#anyway there is some story to this. but first and foremost i think lamb probably breaks down often over the fact they're the Last sheep and | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alexipsych-blog · 6 years

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Doubting Margaret

“And in Revelation chapter twenty-one, verse eight he says, ‘But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.’”

I can still hear the muffled voice of the man with the Texas drawl on the television preaching or ranting about something. I recall that he looked and sounded eerily similar to Ted Cruz. As a kid, I never really understood what they were talking about. I knew it had something to do with God and Jesus. I figured I was safe anyway. My mom believed in God and I heard that meant I got off scot-free with the Lord too. I believed in God, I think. Though it might’ve just been that I feared what my mom might do if she ever thought I didn’t. She doesn’t speak very kindly of people who don’t believe in God. Sometimes she spoke badly of people who say they did, but I figured this meant she knew the truth. She wouldn’t stand for secrets.

I never truly understood church growing up. At least not my mom’s. All my friends in school always talked about having Sunday school, and some even got to hang out at church together. My younger sister, Elizabeth, and I were the youngest people in my mom’s church, next to our cousins five and ten years older than me, and then the rest were all over thirty-five. I did get to put a ton of time into my Pokémon Fire Red game. Mom would let Elizabeth and me bring our games and toys to church to keep us busy. I think she just didn’t want us causing a scene or being too loud or doing normal kid things that kids do on Saturdays, so we played quietly. Aunt Christie never let our cousins, first Jenny, then Henry, do anything but sit quietly. I remember being reprimanded by Aunt Christie for asking Henry to check out my awesome Charizard during the sermon. She told me, “You ought to listen too, before it’s too late.”

“In Jeremiah the Lord speaks of false prophets and commands to not pay them any attention. In chapter twenty-three, verse six, ‘Thus said the Lord of hosts, listen not to the words of the prophets that prophesy to you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.’”

Every Saturday morning, because the real believers worship on the “sabbath,” mom’s church met in a sterile conference room at a chain hotel, right next to a mall. They never appointed an actual pastor to speak, and they would get extremely offended if you called one of their sermon-givers a “pastor” or a “priest.” Those words belong to the vocabulary of “false teachings.” So instead of an actual human delivering the spiritual message, the church videotaped sermons from a small group of the same believers in Texas. My Uncle Joe, husband to my Aunt Nancy, held a somewhat high rank in the church, I think, so he did most of the choosing the sermons and setting them up. He just had to pop a VHS into the player and boom; there was the insta-preacher. I remember seeing churches with beautiful architecture or with funny names like, “Our Lady of Perpetual Helpfulness,” and I remember asking my mom why we never went to a normal church like my friends at school. She would tell me that all the other people who called themselves Christians really just followed a false teaching. Her church knew the actual truth and no one else. I couldn’t seem to figure out why they didn’t seem to do anything to spread their truths, though.

“The Lord commands that we do not partake in the ways of the heathen. Jeremiah chapter ten, verses one and two, ‘Hear you the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel: Thus said the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.’ And now if you look down at verse four the Lord directly addresses what the false Christians call ‘Christmas decorations.’ ‘They deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.’”

My Dad attended church with my mom, my sister, and me a handful of times, but he refused to buy what the church was selling. Dad’s parents raised him as a Southern Baptist and he believes firmly in God, but he always said, “It’s not about what church you go to or how renowned you are. What matters is your personal relationship with the Lord and his son, Jesus.” I just always nodded and pretended to understand what it meant to have a personal relationship with some all-powerful entity who may or may not actually exist. Dad never really dogged either Elizabeth or me when it came to religion, and I feel like had he raised me in a normal Baptist church that I may have matured into a faithful adult.

We celebrated Christmas growing up because Dad insisted that Elizabeth and I at least get that experience. Who doesn’t love Christmas? My mother always had some protest, telling my sister and I when we were maybe seven and ten years old, “You know the ornaments are supposed to represent eggs. And look at the shape of the ‘cute’ little lights you dress the tree up with. What do those look like to you?” Every year she loved to ruin the Christmas spirit with, “We’re not supposed to try to guess Jesus’s birthday. It’s not for us to know. The Bible says he was born when the lambs were biting in the fields, and that’s all we get. Do you think lambs are out and about in December?” I always thought of it as symbolic. We decorate and give each other gifts on this placeholder for Jesus’s birthday.

“Wouldn’t Jesus be sad if no one cared enough to celebrate his birthday at all though?” I asked once.

“He’s probably angry that people partake of these blasphemous pagan rituals in His name.” I never understood why I could never get a satisfactory answer to any religious question.

Two years in a row, mom became especially paranoid and deluded about Christmas. My sister and I both came down with the flu two years in a row around Christmastime. “This must be my punishment for allowing this nonsense in my household,” she would say. She would become hysteric at times, believing that she indirectly caused my sister and I to fall ill. The second year it happened, I Googled when flu season comes around. I found it confusing that the peak of infections happens during December. I began to think that maybe my mom and her church people had things confused.

“The Lord is a jealous and angry God. He will punish those who wrong him. In 2 Samuel chapter twelve, verse fourteen, David is told he will be punished for adultery. ‘However, because this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.’ He tells us he will destroy everything because of our sinfulness, but he shall discern the lambs from the goats. Isaiah chapter twenty-four, ‘Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty, and makes it waste, and turns it upside down, and scatters abroad the inhabitants thereof...The earth is also defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.”

Every church I ever attended talked about the mercifulness and love of God first and foremost. Mom’s church depicted him to be vengeful. I think they wanted subordination through fear, and it worked. As the oldest sibling, I had a rough transition into sisterhood. I used to think cruel thoughts about my sister because she seemed to matter more to my parents. All the while the idea that God could read my mind and potentially punish me for those thoughts terrified me. I never truly felt safe. My mom would tell me, “You never know when God might answer a prayer or give you punishment. It’s on His terms.” I felt like a trapped animal under this god.

During the services, they focused heavily on Revelation and all the tragedy and destruction that God would bring. I never really learned the Bible stories kids usually learn, like Jonah and the whale, and I at first thought David stayed in the lion’s den, but that was Daniel. It mattered apparently. I did get to hear the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The god I’m supposed to love and worship destroyed two whole cities in a tantrum. There was also the story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac basically as a joke. That one terrified me the most. I remember the first time I heard that story I hoped God wouldn’t talk to mom and tell her to burn me alive. She and her group of fanatics would have done it if they believed God said so.

These stories made me angry. They made me question. My mom punished me for asking certain questions, however.

“Why would God terrify Abraham’s son just to make sure he remained faithful?”

“We cannot know God’s intentions. We just need to listen and obey as best we can.”

“And why would he kill all those people in those cities? Isn’t he supposed to forgive?”

“Those ‘people’ were disgusting heathens. Some things are unforgivable.”

“I thought Jesus died on the cross so we could all be forgiven?”

“You know he wasn’t crucified on a cross. It was an upright pale. I taught you better than that.” Crosses were pagan symbols to this church as well. They considered depictions of Jesus blasphemous as well. “They always paint him with long hair like a woman. The Bible says it is disgraceful for a man to look like a woman.”

“The Bible also says you shouldn’t sell things at the church. There was that part where Jesus went table flippin’.”

“That’s different. Our church sells booklets about the truth. The money goes to the church.”

I remember the exact moment I decided I wanted nothing to do with my mom’s church. Of course, I wouldn’t have any say in the matter anyway. I just would keep my first secret from mom.

The Ted Cruz-esque preacher played on the television while a thirteen-year old Margaret sat in an uncomfortable metal hotel chair enjoying catching Moltres on Mt. Ember when he said something that caught my ear, “I just don’t understand these kids out here chopping up their arms and acting like they have nothing to be happy about. It’s just ungrateful and disrespectful.” I remember pulling my sleeves over my hands, the abrasive fabric scratching at my struggle with self-harm. I realized then this church didn’t want me, God didn’t want me, and frankly I didn’t want or need either one. Even as a kid trying to figure out why I felt so tired and sad all the time, I still understood I didn’t deserve the way that “sermon” made me feel. I think some time later the preacher started talking about the butterflies he sees on his porch every morning.

They have the market cornered on faith and religion though. Try convincing them otherwise.

#writing #memoir #mine #alexipsych #creative writing #story #storytelling

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