I had as an atheist, to tell you the truth.
May 19, 2006 at 10:38 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
funkdog1 (anonymous) says...
Darth_Vader wrote: "I think we misinterpret God's control over this world. He DOES NOT have control over people."
Bullshit. We're talking about God here. All-knowing, all-powerful God. He created the universe and He has control over whatever the hell He wants. He just apparently chooses not to, sometimes.
I'll never understand this argument from Christians. When something horrible happens, they say "It's God's will. We are too insignificant to understand the larger picture."
But if God takes time out of his busy schedule to pull some schmuck through heart surgery, or grant someone a scholarship to college or whatever, Christians say "Praise God! God is good! God was looking out for our family!"
So does God have control or not? When "God" saves your ass in a carwreck that's all good and happy, but when innocent babies are raped that's "free will"?
What the hell?
May 20, 2006 at 11:25 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says...
"That's no kind of help - it's a cop-out."
It sure is. There are also two sides to every argument, however. One of them is summed up brilliantly by MyName: "maybe the reason god "lets" these things happen is that there is no god? Or if there is one that he/she doesn't care about people? On the other hand, I don't see how it is wrong to wonder why evil deeds go unpunished."
There's a pretty decent conundrum in there, because if there is no God, we don't have too much of a right to complain about evil going unpunished. We're going to complain that a bunch of random mutations reacting solely to external stimuli do what? Something we, more random mutations reacting to external stumli have a chemical reaction to that we judge to be unpleasant? I'd like to find the bureau where one lodges *that* complaint. You might as well complain that you don't like chocolate. Maybe you don't, but so what? If there is no God, then there is no absolute evil and no absolute good and no absolute justice. If there is a god and he's not good (i.e. if 'good' exists separately from him and he is subject to it) then he's really not the kind of God we're talking about. In other words, in order to judge that the universe is unjust, there must be some standard of justice. From whence does it come if not a just God?
But cvillehawk just as brilliantly lays out the other side: "In fact, what use is religion at all if it doesn't have any answers for someone in crisis other than "just believe and it will all be OK"?"
Here we have the presumption that the use for religion is to give us answers. Now, maybe it is (though I'll agree that it's doing a pretty poor job of it). But what if you believe and it's NOT ok? I have a little brother who believes God and his first baby died 2 days before she was supposed to be born. Was it ok? If by that we mean that the bad thing was undone, then no, it most certainly was not, because she's still dead. Did religion give him answers? Nope.
So what use is religion? Perhaps its use lies in helping us understand the universe in which we live, rather than why a grandfather outlived all his descendants and he's only 50. Perhaps we can understand evil in this universe by learning that we live in a just universe, and yet one that is broken by evil, and that all the books will be set right eventually. But that doesn't make religion "useful" any more than the laws of physics exist so we can pass science tests.
Religion is more a description of what is and why it is that way and what needs to be and will be done about it. We may find some use in that, some comfort in the happy ending, but 'only believe' is cold comfort to those who are suffering here and now. But as Darth points out, there's nothing wrong with asking God why. The only caveat I would make is that we ought to ask willing to accept and take responsibility for whatever answer we get.
May 20, 2006 at 2:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says...
Why thank God for good things and not blame God for bad things?
Well, here's my take on that one. God is incapable of doing, being or causing evil. Being all good, that is all he/she can do = good. When good things happen (admittedly good only by my own flawed definitions) it isn't hard to imagine the source of all good things being in the mix somehow. When bad things happen, to me that is sure sign that goodness, and therefore God, did not play a part in it coming about. God is everywhere, but God also created a world with consequences. So the world of free will means there is a bad to counter every good.
Could He/she be there to stop all evils if he/she chose to be? Sure? But that is where free will comes along. If God forced his/herself on a person, and made the choices for us, then there would be no free will. So God intervenes, only if/when asked. That doesn't mean I get everything I want or ask for; that lottery prize is still not mine. But it does mean I am pretty peaceful, deep down, knowing that (in the end) it will all be fine.
That logic may not play out in everyone's life, but it sure has worked for me.... most of the time.
For example, even when badness has happened (usually either because I made bad choices or someone around me was passing out pain), good things did (and usually can) come about, eventually. That man who said he loved me, and then proved he didn't.....and broke my heart and helped me lose chunks of my mind for awhile? Well, in the end (years later) I can be thankful that it did end, and that I didn't end up staying with his self centered abusive ass. My little sister passing away when she was 11 - how is that good? Well, in my world she got to go home earlier then the rest of us, to a place where she is truly happy and without pain. So, while her family grieves her, we also would not deprive her of the joy and peace we believe she now enjoys! Etc.
I'm not trying to convince anyone I am right, or change minds. That is beyond my powers of persuasion or debate. I can't prove there is a God to anyone, any more then they can prove to me that there isn't. I'm just giving examples and explanations of how I personally (for me) have worked out the seeming inconsistency (If God is all good and powerful - and loves each of us - then how can God allow - or cause - all the bad things to go on?). The world does not make perfect sense to me. But I don't need it to. It's enough that I try hard, every day, to be a kind and loving person. If I knew, for sure, that there is no God, & no eternal reward or punishment, I would still choose to live my life this way; believing that it is better to be at peace and see goodness in other people then it is to focus on hate and harming others. That is what makes the most sense to me.
May 20, 2006 at 3:03 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
trogdar_the_thread_killer (anonymous) says...
I hereby relinquish my username to ladylaw.
May 21, 2006 at 6:59 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says...
Thank you scary...or Trey....or whomever you really are.... .A rose by any other name...
May 21, 2006 at 9:17 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says...
"If there is no God, then there is no absolute evil and no absolute good and no absolute justice."
Word play.
Unfortunately, when it comes to matters of faith, ultimately thats all anyone has. When asked what would happen if there were no god, I say look around.
May 22, 2006 at 8:03 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
cvillehawk (anonymous) says...
Perhaps "answers" is not the word I should have used. I guess what I was aiming for was some notion that if someone in need comes to you, your faith should serve as a guide in giving that person whatever aid and comfort you can provide. You may very well believe that "this is god's will" but that should not preclude you from acting on some human level to ease suffering, even on a very small scale of friend-to-friend.
I have always had a problem with religion, not spirituality. My grandfather was a christian minister and just a wonderful person - truly a role model for me and a positive force in the world. By his example alone I should be a model christian right about now. But the examples I have seen in the world have also showed me that religion (and denomination) is used as an excuse to exclude others nearly as often as it is used to include.
That's where organized religion lost me. I don't believe that any god wants his/her followers to exclude other people who have committed the unpardonable sin of growing up Baptist, or Buddhist, or heaven forbid Moslem. I still believe it is possible to enjoy a spiritual connection to the world and other human beings without having to draw your little line beyond which nobody can cross unless they splash water on their forehead, or refuse to shave, or wear a special garment, or whatever signifier you may choose. That crap just don't fly with me.
But I believe that the world is full of truly spiritual people of all faiths and no faiths who do as much good as they can, and hopefully don't worry so much about all of the symbols and minutiae of sectarian concerns.
May 22, 2006 at 1:14 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says...
Thank you cv hawk for proving that I in fact did NOT kill a thread!!!! And I agree 100% - the label really doesn't matter to me and I doubt it does to any supreme being. You can say what you believe with your mouth, but you shout what you truly are with the rest of you (i.e. actions speak louder then words).
May 22, 2006 at 6:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )