Answered Prayer — Another Original Short Story for Halloween

ANSWERED PRAYER
A Short Story by Tim McMullen

A loud rumble of thunder was punctuated by the emphatic

crash of a slamming door. It had started to drizzle a few

minutes earlier, and the grass and the sidewalk glistened as he

walked toward the car. The door handle was wet, and he brushed

his palm on the seat after hurling himself down behind the wheel.

Mumbling angrily, he turned the key in the ignition. The car

engine raced, and he slammed the gear-shift into reverse.


 Glancing over at the front door of his house, he had an

impulse to return. Then, staring in the rear-view mirror, he saw

her face; it was only for an instant, but it was Marjorie,

looking the way she had looked just moments ago when he had

growled out his oft-repeated warning, “You just try to leave!”

As always, the “ … and see what you'll get!” was implicit in his

tone. The vision vanished as the tires squealed on the damp

pavement.


 At this time of night, very few cars were on the road, and

within minutes he had passed the outskirts of town and was on the

road leading out into the desert. How many times had he had made

this night drive, letting the road and the sky dissipate his

anger and frustration?





 It was always the same. Marjorie, with her frightened,

mousey eyes; her stupid, mousey excuses.





 “I'm sorry dinner's late. Lisa had a meeting after school,

and then my mother called. I told her I'd call her back, but it

was real important,” she had whimpered. “lt'll only be a minute

longer. Why don't you go in and relax?”





 He could see the apprehension in her eyes, and he could hear

it in her voice, and that made him even madder.





 “This is the second time this week that we've had to wait

for dinner! What did she want this time?"





 A loud peal of thunder startled him, and he relaxed his grip

on the wheel. That meddling old biddy had done everything she

could to discourage his happiness, and he had about had it.

Maybe he should do what he'd already threatened--forbid Marjorie

to talk to her mother at all. Maybe then she'd be able to get

the dinner ready on time. He smiled a smile of decision.





 “As good as done,” he said aloud and then glanced again in

the rear-view mirror. Again he saw Marjorie's face, now superimposed

over the wet, desert highway; her cheeks glistened like

the roadway receding in the moonlight. Unconsciously, he looked

down at the knuckles of his own right hand and was surprised to

find what appeared to be blood. He brought his fist up to his

face, stuck out his tongue, and licked the spot. The blood

disappeared.





 "Maybe I overdid it a little this time,· he said, speaking

confidentially to his knuckle, "but God knows she deserves it."

In fact, she had been getting worse. Just last week, he had told

her that he'd be home by eleven-thirty, and that he wanted

something hot for lunch, yet she'd been gone when he arrived. A

plate of food in the refrigerator and a note on how to use the

microwave were all she'd left. He had really blown up on that

one. Still, it was his fault; he'd been too soft, and she'd been

taking advantage of his generosity.





 A truck thundered by and splattered his windshield like a

drive-through car wash. "Big Jerk,· he muttered and turned the

wipers on high. When the wiper blades began to squeek against

the dry window, he realized that the rain had stopped.





 Yes, it was time to really put his foot down and have done

with all her nonsense. The Lord said, "Wives, submit yourselves

unto your own husbands ... and he shall rule over thee," and that

was how it should be.





 He pictured her sitting there at the table serving him his

dinner, trying to please him, asking him about his day, listening

patiently and sympathetically while he told her all about the

jerks that he'd had run-ins with at the plant. Those had been

good times, and the only way to get them back was for her to

change back. His horne was his castle, and he was the King. The

Bible said as much; besides it made sense. You can't have two

masters. Man was born to lead; woman was created to follow, to

be a help-mate, to support and nurture; not to argue or disobey.





 He had been watching the highway more carefully. After a

couple of random turns, he was now on a stretch of road which was

unfamiliar to him, and he felt a little uneasy. Up ahead, in the

elusive shimmer of the cloud-covered moon, he saw a peculiar

glare on the pavement.





 “Must be a patch of oil,” he whispered under his breath,

"could be slippery in this drizzle."





 The whole thing was stupid. Why was he out here driving

around in this weather? She should have to leave ... not him!

Next time, she'd go.





 Suddenly, her face was there in the mirror, but it looked different. 

Her head was cocked at an odd angle as she lay on the

floor, her eye was puffed closed, and blood gushed from her nose.

He felt a surge of pity and remorse at the sight, but the remorse

turned almost instantly to rage.





 It was her own fault! He wouldn't be driven to hit her if

she just did things right. He worked like a dog to provide for

her, but when he came home, demanding nothing more than for his

house to be in order, all he got was, “Sorry, dinner's late!” He

had a good mind to go back right now and get it over with once

and for all!






 He'd been watching the dark patch in the highway since it

was just a speck on the horizon, but now its swift approach

startled him, and he decided to slow down. He was already on the

patch by the time he hit his brakes, and as soon as he touched

them, he knew it was a mistake. The rear tires lost traction

instantly, and the car began to fishtail. He tried to compensate

by turning the wheel slightly, but this just threw the car into a

spin. He clenched his fists on the steering wheel and uttered a

few quick phrases of prayer as the car jerked off the pavement

and the left tires reared up off the dirt of the shoulder.





 Oh, God, it's gonna' roll, he thought. “No!” he screamed.

The car careened down the steep embankment and tore through the

scrub brush. His breast slammed against the steering wheel, and his 

head crashed against the windshield and blasted him into 

unconsciousness.




 Before his eyes opened he heard the sound of frying bacon.

It sizzled and popped in such a way as to invite his eyelids

open, but the pounding in his head petitioned him to keep them

closed. Slowly, the sound won out, and he pried one eye open.

His unfocused eye came to rest on a splash of dark which

eventually became the floorboard of his Plymouth. 




 “W-What the… ?”





 Only then did he remember the spot of oil, the spin-out, and the

crash. That, of course, explained why he was now lying on the

front seat of his car—in a ditch—in the middle of the night.

However, it did not explain why someone was frying bacon on the

hood. As he raised himself up on his right arm and looked out,

he was blinded by a brilliant burst of light and sparks.





 When he opened his eyes again, his sphincter convulsed and a

violent and involuntary tremor coursed up his spine, raised the

hairs on the back of his head, then raced back to bring a quiver

to his loins. His breath caught in his chest, and he lay,

propped on his elbow, frozen in fear. He instantly apprehended

the situation: Staring him in the face, only inches away, was the

ragged end of a broken power line. This clearly was the source

of the sound he had mistaken for sizzling bacon. Now it just

lay there. The sparks had apparently subsided with the last big

flash.





 Instinctively, he retracted his limbs as he frantically

searched the car. He was looking for exposed metal. He thanked

God that there was a moon tonight. He might already be dead if

he hadn't seen that downed wire. But was it possible to get

electrocuted through the car? It was probably insulated. The

tires were rubber—they’d keep the car from conducting

electricity. But the wire was making contact with the hood, so

maybe it was hot? It wasn't sparking anymore, though. He wished

to the Lord that he knew more about electricity!





 The light in the car had been gradually fading. From his

awkward position he tried to catch a glimpse of the moon, but he

found only a large bank of ominous storm clouds which had

apparently begun to cover the moon. Only then did he realize

that the car had hit a huge power pole. His door, the driver's

door, actually rested against the pole itself. There was no

getting out that way! Then the light was gone.





 For many seconds he could see absolutely nothing; slowly his

eyes adjusted to the new darkness, and his thoughts raced. He had to

get out of there! Maybe he could just drive out from under

it ... if his car still started. He reached over to turn the

ignition then pulled back violently. Was he crazy? If anything

could electrocute him, it would be the key in the ignition.

Apparently, he wasn't as calm as he'd thought.





 Maybe he should just sit and wait. The line he knocked down

must have cut out power to somewhere. The line crew would track

down the problem soon, and they would find him and get him out.

He looked out the window, trying to find where the line went.

Through the cloud-shifting dark he made out a small structure in

the distance. With his gaze fixed on the building, his hope

leapt.





 “Help!” he screamed. “Help!” But he knew instantly that it was hopeless; 

all the windows in his car were rolled up tight. Nobody could hear him yelling,

and he didn't dare roll them down because of the metal handles.

He couldn't honk the horn either. Exasperated, he sat and

anxiously watched the structure in the distance. A triangle of

silvered moonlight suddenly fell on the building, and his spirits

plunged. The roof of the shack had fallen in, and one side of

the building had collapsed. It was obvious that no one had been

there in years.





 His hands were sweating now, and his eyes felt like they

were being held in place by fish hooks. A pounding at the back

of his skull had become so excruciating that his helpless stomach

threatened to vomit every few moments.





 Then, as suddenly as the crash itself, his panic subsided.

A moment's reflection assured him that he had no need for it.

When Marjorie realized that he hadn't come home, she'd worry.

He'd never stayed out a ll night on one of his "cooling-off"

drives, so she would certainly call the police to search for him.

They'd be out in an hour or two and he'd be alright. But how

would they know where to look? Where could she send them?





 "Where do you go?" she would squeek.





 “For a drive…around!” he would say, glowering to shut her

up and to make it clear that it was none of her business.





 So how were they going to find him? The way the shoulder

dropped off so steeply where he'd gone over, nobody was going to

see him from the road. In fact, he hadn't heard a single car the

whole time he'd been down there. It could literally be days

before anyone came across his car. Then he remembered Marjorie

the way she had looked when he left. !t wouldn't look too good

to the police. Of course, she would clean herself up, but it

would be hard to hide her eye. He took in a large gulp of air.





 "Don't you go to anyone!” he had told her repeatedly over

the years. "This is between a man and his wife; it has nothing

to do with anybody else. Don't you dare call the police!" Then,

he'd stomp to the door, shake his fist, and say, "You just try

to leave…and see what you'll get."





 She's so stupid, he thought, she'll probably let me sit and

rot out here without telling anybody, just so I won't be mad.

Clenching his teeth, he sat back against the seat.


It would be daybreak soon, and unconsciously, he began

praying for rain. Except for this freak thunder shower, the

temperatures had been in the high hundreds for weeks, and here he

was sitting in a car in the middle of the desert with all the

windows cranked up tight. He had once seen a Collie that had

been left in a car all day in the desert sun. Apparently it had

battered itself to death trying to escape, but it had lain long

enough for its eyes to literally explode in their sockets.

He slapped his palms against his own eyes to drive out the

vision, and then clapped them over his mouth to squelch another

wave of nausea. Obviously, he would have to get himself out, and

he would have to do it now.






 "God, please keep the rain coming!" he pleaded.

Randomly, his eyes took in the rear-view mirror. He winced

and looked away. Finally gathering courage, he looked back. In

the mirror he saw the roof of the car, and beneath that, the

shadows of the clouds moving across the face of the early morning

sun.





 "Whew!" he sighed aloud, "At least she's gone." His words,

though uttered in relief, were not reassuring. Another shiver

traveled up and down his spine. He raised himself to a sitting

position, carefully pulling his legs up onto the seat in a

further effort to avoid touching any metal, and he peered into

the mirror again. There was a face, but it was his own. In the

shadowy light, beads of sweat glimmered from his quaking forehead.


Suddenly, he had an urge to see Marjorie. He consciously 

tried to call her face up in the mirror, but he just couldn't get

it. He could remember what he'd seen; he could verbalize it in

his head: his wife, Marjorie, tears streaming down her face; her

face, spots which would soon be bruises just beginning to show;

the floor; the blood. The weird thing was that these were only

words; there were no pictures in his mind. It was ridiculous.

The woman had lived with him for almost nine years. She had had

his child. He tried to picture Lisa, his daughter, but he

couldn't find her image either.





 He closed his eyes and concentrated on pulling in his

favorite picture of his wife and daughter , the one that sat on

the television set. Marj was wearing her blue sweater, the one

he liked so well; funny, she had stopped wearing it. Lisa had on

a white party dress; the picture had been taken on her fifth

birthday. He remembered all these things in explicit detail, but

he could not recall the actual images to mind.





 Without warning, the cable flexed, emitted a shower of

sparks, and came to rest a few inches closer to the windshield.





 “Oh, Jesus, please help me. Get me out of this, Lord,” he

cried, his hands clasped in fervent supplication. “I've always

been a good Christian…I’ve raised my child in the path of

righteousness. We've tried to have a Christian family. Please,

Lord, do not forsake me. Have pity…Lord, Jesus, Save me!”





 A huge drop of water splattered on the windshield, followed

by several more. He thought of Marjorie's tear-stained face, and

he waited for it to reappear in the mirror, but it didn't.





 He had a thought. Maybe he could break a window and crawl

out? He gave the interior of the car another quick inspection.

Nothing. He had often bragged to Marjorie and his friends about

the fact that he kept his old Pontaic cleaner than Marjorie kept

the house, but now, there was nothing he could use to break the

window. He could try to break it with his hand or foot, but the

glass they used in cars nowadays was reinforced; he'd probably

just break his hand. Besides, how could he get out any of the

windows without touching the car? No way! No, he had to open

the car without touching the metal, but how?





 “Dear Lord, please show me the way. Help me ... Please ... 

Help me escape,” he pleaded, tears of frustration stinging his eyes.


All the metal in the interior of the car seemed to gleam in

the moonlight. The knobs on the dash, the horn bar on the

steering wheel, and the chrome around the mirror all twinkled

ominously. The door handle looked particularly menacing.





 “Oh, my sweet Jesus …!” he said, “I swear….” As he said

these words, he placed his hand over his breast, and there, in

the breast pocket of his coat, was his little personal Bible. He

pulled it out and kissed it, exclaiming, “Thank you, Lord. Oh,

thank you. You've given me a sign and shown me the way. I

promise you: More than ever, the Lord's will is my will, the Good

book is my book ... and Marjorie's! So help me, God!”





 Having raised the Bible up in his right hand as he spoke, he

leaned over to the passenger side of the seat and examined the

door handle. He thanked God that he had neglected to lock the

door when he had driven out into the night. All he had to do was

use the Bible to push the handle, and the door would open. He

gripped the top edge of the Bible tightly with both hands and

ever so slowly, but confidently, moved it toward the handle. When

it had come within a quarter of an inch of the handle, he felt

his whole body convulse. His hands shook so violently that he

had to pull them back. The sweat dripped off his forehead and

landed on his arm, startling him.





 “C’mon…c’mon…c’mon!” he whispered, reassuring himself.

The Lord was with him. He had shown him the way. All he had to

do was open the door and carefully walk out.





 Again he moved the Book toward the door; again he felt the

fear; again he felt the sweat, only now it was trickling down his

side, under his shirt, but he managed to overcome the shaking and

push the book forward. He braced his mind and body for the

impending contact, but something was nagging at him. It was the

mirror. He had an overwhelming urge to look in the mirror.





 “No! No! No!” he cried loudly, then he touched the book to

the door. “Ahh!” he gasped. He followed this exclamation of

terror with a torrent of laughter. It had worked! He could get

out! He was alright!





 “Praise the Lord!” he cried. “Thank you, God, thank you!”





 Only now did his gaze fall on the rear-view mirror. There

she was again clasping her upraised hands in supplication. Those

treacherous woman's tears running down her face. He felt the

heat at the back of his neck, the warning signal of his rising

anger. Then he laughed loudly right into the face in the

mirror. 





 “You almost killed me, you …you….” He struggled to

find the right word. BITCH! screamed in his head, but he

never used that word. He was a good man, a righteous man, and he

did not use profane language. He kissed his Bible, shook it at

the mirror, and laughed again.





 Now confident, he quickly, but cautiously, pushed the book

against the handle. He was surprised to see the Bible begin to

bend as he applied more pressure, and he was momentarily

dismayed, but by placing his left hand against the back of the

book, he was able to make the handle begin to move.






 It seemed minutes before he finally felt and heard the

click of the latch. While pushing outward with both hands behind

the Bible, he began to open the door. He breathed a huge sigh

when he felt the door crack open, revealing a sliver of space

between the door and the car. Encouraged, he put his body behind

the effort. He nearly tumbled onto the ground when, after

opening only a few inches, the door lurched and swung open wide.

The Bible fell from his hands and made a splashing sound. 

It was all he could do to keep himself from plunging headlong after it.





 What was that water doing there? He peered out of the car

door, and as he did so, the tip of the rising sun emerged from

behind a cloud.






 Water! 


 The Bible had already been washed away. He and his

car had landed in the middle of a flood channel. He'd seen these

channels carved all over the desert basin, caused by flash floods

as they sought the path of least resistance. And this one was

filling up rapidly. The water was already within inches of the

open door.






 A giant thunderclap drove him back to the middle of the car,

and as the rain began to beat down, he could see and hear the

torrent growing as it swept around and beneath his car. A bolt

of lightning crackled brightly, and as if in answer, the wire,

which he had almost forgotten, crackled and swayed.





 “Oh, dear Lord," he cried. "Please don't! Please ... PLEASE

DON'T!"





 In the mirror he saw his own, pleading face become

Marjorie's face, and his words were her words which he'd heard so

often.





 “Please…PLEASE DON'T!"





 Now it was his face again: frantic, pleading, terrified,

looking for a way to escape. Finally, he poised himself on the

edge of the seat facing the open door. The water had already

submerged the floorboard of his car. He crouched ready to leap

into the torrent and take his chances. There was no other way.

As he crooked both elbows behind his back, preparing to plunge

forward, the car door slammed in his face. 





 Cringing on the seat, he stared at his reflection in the window. 

With its hand upraised and its fist clenched, the reflection glared down 

at him and shouted, “YOU JUST TRY TO LEAVE!”

©1985 Tim McMullen
   All rights reserved

A Wake UP Call? If Not Now, When?

With the crude, crass, vacuousness of the Republican debates now behind us, it is Donald Trump's rallies that have become the focus of his campaign. Empty catch phrases, sometimes meaningless, rambling non sequiturs are met with loud applause and chants. These displays, however, have very little traction. 

The media has now turned its attention to Trump's gleeful cheerleading of violence at his rallies: his offering to pay legal fees for those who might be arrested for using violence against protestors; his saying from the podium about a protestor that he'd like to "punch him in the face"; his encouraging the crowd to "knock the crap" out of protestors. These are simply escalations of his mocking of women, mocking of his Republican opponents, mocking of Democrats and President Obama, and his mocking, early in the campaign, of a handicapped reporter. A recent graphic showed a picture of the crippled reporter juxtaposed with a picture of Trump imitating him. The text asked, "Is this 'Making America Great Again'?" Here is my response.

It's called "playing to your audience." Remember, they laughed and cheered when he did this. Trump didn't make these people—he just empowered them to be as ugly as they really are and then encouraged them to compete to one-up each other. 

We are who we have allowed ourselves to become, and we have allowed the worst among us to drive our national narrative for the last thirty years. Selfishness, greed, self indulgence, ugliness, coarseness, baseness, violence: In the hands of our consolidated corporate media they have come to redefine our national character. From Jerry Springer to Seinfeld (the show, not the comedian), from waffle and ice cream commercials to hotel commercials, these traits are not ridiculed or vilified, like they generally have been in our own past; no, they are championed as the means to success.

So often it goes under the guise of "values"—traditional values, family values, conservative values, religious freedom, PATRIOTISM. The tragic irony is that most of us have stood by while our language, our values, and our country were co-opted by liars, swindlers, cheats and thieves whose ironic double-speak has led to unfathomable hypocrisy, cruelty, greed and violence in both domestic and foreign affairs. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Ryan, McConnell, Palin, Bachmann, Gohmert and the hundreds of other little wannabe conservative extremists are the result of our own national apathy, ignorance, and complacency.

We need to WAKE UP, and just possibly, the vile and repugnant Trump campaign will be our wake up call although the ugliness of the similarly themed McCain/Palin and Romney/Ryan campaigns were not. More important than merely waking up, however, we need to fight this pernicious moral cancer and restore honor, integrity and a true sense of freedom and justice for all. That just might "make America great again."

“How Does an Unbeliever Develop a Sense of Morality?"

I recently noticed that it's been quite a while since I posted to the blog, so here goes.

My Facebook friend, Howard Prouty, posted an article about a young woman in a dispute with her roommates who was caught spitting in and otherwise contaminating the food of those roommates. She is being prosecuted. Howard posited the legitimate question, “How does an unbeliever develop a sense of morality? That is my morning meditation.”

I responded:
Morality and ethics are rational constructs. For an individual in true isolation, they have no meaning or purpose. However, when a second individual is introduced, a "society" is created. In order for that society to flourish for any length of time, certain rules must be established. "Not killing" is a perfectly logical first step; without that admonition, your society quickly dwindles back to "the one" and inevitable extinction (unless "the one" learns an alternative means to procreate). Animals, even without our faculty of speech, create rules for their offspring. “Listen to me and do what you're told,” “Obey your elders,” "Don't shit where you eat," etc.

The books of religion were written by men to explain and justify their existence. They were used to articulate rational rules that would control and maintain their society. Unfortunately, in every case, the initial, rational rules become entwined in superstition, and fear of the supernatural quickly becomes the rationale for adhering to the rules. Once this transformation takes hold, then the most irrational and foolish distortions become "written in stone" through dogma and ritual.

Stripped of their superstitious trappings, rules like "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," become perfectly reasonable precepts by which to live.

When Howard asked the question again, I replied:
Why would anyone make the assumption that this young woman was not steeped in religious training and religious history? If she's Catholic, she'll be forgiven with a quick mea culpa. If she's Muslim, she can claim they were infidels. If she's a fundamentalist Christian, she can do anything she wants and twist a scripture to justify her actions. If she's Jewish, she can claim that they were a threat to her existence. If she's Hindu, they were clearly lower caste. If she's Buddhist, she can claim that she thought they were Muslims. If she's a Quaker..., well, then, she has no excuse. If she'd been an atheist, she would have found better ways of coping through the application of intellectual analysis, invoking respect and problem solving to find a rational solution.

Another commenter joined the conversation:

“Tim... that is an excellent reply. But it WILL get worse. It's a new day. And any and all remnants of accountability for one's actions in life are evaporating. Mankind has historically gotten off on public torture and executions. Guillotines, hangings, the rack, slaves to lions... but just as we as a race supposedly had evolved... a nation born to be a world leader against tyranny and injustices or persecution... set forth in the belief of freedoms and under the banner "In God we trust"... we have regressed to basic primitive "Godless" acts. This has happened to so many now—in the form of our children. Technology begat advancement, and while no one's watching... they murder in the name of an obscure phenomenon called Slender Man.

It isn't that man won't stop using their religious beliefs to justify but that what little tether there was by acccountable morality has been lost. Those who were to set the example gave in and joined the party. With "progress" and advanced technology... we merely expanded the options.”

I answered these reasonable observations in this way:

I understand your pessimism, Kerry. I, on the other hand, call myself "the hopeful cynic." I do see a steady advancement, but as with most progress, it is "two steps forward, one step back." Many, if not most, of those gleefully inhumane forms of audience entertainment that you enumerate were either done in the name of religion or as a form of persecuting a particular religion. We actually have moved past most of those barbarities.

As you suggest, however, technology has certainly given us new means to destroy each other in the name of God and Country. From bigger and better guns and bombs to unmanned drone strikes, we continue the killing spree nearly unabated.

The surge of fundamentalism that has recently grasped Christianity, Islam, Judaism (the monotheistic religions) as well as Hinduism and Buddhism (polytheistic) seem to be a sort of last gasp in defiance of the steady march of true freedom: not the distorted "freedom to discriminate and legislate against others based on a particular religious bias," but the actual advancement of equality for women, the advancement of equal justice for all races, the advancement of rights for the LGBT community, the acceptance of the right of every human being to a safer, healthier environment.

The fundamentalist resurgence is a backlash against the transfer of power reflecting the obvious fact that those who who have stacked the deck aren't interested in having it reshuffled.

Do I believe that the impulse for human depravity will ever be fully eradicated? I haven't a clue. But I do believe that we have gone a long way toward containing it, and it was the development of ideals and principles designed to free governments and people from the domination of the irrational excesses and oppression of religion and aristocracy (also predicated on religion, i.e., "divine right") upon which our country was founded.

Remember, "In God We Trust" and "One nation UNDER GOD" were only added to the money and the pledge in the 50's, and they were added by some pretty rotten people to accomplish some pretty rotten things. The merging of religion with capitalism, using the pulpit to champion the triumph of the ruthless greed of the few and the oppression of the many came about in the 1880's; it was under attack from 1900-1920; it reemerged full throttle during the 20's, then submerged during the 30's and 40's; it again held sway in the '50's; it was lurking under the surface in the '60's; in the 70's it gained momentum; and since the 80's it has been the dominant world view of our preachers and our politicians. The irony is that people are turning their backs on these false and oppressive expressions of faith-based economies and religious fundamentalism. Hence, the drastic measures to cling to power.

Technology can be the bane or the salvation of mankind; it is not the technology but mankind who will decide. I believe that the human race really does have the potential to outgrow our petty and foolish adherence to demagoguery and chicanery, superstition and destructive tradition. I believe that we have the potential to not only learn to "do unto others as we would have them do unto us," but that we actually have the potential to choose to do so as well.

If we don't annihilate ourselves first (which we certainly might choose to do—a lot of people are making a lot of money facilitating that possibility), we can learn to adopt an approach to life that says, simply (though not easily accomplished), "Every day of my life, I will strive to be better for myself, for other people, and for the world." Repeat after me and teach it to your kids: "Every day of my life, I will strive to be better for myself, for other people, and for the world." It could have a much more profound impact than either the misguidedly altered Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag or the ubiquitous Lord's Prayer.

Satan, Santa and Stephen Crane

I saw this posted on a friend's FB page today. Normally, I would either "like" or ignore a graphic like this, but for some reason (perhaps the fact that I had just spent the previous hour responding to a comment on another post that I felt deserved a complete response) I felt moved to respond to this.

I get the sentiment, and I agree to a great extent, but I am afraid that it oversimplifies. Being an atheist is okay. Being a smug, arrogant, belligerent, self-righteous prig is not okay, whether you are religious or not.

Sadly, most religions shame themselves not merely with their intolerance of other faiths or points of view, but through practices that demean both the individual and "the other," including waging war against "infidels," "heretics," and "non-believers" in the name of God. Let us not exclude predatory priests, evangelical con artists, genital mutilation and female subjugation, to name but a few "religious" practices that deserve to be shamed, including defiance of science.

Furthermore, I know that it's meant to add levity, but reindeers don't have red, shiny noses, and perpetuating falsehoods and fantasies as anything other than literary fictions, no matter how telling and meaningful they are for the human condition can have dire consequences.

Insisting that the physical laws of nature can be ignored or circumvented has dangerous, real world consequences. Seizing a Holy Book—from whatever religion and regardless of how many times it has been translated and retranslated, collected and collated, reconfigured and re-collated, and no matter what wildly improbable or physically impossible events are claimed to have occurred (remember Leda and the Swan?)—and claiming that said Holy Book must be taken absolutely literally while failing to acknowledge any possible ambiguity or obvious contradictions can have devastating effects on an individual, a society, and our world.

I do not disdain religion nor those who see themselves as either religious or spiritual, and I admire many of the important tenets from many of the world's religions, but I decry those practices and practitioners who advocate the suppression or subjugation of people based on origin, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, or social status.

Stephen Crane wrote:

"And the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the heads of the children, even unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."

Well, then I hate thee, unrighteous picture;
Wicked image, I hate thee;
So, strike with thy vengeance
The heads of those little men
Who come blindly.
It will be a brave thing.

I concur with Crane's analysis. Most read this as a blasphemous attack on God, but it clearly is not. He is not offering a hatred of God; he is stating a hatred for that particularly "unrighteous picture" of God.

As if to explicate this idea, he later wrote:

I stood upon a highway,
And, behold, there came
Many strange peddlers.
To me each one made gestures,
Holding forth little images, saying,
"This is my pattern of God.
Now this is the God I prefer."
But I said, "Hence!
Leave me with mine own,
And take you yours away;
I can't buy of your patterns of God,
The little gods you may rightly prefer."

I believe the "peddlers" are the problem. "To each his own" seems to me to be a very virtuous statement when it comes to religious or spiritual beliefs.

PS: I liked the colors in the clouds, too.

God, The Pledge, the PC, and a Poem

The Pledge of the Politically Correct (written during the first Gulf War)

Angry Americans clamor

For Constitutional Changes

To Protect the National Symbol

From Despicable Desecrators

While patriotic Auto Antennas

Proudly display their

Tattered Flag Rags

Flapping fiercely in the wind

©1990 T. McMullen All Rights Reserved

On a “friend’s” Facebook page the following was posted in a graphic:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

…My generation grew up reciting this every morning in school with my hand over my heart. They no longer do that for fear of offending someone.

Let’s see how many Americans will repost and not worry about offending someone.” 

[I might add that the whole thing was in CAPS!]

The first comment, from Jonathan, said, “"Under God" was added in the '50s, during the apex of Cold War paranoia and McCarthyism. The original pledge was non-secular. This same hysterical time in our history is responsible for "In God We Trust" used as a slogan, thrown around federal buildings and our currency.

We evolve and shed the bullshit.

People who bitch about PC attitudes do not operate in anyone's best interest. They are haters, with entitlement issues about openly hating.

Recognize.

Jonathan, in a different comment, later asserted, “The Bible is a work of fiction.”

Then Brandon responded:

The Bible like all genuine works of world historical religion are works of the human heart not "fiction". Why do rabid atheist's eyeballs always seem like they are going to pop out? Hating religion, especially Christianity, is an easy, weak target for intellectual weaklings.

This exchange prompted the following from me:

Brandon, I am puzzled a bit by the distinction that you seem to be making between works of “fiction” and “works of the human heart.” Are you distinguishing between works of the heart as opposed to works of the “head,” i.e., purely rational, devoid of affective or emotional content? To be honest, I don’t think that I have ever encountered such a thing. Even the most “rational” piece of scientific writing has emotive qualities. It is the nature of written and spoken communication, and it seems unlikely that you are arguing that fiction is exclusively rational, neither inspired nor imbued with emotion; nor does it seem reasonable to assume that you think the sacred works are devoid of all rational thought. If they were, they would be worth very little indeed.

By works of the human heart, do you mean something that is “true” as opposed to fiction, which is “false”? I was faced innumerable times with eager students who, after reading some powerful and moving piece of fiction, would ask, “Is it true?” The need for it to be true in the historical sense gave them a sense of validation that a “made up story” could not. This error can be attributed to the folly and ignorance of youth. The most accurate answer is, of course, “though it may not have actually happened, it is certainly true.” Sadly, this consumer society has created a logical fallacy with their absurd and misleading phrase “based on a true story” or “based on real events” to describe the most preposterous works of supernatural or semi-historical fiction. This distortion of the concept of truth can also be seen in the absurdly ironic misnomer of “reality” TV for the ridiculously foolish and fabricated scenarios from Jerry Springer and Maury Povich to Big Brother and Fear Factor to Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

To argue that the great books of the world’s religions are “true,” in the sense of an accurate, historical documentation of actual physical events that occurred in a real time at a real place, and that they are “true” in their entirety, is also a patently absurd approach. Those fundamentalists who insist that every word of their “holy book” is not symbolic but literal either have no grasp of reality, or they have never actually read the books that they purport to believe.

Perhaps you are getting at the more meaningful distinction between pure literary fiction and mythological works. In this case, it is the motive more than the method that separates the two. Literary fiction is meant to entertain, to delight, to move, to motivate, to challenge, and to explain to the reader. The author may create a setting using verisimilitude or absolute fancy; they may create characters based on archetypes or stereotypes, or they may attempt a complex and nuanced depiction of actual people.

Notice, though, that each of these intentions and techniques can be applied not merely to great works of fiction, but they can also apply to The Upanishads, The Vedas, The Mahabharata and its excerpt The Bhagavad Gita, The Ramayana, The Jainist Agamas, The Tao Te Ching (or The Te Tao Ching), The Sutras, The Old Testament, The New Testament, The Koran, The Nordic Eddas, The Book of Mormon, and many other sacred texts. The difference between these “sacred works” and ordinary works of fiction is that the sacred books offer myths of cosmogony (creation), etiology (tracing of causes), legends and parables, as well as codes of conduct and rules of propriety.

While acknowledging this distinction between fiction and myth (and dismissing the more colloquial and ethnocentric meaning of “myth” as a falsity, fabrication, or false religion),

I fail to comprehend the source of your ire. You did not describe these works as messages from God but as works of the human heart, thus denying them any supernatural standing or sacrosanct authority.

If they are merely manmade, then they are fiction in their storytelling, howsoever wise in their advice and admonitions. As such, why can they not be held up to intellectual scrutiny, just like Hamlet, Tristam Shandy, The Scarlett Letter, The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984, The Grapes of Wrath, Death of a Salesman, The Tin Drum and other great works of fiction or Wealth of Nations, Gulliver’s Travels, “The Declaration of Independence,” Leaves of Grass, Origin of Species, Das Kapital, “Self Reliance,” “Civil Disobedience,” “The Pledge of Allegiance,” Mein Kampf and other works of poetry and persuasion?

You asked, “Why do rabid atheist's eyeballs always seem like they are going to pop out? Hating religion, especially Christianity, is an easy, weak target for intellectual weaklings." If something is “an easy, weak target for intellectual weaklings,” what must it be for those with some modicum of intellectual prowess?

No, it is not the ease with which individual inconsistencies, fallacies, fantasies, and absurdities in the religious texts can be identified and ridiculed that causes thoughtful, even spiritually-minded people to hold religion in such contempt. It is the use of religion by its adherents and by those ignorant poseurs who are deluded into believing themselves adherents, who use their understanding (or misunderstanding, distortion, or perversion) of “their” religion to justify their intrusion on the lives of others.

Persecution and subjugation on the grounds of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, and lifestyle; torture, murder and war from crusades to jihads, from occupations to intifadas, from suicide bombers to drone missile strikes (and no, these are not all morally equivalent—an uprising as a means of “shaking off” oppression, for example, is more justified than an invasion or an occupation) but the evil perpetrated from each of these acts of violence is done in the name and on behalf of religion.

When it comes to the original point, the document known as “The Pledge of Allegiance” or the “Flag Salute,” it is a very interesting affirmation, designed in the late 1800’s to bring a sense of patriotism at a time when the rise of capitalism had created slums and wage-slave factories. Bellamy proposed a document that would be recited by school children everywhere as a way of recognizing and encouraging the political and economic aspirations of the people. It said, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The flag was seen as a unifying symbol of the Republic, that is, the representative democracy, and not the corrupt and unscrupulous oligarchy that it was becoming. The term “indivisible” referred to the Civil War and the failure of the Confederacy to dismantle the Union, but it also referred to the economic disparity being created under laissez faire capitalism, the ever-widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots, that was fomenting a disdain for and revolt from the jingoistic “patriotism” of the masters by the working poor. The concluding phrase is, obviously, the heart of the affirmation and the aspiration. It states that this is a democracy with “liberty and justice for all,” with emphasis on “ALL.” When read in this form, it clearly comports with Francis Bellamy’s socialist intent.

Bellamy was adamantly opposed to the change fomented in 1924 by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution. They replaced “my Flag” with “the Flag of the United States” and a year later, they added,  “of America.” Bellamy’s protestations that these changes eroded the universality of his pledge went unheeded.

The crowning distortion, the change that, in fact, completely undermined the very premise of the pledge, was the anti-communist insertion of “under God,” at the urging of the Knights of Columbus during the Eisenhower administration. This absolutely upended an egalitarian statement about a country that protected the liberty of ALL and provided justice for All. The first statement in the first amendment of the Bill of Rights (the document without which the Constitution could not have been ratified and which is directly in line with the Preamble) is “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” By changing the Flag Code and declaring this to be “one Nation under God,” Eisenhower and Congress had thoroughly, intentionally, and unconstitutionally undermined and subverted the protection of religious liberty as proscribed in the first amendment.

Put simply, whenever politicians, pundits or partisans use God or religion as a rationale for promoting or punishing behavior, liberty and justice are curtailed, and harm transpires. Complaining about, even railing against those negative impacts, even from something as initially laudable as the “Pledge of Allegiance” seems completely justifiable.

Contraception Controversy: "Remember why the Pilgrims came here."

In a comment section on Facebook, someone was attempting to justify the attacks on women's access to health care and contraception as a religious right of conscience (my words—he said something like, "people shouldn't have to do what goes against their faith"), and he ended with, "Remember why the Pilgrims came here and why this country was founded!"

What follows is my answer:

History is fun sometimes, though. For example, the "Pilgrims" never actually called themselves "pilgrims." Some came to escape persecution for their so-called (but not self-called) separatist attitudes about the Anglican Church. They did not come here to establish religious liberty for others, but only to practice their brand of religion. They were, however, much more in favor of a clear separation of church and state than the Puritans who followed ten years later.  William Bradford, the leader of Plymouth, was not a minister, nor did they have one in their midst, but being puritans, but not Puritans, they followed some of the tenets of John Calvin, including a belief in "the accessibility of Divine truth," and therefore found ministers less necessary than the Anglican Church. They adopted a congregational (and somewhat democratic) approach to governance of the colony and to the separate governance of the church. 

Their little 2000 member colony was fairly quickly overtaken by 20,000 Puritans who did not defend one's right to free speech. They excommunicated, banished, and occasionally killed those who disagreed with or spoke against their decrees. It is very instructive to read Roger Williams and his treatise on "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution" in which he condemned the colonies in both Plymouth and Boston (and governments in Europe) for allowing people to be punished for their beliefs. He advocated freedom of religion and an absolute separation of church and state. For these reasons he was banished by the Puritans with the concurrence of the colony at Plymouth. 

One of the other things that got him kicked out was his argument that the King's charters establishing Plymouth Plantation and the Massachusetts colony were unlawful and that the natives must be paid for their land if the colonists were to stay. You can bet they ran him out quickly for that one. He did purchase land from the natives with whom he had formed a trusting friendship and established a colony which he named Providence. He also encouraged Ann Hutchison, another critic of the Puritan government in Massachusetts who was also banished for her teachings, to settle in another town close to his (This eventually became Portsmouth). Eventually, this area was formalized into the colony of Rhode Island, a true "land of the free" where Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and people from other persecuted religions could find true religious freedom.

So, I guess the short, snotty retort is, "Don't talk to me about the Pilgrims and the Puritans and why they came here" because it was only the reaction against their policies that helped our nation eventually establish our fundamental rights including freedom of religion and the essential wall of separation between church and state. 

Now, let's look at the idea of IMPOSING OUR VALUES (man, I love the "shouting" CAPS) [My response to his use of caps]. Every single law that has been proposed by the religious right—and remember a majority of Christians do NOT believe in the extremist positions that the radical right pursues, let alone those who practice non-Christian religions, not to mention those who find religion to be unfounded or predicated on dangerous superstition—every law proposing a limiting of access to or elimination of abortion or contraception or Planned Parenthood or other health care is a direct imposing of their religious values (or in some cases, cynical economic interests)  on the rest of us. 

So let's get down to the specific argument at hand. It has nothing to do with abortion. It has to do with providing insurance for employees. The Catholic Bishops say that they should not have to provide insurance that offers access to contraception to their employees, even if their employee is not Catholic. As has been true of every compromise by the President and the Democrats in the last three years, when the Republicans are given what they want, they say, "That's not enough. Now we want more." 

The president, very cleverly I might add, came up with a solution that answered the Bishops' complaint. They did not have to pay for contraception (remember, a huge majority of Catholics use contraception—I don't know what the statistics are for contraceptive use by pedophile priests, and yes, I am absolutely incensed that the same Catholic hierarchy that has condoned child molestation for centuries has the nerve to IMPOSE their minority religious view on this so-called "free" country, while using millions of tax-free dollars to impose that will!). His proposal required that access to birth control be provided not by the employer but by the insurance company. It's the same as the ridiculous Hyde amendment by which no federal dollars can be spent on abortion. Nevertheless, the foolish and ill-advised separation of spending sources would be maintained. Well, what of the good, honest, fair-minded Americans who want their federal dollars made available for women's health care, including access to safe and affordable contraception and abortion when necessary. They are held hostage to the machinations and manipulation of a few cynical billionaires and the flagrant hypocrisy of churches.

It is also extremely important to recognize that this health law had already exempted churches and church employees from this requirement. The requirement to have contraceptive coverage applied to all other employers, including other businesses that happen to be owned by a religious organization. In other words, if you had been hired by the church to work in the church, they were exempt from this provision. But if you worked in a hospital, or a store, or a restaurant or a service or manufacturing facility owned or run by a religion, then all employees would be covered. Another important part of this controversy is that many of these employees in these "religiously run" enterprises do not share the faith of their employers, and denying women coverage of contraception (while happily paying for and encouraging men's use of "viagra") is blatantly discriminatory. In a sense, especially when the employee is of a different faith from the employer, it is a form of religious persecution.

Look at it another way. If I am of a religious group that condemns homosexuality, do I have a right, as an employer, to deny medication and treatment for HIV or AIDS to my employees because I think it God's punishment for sin? Before you answer, remember, many straight people are afflicted with the disease (realize, also, that contraceptive medicine has other life-saving purposes in women's health). If I am a Quaker or a Jain, then I don't believe in war. Should my group spend millions of tax-free dollars to demand that not one red cent of any taxpayer's money be allowed to be spent on the military? Can I refuse to serve a soldier if he comes into my Quaker restaurant? Or deny my Jainist insurance coverage to any employee who is also a veteran? Can Christian Science congregations who hire someone inside or outside their faith refuse to provide insurance or health care for that employee? Can a Synogogue forbid their non-Jewish employees from having a lunch hour because one of them might eat pork? Understand, it's not that they would be required to prepare or serve the pork. They just can't prevent the employee from having access to that choice.

Now, fortunately, neither the Quakers nor the Christian Scientists nor the Jews take such extreme positions; in fact, despite their "unusual" (non-mainstream) religious beliefs, each of these groups are remarkably open and liberal in their thinking (of course, all groups have fundamentalist factions that are much less liberal, but they do not represent the vast majority). The religious employer is not being forced to use contraception, nor are they being forced to require their employees to use contraception; and in this new compromise, they are not even being asked to pay for it; they are only being asked to provide health insurance for their employees. That their employees choose to use contraception (and I do not hesitate to argue that abortion should also be available) should be absolutely no business of the employer. It should be a decision left solely to the employee. Your employer should not even know which specific health services you are using.

But the response to the President's compromise? A proposal from a Republican legislator that any employer be allowed to exclude any procedure from their insurance coverage for any reason. Pissed off yet? I am. And I am incensed and disgusted by the attempt of so many to equate the actions and motives of the two sides in this political charade—a controversy which emanates solely from the political and economic interests of the radical right in limiting freedoms while pretending to champion them!

The Burning Bush (A Song of Praise for Unrepentant Arrogance)

The Burning Bush
by Tim McMullen

Started 2003, revised 2007

I have seen the burning Bush
Reflecting the light of God
He blazed away in the light of day
But the words seemed rather odd

('Cuz he said) "If I suspect in days to come
That you might wish me ill,
From my fear alone God does condone
My authority to kill…
You and anyone who looks like you
And your children's children's children if I could
Unto the tenth generation of them that hate me!"
And the Bush saw it was good,
Then he put on his white hood….

"Why, they deserve elimination
They are an abomination…
Abombination here, Abombination there,
Ah (I) bomb a nation everywhere.
Here a nation, there a nation,
Everywhere I bomb a nation!"

I have heard the Burning Bush
Pronouncing impending doom
For birds and bees and the forests for the trees
The earth one blooming tomb.
And science? It's an affront to God
Whose glory runs on gasoline.
"My buddy, God, he gives the nod
To scourge the land and pick it clean

"For they deserve elimination
They are an abomination…
Abombination here, Abombination there
Global domination everywhere
With "shocks and awes" on Nature's flaws
We lie and deny the polar thaws!"
Such hypocrisy must give us pause…

Yea, I have seen the burning Bush
Rejecting the light of God
He blazed away in the light of day
But the words were disturbingly odd
Destroying "Thy staff and Thy rod"
With reasoning fatally flawed
New blasphemies yet untrod
Such effronteries to God
While patriot preachers applaud
The apocalypse here and abroad
The result of slack-jawed fraud


Yeah, I have seen the burning Bush

©2007 Tim McMullen
All Rights Reserved