Chapter 7: Coping

Ever been in a house full of people and felt totally alone?

As the head of our household, I’m responsible for the health and well-being of the family. That’s how I feel but it’s not reality. My wife is a rock and without her concern for our girls and her tenacity, I would be in a world of trouble. Yet, there are times when I feel like we are on different courses. We have the same destination but we’re taking different paths to get there. We are both coping in our own ways. I write and Kathy prays.

I’ve been writing for many years now. It’s my personal form of therapy; my way of self-regulating the anger, fear and trials of life. I’ve tried counseling and it did little to ease my frustration. So, I had to find a way to take care of myself and writing down my thoughts has been the answer for me. Kathy doesn’t read my journal though I’ve encouraged her to. She knows I have a blog but she hasn’t seen it. I’m not sure why, perhaps she feels there is nothing for her to gain from it. Perhaps she doesn’t want to hear about my concerns when she has concerns of her own. Whatever the reason, I don’t push the issue. If she ever wants to read what I’ve written, it will be here for her.

For Kathy, the answer lies in returning to her roots in the church. Every Sunday morning, she gets up and goes to church, alone. Kathy grew up attending the Church of Christ and she is a stout believer. She often tells me that we do what we can and we should turn the rest over to God. She also says that God would not give us anything that we could not bare. God has plans for us and we are being tested. Really?

I went to church as a kid all the time. My maternal grandmother is a Jehovah’s Witness and my paternal grandmother was a Southern Baptist so, confusion abounds. As a kid, I was scared to death of God. At the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I learned about a God who was counting down the days to destroy the world. A God who would allow men to kill, pillage, rape and destroy his fellow man and afterwards select 144,000 “sheep” to go to heaven and live with him. The rest of the righteous will remain on Earth for the ‘”clean up”. That’s some pretty scary stuff for a kid to process.

On the other hand, I would visit my paternal grandmother and attend Baptist church with her in the summer. My paternal grandmother lived in St James Parrish in Louisiana and the experience was very different. People would jump out of there seats and scream, shout, testify and “receive the Holy Ghost”. For my sister and me, this was entertainment, pure theater.

 The contrast was off the chart; at the Kingdom Hall it was all you could do to keep your eyes open. The depressing message, the monotone delivery, the subdued nature of the congregation would often put children and the elderly asleep. At the Baptist Church it was more like a celebration. However, this was Southern Louisiana Baptist which has a few unique elements that other Baptist might not share.

With some Southern Baptist the teachings of the church often cross paths with the superstitious. As a child, I remember the story of a scandal within the little church my grandmother attended. Evidently, the pastor was a bit of a womanizer and it was the talk of the town. We left Louisiana that summer and when we returned a couple of years later, the pastor was dead. According to community “lore”, someone in the church put a hex on him. They took some of his personal belongings; hair brush, fingernails etc., and buried them. Over the next 18 months, the pastor withered away and died. Apparently he had lost a tremendous amount of weight and died weighing about 90 pounds. Why would someone tell this story to a kid? Fear of God, perhaps?

With these experiences as my religious foundation, is there any wonder why I don’t attend church with my wife? My wife tells me that God has a plan and that he has given us these “challenges” as a test of faith. Why? Why would the superior being test us? After all, the superior being knows that I am flawed and imperfect so why test me? I am a speck of dust on this planet, a micro-organism in this universe, why would God do this? If I there is a blind man across the street from me and the traffic is extremely heavy, why call him? Why have this man risk life and limb knowing he cannot see the dangers in front of him? I can’t see the superior being as this devious, narcissistic spirit who reigns over us, constantly testing and waiting for us to make a mistake so he/she can punish us for our weaknesses. These are human traits unworthy of the ultimate being.

Organized religion often makes God sound like a mischievous and mean spirited child. It’s as if we are ants and God is some bored kid sitting with a magnifying glass trying to burn us beyond recognition. What scares me most is the idea that God has all of these ugly human traits; pettiness, vengefulness and constantly seeking our undying, unwavering love and devotion. Sounds more like Saddam Hussein than the superior being. Religion and faith is a good thing, until men try and adapt it to there own needs. That’s when it becomes corrupted and exclusionary.   

..and so, we cope in our own way. I will continue to write and Kathy will continue to pray.

To all my friends whose religion provides them comfort and sustains them through the worst of times, I mean no offense. We all have to find our own way.