The Rise of a New Savior

“By their fruits ye shall know them” -- Matthew 7:16-20

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White evangelicals were so key for Trump that, had no white evangelicals voted, Clinton would have won in a landslide, 59 percent to 35 percent. – The Washington Post

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“I would rather spend countless millennia in Hell than one day in Pat Robertson’s Heaven” – Keith Gottschalk, WJBC-AM, 2003

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I think I’m going to Hell.

Wait, I pretty much believe I’m going to Hell and have for some time now.

I was born and raised Roman Catholic; fell out with divorce and tried other faiths and didn’t care for any of them.

Most of what I know is Christianity, either in training or practice. I think Jesus Christ was a pretty righteous dude. His followers are another matter entirely.

But they will see glory and I will be cast into the Lake of Fire™ for things I have done and said – too many here to list.

I’m not sure if Heaven is the place pictured in Monty Python’s ‘Meaning of Life’ where it’s Christmas every day and everyone ‘looks smart and wears a tie.’ Or, if it’s like the images in churches where everyone lolls on clouds all day forever praising God and eating grapes. Either way, it seems rather boring.

I, on the other hand, have always pictured Heaven as the biggest, newest and bestest football stadium. Heaven are all the people sitting in the luxury loges (like Jimmy Falwell and Pat Robertson and Billy or Franklin Graham) the box seats are for the saved who aren’t the Superstars of Christianity (sounds like a late night record offer, I know – 12 original hits, 12 original stars), purgatory people (see, I didn’t forget about the Catholics) are in the cheap seats waiting for a ticket exchange, sort of like the Green Bay Packers season ticket wait list. Those in Hell are divided between working the concession stands and restrooms or serving those in the luxury loges. The babies in limbo get to forever wander the concourses, looking out into the field but they can never go in. They get an occasional beer and hot dog to keep them happy.

Except if you're a Browns fan. 

 As far as being in Hell though, it won’t take much getting used to for me. I’ve worked in the service industry during the holiday season.

But the real reason for this post is this story in The Washington Post:, Hopeful and relieved, conservative white evangelicals see Trump’s win as their own. The writer interviewed a number of people who described how easy it was to cashier in all their moral scruples to vote for Trump. Makes for fascinating, insightful reading and causes me to reflect on my experiences with Christianity.

If honesty is going to get you into Heaven, this guy might make it to the big box:

“People wanted to vote for Hillary because they’re like, ‘Trump is a bigot.’ He is! But Hillary is 10 times worse,” (Cornerstone Church member) Scott Risvold said, sitting on an overstuffed couch in the lobby at Cornerstone Chapel, 45 minutes early for the Wednesday night worship service.

Hint

I admire that, I really do. The only thing he didn’t say was what Hillary was 10 times worser at. But that’s probably because that libtard journalist wouldn’t put that in there.

“Every church is going to be influenced by the culture,” (Cornerstone Church Pastor) Hamrick said. “The issue becomes, will the church rise up and become an influencer of the culture?”

Good God man, you’ve only had 2,000 years to do it and had a stranglehold on public morals for many centuries of those. Maybe that was the reason for God allowing Democrats and Gays, I dunno.

On the opposite couch, (CC member) Rob Cole nodded. “My sister, I just wanted to unfriend her on Facebook today. Because she’s a die-hard Democrat,” he said. Cole told Risvold, who worked in military intelligence before leaving the service last year at 29, about a video he watched online in which a Christian speaker abroad hailed Trump’s victory. “It really makes you feel great to be a Christian,” he said.

So you must be feeling really, really good, since you resisted the temptation to reject the sister sinner (at least for now). And, of course, this was foretold:

“For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” – Matthew 10:35

OK, I didn’t see anything about brother against sister, but maybe that’s a given. It was in my family anyway.

And, after all, in the first part of that verse, Jesus says:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Remember THAT this Thanksgiving.

So, see, Trump is prophecy. I can’t see him riding a pale horse, however. Putin yes, Trump, not so much.

On we go:

That’s how (CC member Rose) Aller, the substitute teacher, felt, too. “There’s been a big attack on our Christian faith. I think Christians took a big stand this time and said we’re going to stand up for our faith.”

That ‘big attack’ was no doubt launched by the same people who brought us The War on Christmas™ Hmmmm. Maybe Python was right and Heaven is a place where every day is Christmas and those who dare to say happy holidays are thrown into The Lake of Fire™

Feelings. . . 

The morning after the election, Aller said, a black second-grader came into her school and declared, “Trump was elected, so we’re moving.” Aller said she responded, “We’re going to miss you. Let me know when your last day is. We’ll throw you a goodbye party.” She says she’s sure the boy knew she was joking.

Har de har har. Of course she knew. She could see his heart!

Hamrick preached Wednesday night about the culture that has bewildered and infuriated evangelicals during the Obama years. “There’s gender confusion. There’s sexual identity confusion — people are inventing words now,” he said in his teaching. Mentioning the pop star Miley Cyrus, he continued: “Pansexual. What do all these words mean?”

I know that new and big words are difficult for you types but remember -- Google is your friend. Unless you consider the Internet the Devil’s Playground™

But hey, VP-in-waiting Mike Pence believes you can pray the gay away (and probably all matter of sexual perversion) and if that doesn’t work there are ways. . . other ways.

Cardinal Biggles. . ..  the RACK!

And finally:

“It’s like every day our morals in America are being chipped away. Now on the radio you can say words you couldn’t say eight years ago,” said Risvold, the military veteran. “The more we go immoral and crazy, and everybody’s feelings count — I feel this and I feel that.”

Yeah, I know how you FEEL man. I just know it. OUR morals are being chipped away. Damn, pretty soon the pastor’s wife (that harlot!) will probably get a tattoo.

And as for feelings, I get ya’. Men shouldn’t have them. They’re supposed to be reserved for the wimmen folk especially at that time of the month where they pay for Eve’s sin. Feelings get us into a lot of trouble. It’s best we keep them inside us.

I dunno, I remember all the Christian folk talking about their feelings that the world was persecuting them. They didn’t want to make that cake for the gay person because it made them feel like sinners. Stuff like that. I guess certain feelings are OK, others aren’t.

Before you join me in the snark fest, remember: these are the people who are going to Heaven. Not me, not you – them, because their bible tells them so, IF they do everything God commands.

Taxi! 

Which always confused me during that time I was a Lutheran and was taught that we were saved by Grace Alone™ I wish these Christian churches would get together and come up with an agreed upon way to stay out of hell. I guess no matter what you believe, voting for Donald Trump was a start.

Again, though, I’m confused. Not all the Christian churches supported Trump. Many Christians thought his views and actions were very un-Jesus-like.

But I guess these are not the ‘Evangelical’ Christians, so perhaps they are Fake Christians. I guess that’s a problem: people can call themselves whatever they like and Risvold says that’s a problem.

I looked up the word ‘evangelical.’ Merriam-Webster online says this:

of or relating to a Christian sect or group that stresses the authority of the Bible, the importance of believing that Jesus Christ saved you personally from sin or hell, and the preaching of these beliefs to other people

having or showing very strong and enthusiastic feelings.

It’s funny, I read this article and have been in and out of Christianity all my life and I don’t think Mr. Trump has anything to do with it or evangelicals. I mean, he’s never even talked in tongues. Well, wait, maybe he did.

But the people who claim to be Evangelical Christians are supposed to remain apart from convening with those whose lifestyle is an abomination to the Lord.

But in this case, they cast their lot with the unrepentant sinner because. . . they wanted power; not to protect themselves but for themselves so that they may conquer in the sign of the cross via the U.S. Code and the Supreme Court.

Other Christians have cast their lots with dictators throughout history and it never went well for them.

So we seem to have a dispute, simply enough, between those wanting Trump to use God’s law to trump man’s law. And it seems that some Christians now see the rise of their flawed champion as their golden opportunity to create a world that the Commander in The Handmaid’s Tale would be proud of.

It’s all so confusing. They all seem to be trying to save themselves from perdition by making the rest of us conform to their belief system whether we like it or not. And they believe they have finally found their savior.

This reminds me of something from a long-ago play where these same issues were fought over:

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

A Man for All Seasons

At this point, I’ll vote for the Constitution over the Bible, thanks.

See you in Hell!

Not Fade Away

Prelude: my ‘discipline’ handed down to me today was a written reprimand which is 1-2 steps away from a firing. After all the star-chamber proceedings all they had was what I said in jest originally to another co-worker. I’m going to make an oral appeal to the Director but I was warned by the union rep it would probably not change things. My union rep felt it wasn’t the institution that was trying to get rid of me but my co-workers. Conveniently forgotten was the incident of July 8, 2015 which started it all – they day that due to the actions of my employer, I was almost killed in front of my wife.

I’m at a crossroads in my life.

Everyone reaches a moment in time where they are faced with their own mortality as well as the mistakes they have made in life. They have a choice whether to pack it in and retreat into themselves or continue to fight for some unknown and unrevealed personal triumph.

Earlier in this week, my last psychologist and I got into what was almost a shouting match. This is a person who I felt finally ‘got me.’ She understood, even though she didn’t say much. As I’ve done so many times in my life, I made a tragic miscalculation.

She believed I was trying to get away with ‘something.’ I told her I merely wanted to be judged by the same standards everyone else is. We were both a little right and a little wrong. But I had the distinct impression that she had grown to, if not despise, at least have a strong dislike for me personally.

This isn’t anything new for me. I’ve mentioned that a big reason I have shied away from trying to make friends in later life (even though there is a part of me that desperately needs them) is that there is something about me, probably linked to my bipolar, that eventually drives people away. Give me enough time, and I’ll say or do something that will fuck it up.

In the wee small hours . . . staring at the ceiling cursing your life's decisions

To me what happened felt like the final blow. I left feeling I was too old and too fucked up for this shit to even have a chance anymore. I grew old, my therapists grew younger and there seemed to be a gulf between us – we didn’t share mutual experiences or grow up in the same time and place. I think another tragic miscalculation was my long-held belief that therapy would be easier with a woman – they listen. Yes, and with many men they make judgments. I would suggest that with any therapist, you make sure what their background and politics are before you say too much. They are not impartial saints. 

There’s a strong feeling I’m fighting now to close up shop. Shut down Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and stop writing this blog. Very few people read it, I doubt I have really helped anyone suffering to understand and it’s not going to turn into a book deal so I can quit my job because it’s just not that marketable. I’m not some celebrity, nor am I young and pretty. I’m some middle-aged schmuck whose been trying to get my shit together all my life. Who wants to read about that?

Who wants to read the ruminations of a loser? Every single story or request for stories from all of the websites dealing with depression or bipolar want tales of people who have ‘overcome’ their illness. You don’t ‘overcome’ mental illness in the same way you don’t ever ‘overcome’ alcoholism. You only overcome it when you die. This fight has gone on all my life and it will go on until I am dead.

For the most part, I have failed. My vaunted introspection turned out to be navel gazing. I was missing the big picture.

What has happened to me at my current employer has happened before. Not in the same way but the result was the same; strained work relationships, job loss and failed marriages.

If there was no psychologist that could help me because I could not help myself, then I am going to have to be my own psychologist. No one will ever know me better than myself. The trick is, you have to be tough and honest with yourself. 

My last post received one comment. I’m not sure why. But I did mention in that post that the one constant string in all the negative things that had happened to me was me. So it’s kind of a misnomer to say they ‘happened to me.’ 

Because of my inability to control some deep yearnings and inner urges, I stepped into minefields I’d laid myself. 

It is correct to argue that had I gotten a diagnosis earlier and understood what the illness could do, then I could take steps to control some of the nastier problems that cropped up. But that only goes so far. 

The realization that a big part of me is a hurt little kid still lashing out at the world for all its unfairness to me was a hard one to make. The hurt little kid is still inside of me. I don’t know what to do about him yet. He's up there as the main photo of this blog.

The hurt little kid grew up misplaced in a school environment where he was one of the fat, middle class kids in an upper middle class school. His mom didn’t have time for him, his father emotionally disowned him and his sister was (and still is) bitterly resentful that he was the so-called ‘favored child’ which I never felt.

He retreated to his room, with his books, his TV, fish, scratchpads and imagination. He kept trying to come out of that room and re-enter a world which seemed to him, held so much promise if only he could keep his shit together.

The hurt kid just wanted some friends, some compadres he could run with and trust. He wanted to be loved by women to let him know he had worth as a man. He wanted this coterie of people to follow him around repeating a mantra that he wasn’t so bad after all and that he was worthy of being liked. 

But he couldn’t keep his shit together. Whatever he got, it was never enough. The goalposts always moved just a little out of reach. He had something to prove to everybody – the nuns from his elementary school, the kids in school, his parents, society.

I bought into a lot of mythology about American life: church, state, success, appearances. I seemed to be searching for some place or person that would allow me to fit in. I wanted so much to fit in.

Without a real plan and without the necessary self-control, he thrashed about for decades. Only his ability to escape from the messes he helped create got him this far. And now all trust, even hope for decency in people I can identify with, is gone. I can’t be myself because ‘myself’ is like battery acid to forming lasting relationships.

The room, though, my room, is always beckoning back. “Come back,” it says. “No one will hurt you here and you won’t hurt anyone. All your books, diversions and memories are here. Retreat and lick your wounds and never let the world in again. Everything you need is right here.”

Right now, ‘the room’ is calling very strongly. It’s in the basement, which I have furnished like I always wanted my bedroom to be. I didn’t realize that I had done that until it was nearly finished, but there it is -- not just a TV, but a 55-inch flat screen. Not just a portable radio but a home theater system. Not just library books, but a whole library. And a fully stocked bar and refrigerator (“you know if that kid had a fridge up there, we’d never see him,” my dad would say). But most of all, I have created my museum – pictures, movies, scrapbooks; things that have gone to make up a life.  All surrounding me like a soft cocoon, beckoning me.

It’s easy to say to someone else ‘don’t go in there; you’ve got so much to give.’ It’s another thing when you’re the person who feels he’s given all he can for nothing and just wants to retreat into a familiar, nurturing womb that, unfortunately, has only one exit. 

Hit it Blue Eyes:

But I'll keep my head up high
Although I'm kinda tired
My gal just up and left last week
Friday I got fired
You know it's almost funny
But things can't get worse than now
So I'll keep on tryin' to sing
But please, just don't ask me how
                                     -- Frank Sinatra

Requiem for my father

I think in a way my father was lucky to have succumbed of lymphoma at 51. Never mind, for the time being, that he was grossly misdiagnosed by a doctor who said the painful palpable lump on his neck was just fat from . . . well being fat. Our doctor did not like fat people. He tried to get me on a diet when I was 11.

Ignore for now that my father’s cancer went through at least two stages until a biopsy stunned hospital personnel who could not believe a patient would have waited so long before being biopsied. What was my dad supposed to think? His doctor was giving him cortisone shots in the neck and he must know what he’s doing, right?

Also ignore that after my dad died fighting a hopeless rear guard action against the cancer, that the same doctors who were so ‘aghast’ at the obvious malpractice, zipped their lip when my mother’s attorney came calling.

In the end, it all may have been a blessing in disguise.

When they looked like this. And were great.

See, dad was a Sears man. It was the only job he’d ever had in his life; stretching back to 1962 when it was made clear to him he did not have the skills to create a career in art. It must have been a crushing blow to someone who studied with diligence for several years at the Cleveland Institute of Art to be told: you’re good, just not good enough. Dad, a Korean War Veteran, went to school on the GI Bill.

His parents thought it was a waste of time and money but dad had to know. 

Once he was disabused of the notion he would be the next Currier and/or Ives, he had to find a job. Straining to make mortgage payments and with a son (me) on the way, he turned to Sears’ salesman training program.

They made an interior decorator out of a Marine. That must have hurt too. 

Nevertheless, he forged on selling custom drapery out of his van all over the east side of Cleveland. He worked in the Carnegie Avenue store which was then, as it is now, a pretty sketchy area. 

He got yelled at by everyone, bosses, customers, and the warehouse. Kids would take a dump on his samples. But he kept on. Even though he never made more money than my mother (a school teacher), he kept up his end of the deal working a job that must have sacked his will to live, judging by the tirades we had to endure when he got home.

I remember more than one time my father saying to all of us “my days at Sears are numbered; they have it out for me.”

This was a (meager) draw against commission. The pressure to help put food on the table and pay the light and gas bills took a toll. My parents would get into screaming matches while going over bills. As I’ve written before, sometimes the phone would be disconnected; sometimes the heating oil arrived late to a cold house.

His only real escape was the great outdoors and the hunting and fishing he so loved. Had he been able to, he would have gone into the woods with his camping gear and never come out. He could live off the land. He really could. 

All he ever wanted. Really.

“To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off.”

There was only one time I ever saw him happy about his job. We were eating dinner and the phone rang. You couldn’t make my father angrier than to call at dinnertime. Mom answered and said “Ed, it’s for you.” My father’s face went into an instant twitch and scowl. He always expected the worst.

But within a few second I saw a look of pure joy on his face I did not think possible. When he slammed the phone back on the cradle, he literally danced for joy.

“Ed, Ed, what is it.” Mom asked.

“I got the job in carpeting,” my father shouted.

I asked what that meant, thinking going from selling drapery to carpeting didn’t seem like such a big deal to me.

“Bigger commissions,” dad said. 

It was the happiest I ever saw him. 

Sad, isn’t it?

“The only thing you've got in this world is what you can sell.”

But when he died on August 11, 1983, Sears was starting to go through a transformation which would eventually turn it into the shit store it is now – complete with the death rattle coming from deep inside a once great retail empire.

By this time, some of the wonderful things that had made Sears great were gone: the cafeteria, the driving school and the candy store where dad would pick up some bridge mix for us kids when he was feeling particularly generous.

About a year after my father died, Sears slowly began converting the commissioned salespeople to hourly employees. When I would return to the store at the Great Lakes Mall in the years to come, I would notice less and less suit and tie salespeople and more kids trying to sell merchandise whose features they couldn’t sell and, in many cases, didn’t understand.

By the early 90s, all that was left of the commissioned salespeople were in major appliances. Custom drapery was gone and carpeting would follow by the mid-90s. By the end of the century, Sears looked like a somewhat neater Wal-Mart with customer service to match.

Don’t think for a second that just because dad had issues with management and had a hard time handling rude customers that he didn’t believe in Sears. 

Everything, but especially tools.

Everything in our house was from Sears. Dad always said that he was proud his company stood by its products with that ironclad ‘satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back’ promise. 

I am convinced that if he had lived long enough, in fact, not that much longer, Sears would have broken his heart. Then they would have let him go. 

“You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”

He would have been in his mid-50s with nowhere really to go. If he got lucky, our neighbor might have been able to get him a job selling hardware to independent retailers – but that job died in the mid-90s thanks to the mom and pop hardware stores being crushed by the big boxes and Wal-Mart.

He might have sold cars. That’s about the only thing I could think of as a reasonable alternative. But the way cars were sold back then (and still today in some dealerships) would have also crushed his soul. Dad believed in integrity and that a handshake was as good as your word, which was a trusted bond.

And by that time, as it is now, companies didn’t want used-up sales retreads in later middle-age. They wanted fresh-faced young go-getters who were hungry and would work for peanuts.

My mom missed him terribly. I can remember, even moths after the funeral, her wailing in the dining room. I stayed in my bedroom listening and having my heart torn apart. There is no worse crying than that which comes from grief. 

Mom never remarried. She had one love of her life and he was gone forever. So she buried herself in her Catholic faith (with particular emphasis to charismatic practice) and changed so much that after a decade, I barely knew her anymore. 

It would have been far worse for both of them had dad lived. They had just gotten their heads pretty well above water when dad’s illness hit. His despair, I believe, would have brought the bad times back with a vengeance. My sister and I would not have gone to college for sure. The marriage may not have survived.

God only knows how he would have reacted to my two divorces, mental illness (which he didn’t or didn’t want to, understand), my sister’s issues, etc.

In the end, dad left mom with a small Sears pension and some minor investments which all added up to just enough to create a portfolio that grew steadily and allowed mom slowly begin to live off the dividend checks. By the time she retired from teaching, her pension plus the stock portfolio ensured she would keep the house and live out her last years in dignity. 

"After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive."

He never realized it, but it was truly his time to go; for mom, us kids, but most importantly, for himself.

“Nobody dast blame this man. You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there’s no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple spots on your hat and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with the territory.”