“I waited for you to send something to my post office box but you never put anything in there.”
“Oh, but I did.”
“Oh really. What did you fill it with?”
“I filled your box with love letters you haven’t read…yet. And maybe a steak dinner or two I cooked myself.”
She said that was a cute story even if it wasn’t true and I told her she hadn’t read all of the letters I had written nor discussed them.
“Your coal black hair isn’t quite coal black any more and mine, well it is not quite all there either…is it. Aging is a bitch sometimes.”
More than a couple of people offered instruction regarding the story of the labs and how I ought to respond.
I let them speak and allowed them to think whatever it is they wished to think about my level of knowledge or lack thereof.
Once I was asked what it would take to be taken seriously and I said if you weren’t sharing my bed there was no influence to be had.
But the truth was there was no guarantee to be earned by sharing it because I was always going to do as I do and be as I am.
Was it because I was trained to live alone and apart or because it is who I always was is a question some have inquired about but one I haven’t ever tried to answer.
No need to be introspective about this or to be vulnerable when you aren’t taken seriously.
Or maybe that is the excuse some give to protect themselves.
“Let go of her brother, she loved you once and now she loves you no longer. Let go and be happy.”
The light caught a bemused smile wash across his face.
“Brother, she never stopped loving me…never and that is why I haven’t let go. We are simply connected, maybe chained. It is not a choice. The heart wants what the heart wants and we do not apply rational thought or logic to it.”
There was a deep sigh followed by a question.
“What if it destroys you?”
“What if it doesn’t. What if we learn to fly. What if in the course of trying to learn to swim we drown. What if. Life is always what if.”
Another deep sigh.
“You’re a jackass but I can’t say if that is a good or a bad thing, just that it is.”
There is a museum in town that tries to use science to prove the bible is correct.
These are not my words but that of someone I know who encouraged me to visit because they expected I would be swayed by what I saw.
When I suggested they not push it they engaged and so I told them the book they used was based upon mistranslations and intentional distortion.
Needless to say this did not go over well but I wasn’t going to bend nor break on certain things. I explained that if they could not read the word in its original tongue I couldn’t take them seriously.
“You can’t verify what you think is in there really is because you can’t read it. All you have is a translation and faith that he whom put it together didn’t screw up.”
Somehow my daughter ended up in a Holocaust studies class in school.
It appears she is the only Jewish person in her class. She didn’t hide her identity nor did she volunteer it as she expected it would come out and didn’t want to be a spectacle.
She is a strong girl, but she didn’t want to be the center of attention for this reason.
Every day I listen to her talk about the class and I listen carefully for how it is being taught. It is a critical topic and a class like this helps to keep awareness so that such a thing can’t be repeated ever again.
At least that is the concept, but I am not convinced that humans cannot and will not engage in such heinous behavior again.
There are too many examples and reasons why it could happen to us or others. The line between civil and inhumane is thin.
I never told the person who talked about the faith and science museum their faith in the certainty of truth of what they consider sacred texts makes me shake my head and question them.
There is no way to soft peddle belief that my refusal to accept your beliefs means I will burn in hell. They may not mean ill and probably have not thought it through to the logical conclusion as others have.
Others have told me they are certain I and all who refuse to bend the knee will burn forever.
Occasionally I have asked them if they understand that is a form of religious terrorism and that threat of torture doesn’t inspire true conversion.
Most of the time I have been told not to get uppity as they are certain my own faith has similar peculiarities.
I could dig into it and present some but the point has never been to engage in who or what is better or worse. If I told them I wasn’t aware of anything in my tree that mandated absolute faith or hellfire it would just turn into a back and forth that I don’t care to engage in.
I won’t feel better or worse with or without agreement. There is no upside so I do not do anything with it.
