Ode to Jean

We buried our mother on Wednesday. She’d died two Mondays before of sepsis and dementia, Dilaudid easing the way. It was a nice, quiet passing, a blessing. It was about the only blessing she ever had.

My Mom’s life was a cruelty, a long continuous assault of abuse and malice and absolutely undeserved punishment. She was a nice girl, a fun girl, very pretty, who honored her parents and did well in school and spent her Jersey days doing what nice 1940’s girls did. Then she met Dad.

She spent the next 25 years or so under Dad’s constant, frenzied, misogynistic attack. The good days were limited to mere scorn, sneering contempt and insults. The bad- womanizing (if they were actually old enough to be called women), constant accusations of her infidelity to mask his own, the withholding of money, and the occasional beating. He turned his wrath and fists on her children as they came along, and she had to stand and watch as he broke them, one by one, rendering what slight protection she could. On a day too long in coming, she helped them flee into the night and across the country, the wounded making good an overdue escape.

By that time she was in her late 40’s, unskilled, alone with three shell-shocked teenagers, so she found another man. And he was not a beater or a pedophile, but was certain her place was under his thumb, and certain her children’s place was nowhere with him. So, once again, she was at the mercy of the stronger, and we kids drifted off to find a haven we still haven’t found, and Mom shriveled a little bit more with each passing year. She outlived the second one, and spent her last three years with a daughter, no money, no home, and, mercifully, a disappearing memory.

And as far as I can see, there was simply no reason for it.

Oh, the preacher spoke her homilies and said Mom was now being comforted in the bosom of the Lord, or words to that effect. But I am hoping the first question Mom asked God was, “Why?” Because no lesson was imparted, at least not one the preacher would accept. Mom was not being punished for a life of evil; on the contrary, she was being punished because she did not understand the nature of evil, having not one evil bone in her body. The evil ones, Dad and the second husband, never paid any penalty that we could see. Dad continued on, managing to ruin at least three other women and their kids. The second one, well, I don’t know, since he and I never talked in the entire time he was married to Mom. But all the wrinkles and scars of his behavior were etched into Mom’s face, not his.

And yes, yes, I know, God did not do this- the men she married did, and their behavior proved, once again, as has been proved over and over and over, that we are a sinful species desperately in need of the saving grace of God. But it was proved to persons who learned that lesson pretty early, who did not need a continuous reminder, and the direct victim was a nice woman who spent her life blinking at the air hammer that slammed the bolt into her forehead, day after day after day.

There was no universal truth imparted, no inching of the human race along a slight incline towards betterment. No, about the only thing that happened was a lovely, happy young Jersey girl was systematically torn apart over decades, until the best thing in her life was an extra dose of some morphine-based pain killer and a nice coffin and a skilled embalmer’s art giving us all just a bare glimpse of that long lost young girl, somewhere under the old bruises.

Why, God?

Not the proper use of the pulpit

Now Barry's trying to use the churches to sell his health care silliness.

How inappropriate

The churches minister to the spirit. They don't minister to the body. Health and wealth and position, incidental. The state of the soul, primary. And as long as the churches remember that, everything's fine. Leave the things of Caeser to Caeser. Stay on mission.

Stay. On. Mission.

Health care is not a spiritual matter. Got that, Barry?

Right, but wrong

The American Humanist Association has purchased a series of ads for the Washington DC Metro reading: 'Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake.' This is going to be plastered on the sides of buses, along with a picture of some Rastafarian lookin' guy dressed like Santa Claus. Hard hitting social commentary, that. Methinks the AHA has some beefs with Kris-gins, might even be downright scornful of church going, gun-totin' unsophisticated oafs who cling to their pews and praise Jesus with every drawn breath. You know, Republicans. Why, if those gap-toothed Holy Rollers would just actually think instead of locksteppin' with Jerry Falwell, they'd realize good arises from within. They'd shed their prejudices, come to love their fellow man, accept all forms of sexual expression and chemically induced reality, embrace Third World cultures and practices while eschewing profit and become, you know, Democrats.

The AHA is right. Good does emanate from within. But that's not the point.

Being good or bad is immaterial in Christianity. Has no bearing. Is superfluous. Just doesn't play. That's because Christianity cares not a whit if you're good or bad. It only cares if you accept Christ's sacrifice- that, while on the cross, He paid the penalty for the sins you did and do, which means you, the actual purveyor of the sin, won't pay the penalty for it at all. Ever.

Whoa, wait a minute! Won't pay? Then what's all this 'being saved' crap and going to hell if you don't turn Pentecostal and strain in a closet and pray round the clock and smile at all those disapproving old biddies who are just trying to keep us from having a good time, man? Hey, news flash, that's all something else, and has far more to do with how people want and expect you to act if you call yourself a Christian than it does with Christianity itself. God's not going to throw you in hell for your good time banana-fana rock and roll party-your-butt-off lifestyle. Nope.

He's going to throw you in hell for your good deeds.

What in the blue blazes am I talking about? Pay attention, this is going to be condensed- God, being absolute and all, has a couple of problems. He can't abide our sins. Just can't. Wouldn't be God if He did, but He loves us and doesn't want us separated from Him for eternity so Christ became incarnate, avoiding birth through procreation (which passes on the very sin nature God can't abide), meaning Christ was the only Person ever born who didn't have a sin nature so, therefore, no sins of his own to punish so, therefore He could go to the Cross and be punished for ours.

Got it?

Which bring us to the second problem, God's Own Righteousness. See, if you don't want to believe in Christ, and no one's beheading you if you don't, then you're declaring to God the merit of your own good deeds. Fine. He'll take a look at your lifelong passion for saving whales and taking money from mean ole rich people to give to noble Palestinian terrorists and how much you recycle and your real tolerance of those ignorant hillbilly hicks from Wassila. Yep, God, I'm a real good person, got lots of noble deeds piled up on that golden scale, yes sir, I'm gonna get a throne right next to the Almighty Himself. 'Cept, your good deeds don't measure up to God's Goodness. They can't. God's Goodness is Absolute, yours is relative and the Absolute cannot tolerate the relative. In fact, your good deeds are described in Isaiah as "filthy rags," which is kind of mild because the actual Hebrew words there are "used menstrual cloths." Do you think God wants used menstrual cloths sitting next to Him in the Throne Room? Into the fire you go, boy.

So, be as good as you want to be. Won't matter. The only issue is, what think ye of Christ?