Poem: "Amen, Bad Luck To You"

The day after I was Saved

after the congratulations and

we're proud of yous and you're so braves

and my mother's relief and elation

and delicate voices to playfully chide me

I felt the sensation 

of something writing inside me

It wasn't the finger of God

writing His laws on my heart

It wasn't some warm and happy feeling

tracing across my being

or a psalm full of fresh air and art

I'm not sure what piece of me

it was writing on,

this thing not a threat, not a treaty

Something not quite as bloody and meaty as a rib

But some just as tangible part

just as touchable

Not quite the soul

Not quite the heart

or some other piece just as glib

It was something dark, for sure,

something separate from God

Not competing for room

or to regain its domain

or proclaim my failure and doom

or map out my guts to forever trod

Whatever it was, all the same

it was only there to write

Amen, bad luck to you.

and leave me as quickly as it came,

at no exceptional time of night

It left its fingerprints 

in its scratchy, scribbled cursive

Though I'm sure it has no power itself

It has no unholy possession or hold

No aim so subversive,

nothing nearly so bold

or bursting with spite and pride

But the message is there

somewhere inside

Amen, bad luck to you.

I can't be persuaded otherwise

that the message wasn't deliberately timed

It came just after Jesus advented

just after the drying of weeping eyes

just after everyone at that potpourri scented

Baptist church told me warm and lovely things

Just after I was Saved

I wasn't gripped by a demon

or met with beginnings of birth pangs

I didn't froth at the mouth and fall in the fire

or so much as double over in pain

When it etched its words inside 

my miscellany and mire 

Amen, bad luck to you.

That was all, and it was gone

unheard from since that day

Like whoever scrawled Sodoma Gomora

on the walls of Pompeii

to tell them they were going to hell

Or whoever painted Viva Cuba

and the last lovey dovey note

of a revolutionary song

on the walls of a prison cell

They were there, inside, they wrote,

and were gone – 

Amen, bad luck to you.

from the book Amen, Bad Luck To You

Why We Love Conspiracy Theories

More than any time in history, America is saturated in conspiracy theories. It seems almost every aspect of society and pop culture is touched by the idea of a conspiracy of some sort. There are the classics, such as the moon landing being faked, filmed in a basement by Stanley Kubrick, to more bizarre ones like the flat-earth theory and the claim that the Beatles never actually existed, to the dangerously delirious - the Sandy Hook shooting never happened, 9/11 was an inside job, vaccines contain tracking technology, and JFK Jr. will appear in Dealey Plaza to claim the Presidency for Donald Trump (despite the younger Kennedy being dead for 22 years).

It's almost as if conspiracy theories are en vogue. If it was 1997, conspiracy theories would be the Billy Corgan ZERO t-shirt. Why do we embrace them? Why do we cling to them?

The answer is disappointingly simple - they excite us, and they comfort us.

We can look to the biggest conspiracy theory in all of American history for the perfect example: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Theorists have long rejected the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting JFK, that the whole thing was a plot by the CIA, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, or other powers that be. Many more far-out ideas have been posited, such as Kennedy was killed because he planned to reveal the existence of extraterrestrial life.

The facts are, unfortunately, much more boring - Oswald, a young Marxist loner with delusions of grandeur, shot the President to make a statement, to be somebody for once. I write "unfortunately more boring" because a great leader such as John F. Kennedy deserved a better end - a man of his accomplishments deserved a better assassin, as morbid as it sounds. Even a rogue government and/or alien-related conspiracy would have been a more fitting means to such a great man's tragic end: it's disheartening and disappointing to accept that one of our greatest Presidents was simply slain by a born loser - who in turn was slain by another born loser, with no mob connections, no secret CIA motive. The true backstories of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby are too real - but the fantastical explanations, the intricate and complex, the convoluted, take us away from such a reality. A nice, exciting conspiracy overshadows the tragedy with grandeur. Therefore, aliens and the CIA.

The outlandish and wondrous, bluntly put, make us feel better. They give us a noble quest, to expose the truth. They add adventure and intrigue, put us in a James Bond-like role, a covert mission to gather intelligence and expose the Deep States and Pizzagates of the world. Conspiracies take us from our glum place as mourners to freedom fighters for truth. And when they send us on a spiral of violence and fanaticism, they make us martyrs - heroes even - when we storm the Capitol shirtless, wearing face paint and a horned helmet. 

Meticulously compiled evidence that dashes these conspiracy theories brings us back to Earth. Back to the grind of the mundane and terrifying. It's terrifying to think that an ordinary nobody in our midst could take it upon themselves to kill the President - it's exciting to think it was the work of an ominous boss-level boogieman. 

Inside, we're too horrified - and inconvenienced - to accept that there's a new virus beyond our control that's killed millions of people worldwide, that we don't have as much reign over nature as we think. So, the virus must be a hoax, one we have a duty to expose; if not a hoax, a plot by Anthony Fauci and his cronies to force people to wear masks, so they can receive hefty kickbacks from the big mask industry. 

We're too delicate to consider that our candidate lost an election fairly. We're too dogmatic to learn the intricacies of elections, because that knowledge might prove us wrong. We hate being wrong. We don't like things that dash our narratives, so they must be false. It must all be fake news - "Fake news!" being code for "I'm too fragile to handle that."

Maybe my armchair psychology is my own way of romanticizing why we love conspiracy theories. Maybe the truth is even more humdrum than human insecurity -

maybe we're just bored. Maybe we can never be satisfied as the needy humans we are: not even a global pandemic satisfies our lust for action. 

Or, maybe we've seen too many movies.

The Semantics of Suicide

For some, it's become inappropriate to use the term "commit suicide." The reasoning behind this is that the word "commit" implies a crime or a moral wrong - i.e. committing adultery, committing murder. Of course, emotional and psychiatric duress should never be classified as something morally reprehensible. So, alternate terms are suggested: "died by suicide," or the somewhat and confusing morbid "completed suicide."

Being a career mental patient, under consistent psychiatric care since I was 14 (I'm now 35), and having attempted to take my own life at least once in the past, I feel I have an authority to speak on the subject, and the right to give advice to anyone else who's struggled with such things:

If you ever confide in someone about your personal experience, and they correct or rebuke you for using the term "commit suicide," should you choose to phrase it that way, you have every right to tell that person to bugger off. To go fly a kite, to suck an egg, to die mad about it. Anyway you choose to phrase it: this is your story, your experience, your struggle. You are under no obligation to adhere to the vocabulary of anyone's else's ideology. 

There's enough anxiety in life as it is, for both mentally healthy and unhealthy people, without adding to it by walking on eggshells to placate others. Don't go out of your way to offend people - but if mental health matters, as we say every May, be good to yourself and don't allow others to burden you with more tension than what's already necessary in daily life.

Sincerely,

a chronic mental patient

Permission To Plagiarize Me

I noticed something interesting on the Twitter recently. A fellow expressed his concern and disapproval of  preachers who plagiarize other preachers' sermons. I honestly had no idea this was such a problem in Christian ministry. But I do admit there was a time when I myself was very concerned about my own religious writings being stolen. 

Years ago, when I still held the heady but modest title of "lay chaplain," I published a book of sermons, Sheep Named Spike. I'd be happy to autograph it for if you buy a copy. Most of what's in the book is based on my cheaply produced YouTube sermons, but there was also plenty of material that simply came from a flow of creative writing. 

I decided not long ago, however, that I shouldn't pursue "Christian writing" anymore, at least not until I overcome my tendency toward vanity. That is, I noticed so much of what I wrote to proclaim the Gospel was dangerously close to becoming "The Captain Bud Sturguess Show." I found much more of an emphasis on the absurdity and self-deprecation that I used to illustrate whatever point I was making, to the point that Christ was almost a background Player in the sermons. 

So, though I feel the things I published as religious works are still solid proclamations of the truth of Jesus Christ, I think it's best I don't continue writing straight-up sermons, lest I put myself at the forefront. 

Having said that, if in those sermons I wrote something pure, something Gospel-centered, something aligning with Scripture, something with the true zeal of preaching Christ, then I have to acknowledge that it came not from me, but from the Holy Spirit. The front of the book may list my name under the copyright notice, but it's far more accurate to say that anything truly good I wrote is the intellectual property of the Spirit. 

I certainly don't speak for other preachers, but it can only follow that if someone copies my sermons, even word for word, I have no more room to object than I would if a musician rips off Back In Black - Back In Black is not my intellectual property, not the product of my creativity, therefore only AC/DC and their lawyers have a right to file suit against the plagiarist. 

It's the same with my sermons. Again, I emphasize that I only speak for myself, not only as part of the royal priesthood of believers, but also as a writer. If another Christian desires to proclaim our Savior from a genuine conviction and longing to bring the Gospel to others, I have no qualms if they Xerox my work and recite it in their own diatribes. Reaching the hearts of our neighbors is far more important than letting everyone know how clever, creative, and original I am.

So, let this blog be a binding contract of sorts - I will not sue, I will not complain that my genius has been ripped off. If something I wrote or recorded for Christ is found to be pure and unadulterated truth, it makes no difference if my name is attached to it. The Name above all Names must be first, and mine not at all. I'm content being a creation rather than a creative.

I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't rather preachers be creative and labor over their own sermons rather than recite someone else's work. But truth is truth, and I claim no copyright for it. Let truth abound.   

Untitled Poem, Re: Gabby Petito / Brian Laundrie

Buffalo wins the game

Ratings slow and steady

Til the man with no name

says get three coffins ready

Google gathers for a game

of Guess Whose DNA

taking me back

to memories of Caylee and JonBenét

and bigwigs counting stacks

(though with respect, counting them in black)

"It's Not True Because I Don't Like It"

In discussions with others concerning belief vs. non-belief in God, at least the God of the Bible, I'm often smugly bemused by some who, when explaining why they don't believe in God, bypass any scientific or logical reason and, instead, cite what they consider God's flaws: "how could God allow this?", "if He's good why would He do this?" etc. It was strange to me that they equated a perceived poor character with proof of nonexistence. 

But I recently realized I do the very same thing, in reverse. I think of life with no intelligent Creator as cold and empty, arbitrary and meaningless - but citing those negative views on disbelief in a moral God does not equal a rational explanation of why I don't take an atheistic view.

These mindsets on both the part of the believer and the nonbeliever are cut from the same irrational cloth as: "I want to go to Denny's and I don't like wearing a mask, so COVID is a hoax," or "I don't like that Trump lost the election, so it was rigged."

"It's not true because I don't like it" is an unreasonable and precarious way of thinking.

What My Father Taught Me About Masculinity

Among my favorite photographs from my family albums is one taken on Halloween sometime in the late 80s. In it, my father holds me, his firstborn son in a clown costume, then just a toddler; in front of us, also in full Trick-or-Treat gear, are my older half-brother and two of my cousins, half-brothers to each other. The significance of the children that surrounded him that Halloween evening never occurred to me until recently:

my older half-brother's father had been divorced from our mother, and died soon after; one cousin's father spent most of his sons' lives in prison; and the other cousin never knew who his father was until he'd reached his late teens. 

These three children were essentially fatherless. 

There's a slew of other photographs in the family album that show my father, again, engaged in various activities with my cousins as well as his own two sons and stepson, pictures that remind me how often they joined us for outings like fishing and water balloon fights. He always took the time to include them, as often as he could. When he died in 1996, my cousins seemed more devastated than I was; a sense of shock never really left me, while my vivid memories of his loss are those of my distraught, tearful cousins. 

It was as though they'd lost a father themselves, or at least someone they saw as a strong father figure. The importance of my father's role in their young lives had certainly occurred to them far earlier than it had to me. My father died before we reached a lot of "milestones" many fathers reach with their children, particularly their sons. We didn't reach those father-son "heart to hearts," and never reached the point where the son challenges the father when the son feels he's finally "become a man" (whatever an individual renders that to mean) - the young lion challenging the old one. So, many of the things I learned from him only clicked in my brain years later, or had already been taught, unbeknownst to me, by his subtle example.

My mother often worked weekends, while my father usually had weekends off. It wasn't at all unusual for him to cook dinner - especially desserts - and do the household cleaning (while making us do the same). Whether he meant to teach us anything by this or not, it still destroyed a "traditional" notion of the husband-wife roles. It taught me a man is not above what many see as "women's work." It taught me it's a man's job as much as anyone else's to take up an egg beater and a can of Pine Sol.

My father was not a scholar or an intellectual, and I'm glad of it. I'm grateful that his example of domestic life came from modest example rather than long, woke discourses.

The heart of the matter is that my father showed me that caring for children is important. As stunningly obvious a statement as that is, there are countless men who've never let the idea cross their minds. By using his thick, calloused, coarse hands to take up what is depicted as work for the weak, my father showed me a sign of strength. If manliness and masculinity are abstract and intangible concepts, subjective to say the least if we're being honest, I feel no audacity in asserting that one of the essential attributes of being "a real man" is a sincere feeling of duty to care for children; not just by household necessity, but in the way my father cared for the fatherless, for those who feel adrift and lost seeing other children with their own fathers, while theirs are nowhere to be found. 

My father taught me that a key role in masculinity is to make children feel seen, heard, included. To let them know they're important. Particularly to those without fathers or father figures: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

Worldly masculinity - or, "toxic" masculinity if you like - is the kind of masculinity defined by feats of physical strength; towing diesel trucks with a rope clenched between your teeth; initiation by violence, copious intake of alcohol; the flaunting of domination over women; a certain quota of one night stands. These things are all meaningless. If a man seeks to teach children noble values and to be an example they won't regret following, he mustn't only be a father to his own children, but a positive presence for those who feel abandoned, be they sons or daughters. 

If men, be they dads or not, seek to shape a better generation of men and women to succeed them, they must take up God's definition of chivalry - not fist fights and drunken carousing, but in this simple, almost childlike mission: help those in need: "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow." (Isaiah 1:17)