Writing about Sandy's murder is hard work. The Investigation Discovery channel has done a couple of shows on the subject featuring well-diced interview clips with me. I am working on my own version. It's a big story to tell, for me, because remembering watching my dad kill his girlfriend opens more than just a can of worms in my mind. I've spent most of my life stuffing that shit down and keeping the cork in tight!
Those who know me personally, while professing to like me a lot, have certainly witnessed the pressure of whatever's in my head leaking out in angry outbursts, financial failure, and self-destructive sexual scandal. At this point, I want so badly to be the captain of my own mind, that I am going in, win or lose, to whatever horribly frightening shame and pain resides there. I simply must. Jesus! Why would I want to do that? I'm not really jumping in. I'm creeping forward, testing the waters, and, up until now, I've taken entirely too long.
If you read the rest of my blog entries, you may find them somewhat incomplete, filled with snippets of truth, shreds of emotion, and vague explanations. I'm circling the burning bush of my soul, with no lessor goal than to integrate my history, my God, and my own true life-purpose in a way that might just alienate me from family and friends. When, in the Bible, a man or woman follows God's direction, it's usually with an automatic judgment and death sentence from the church leaders of their time. If I'm on the right track, I expect nothing different. I hope for it.
Am I just looking for a fight? Sure, but my dad is dead. I wish no one physical pain. I cannot bring myself to fight in anger against any one. So, I intend to fight ideas. I intend to fight American Christianity and family values for their role in the alienation of my father and therefore, the death of my mother and LaSandra Turpin. Perhaps my anger is misplaced, but why not? The church needs to be judged before they successfully inoculate the whole world against ever taking seriously the book I bled for.
Yes, Christians, your book is a laughing stock among the uninitiated. Surely you know this. I know it's a wonderful book, full of useful guidance for turning this world around. Properly applied, the principles in the New Testament could have saved me from my childhood nightmare. Of course it's too late for me, but the world still groans in suffering. And, just hold your horses. We don't suffer because we don't have Jesus in our hearts. The world suffers for lack of the thing offered by Jesus that the church misses as well. Here's a good litmus test. Church, if non-believers aren't commenting on how you're following Jesus, there's no reason for you to announce it. Stay home on Sunday. Beat yourself over the head until your blood stains the pages of your Bible. That's how I read it growing up, and, after a lifetime in church, I know that hardly anyone else read the damned thing at all. Church, if you're not going to take the word seriously, just shut up. Even Greek mythology is useful because no one is crazily insisting on faith in Zeus! We non worshippers are free to learn the lessons of a system. Bending of the knee in a fancy building is no path to righteousness. Surely, we all know that. Surely, I don't have to explain.
So, what have I learned in this life about God, the Bible, and humanity? Honestly, I haven't learned much. I've mostly been caught up in unlearning. Don't we just take in what our parents teach us at first? Then they tell us there's no Santa Claus after all, or we come to realize that they're dangerous. Later in life, if we're lucky enough to be broken enough to seek help, we may come to see our parents as separate individuals and ourselves as changeable. Do some parents impart this to their children peacefully? hmm... Interesting...
Society discusses the rebellion issues of youth as if it's a foregone conclusion that adult systems are perfect. Surely, children who do not joyfully conform must be flawed in some way! Terrible Twos, Teenage Rebellion. Are two year olds completely responsible for not responding well to our systems? Are teenagers just too sinful to get things right without physical "discipline" of some sort? Do kids need to be scared by ideas like coal in their stocking or a Hell if they don't do what Mommy and Daddy say? I don't mean to be rude and beat up on religion, but when it's used to tell children they have something wrong with them, then it's just a fancy version of all the ways in which we communicate to children that they have something wrong with them. Maybe children ARE messed up. But are the adult world conventions we've bought into necessarily less messed-up?
No, it's natural to rebel against that which is unnatural. It's also natural to adapt, conform, and tell ourselves we're happy to be advancing the righteous system that was handed to us. Can it be natural to question all that we've accepted?
© 2013 Ernest Samuel Christie III
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