Letters From Mama: Don't Get Married!

If you have read my blog for long, you may know that I grew up in an abusive environment.  I learned to cope quite well until I was 19 years old.  At that point in my life, the heat got too hot and I was ready to be free.  I will detail the circumstances surrounding that event at a later date. 

Anyway, I left and went to live with my dad to get on my feet and expose myself to the real world in full color, rather than a world through sheltered and well defined, paranoiac lenses.  My freedom came with many bumps in the road as I discovered that I was truly lazy when I wasn't being yelled at to accomplish a task.  I also had much maturation to build.  Life moved very fast and I needed to jump in and roll with it.

One day, I went on a weekend trip to Spirit Mountain in Duluth, Minnesota and met a girl.  She was struggling to set up her tent and I, being the machisimo man I was and the endeavor of all women that ever came in contact with me, squirted over to help her.  The rest was history.  We fell in heat...er...love.  I proposed less than two months later and we were married one year after, to the day, we met.

Let's back up to July 17, 2001 - the day the love of my life and I decided on the date of the wedding.  Mama sent me a letter.  Remember, I had escaped out of her world nearly two years prior and she would leave no stone unturned trying to get me back.  Using religion and false warmth was her favorite tactic.  This letter was no different.

I left in all the punctuation (she seriously overuses it) and the capital letter screaming is from the original text.  I will be inserting comments in between her words as emotion drives me.

*****

Dear Joseph,

[I had been going by "Joe" for years.  Ever since I left her home, I never went by my full name.  She knew this.  Therefore, she used my full name, at every opportunity.  This won't be the last time in this letter.]

Forgive me; all the issues I obtained for you of This Old House, I'd thought I was giving you the most precious gift; I looked through the last one I'd gotten, and found I'd been giving you a magazine that had liquor, smoking, and more and more sensuality being slipped in.  I am so sorry.  I trust that my prayers for you had kept your discernment muscle strong.

[Several things here.  First of all, you knew when Mama started out with an apology that she wanted something.  Mama was never wrong.  She would admit to wrongdoing, beg for forgiveness, then do it all over again. 

The other thing you may notice is that she read my mail.  But, don't dwell on that.  That is normal for a control freak.  What she was referring to here was the fact that she ordered a subscription to This Old House for me, then had it delivered to her house, so I would have to come and pick it up. 

I never picked any of the issues up.  So, she brought this into the light in this weird way.  I wouldn't put it past her to have required me to come back to her home to live, before I could get the magazines - that I didn't even want , anyway.

Finally, my father had smoked for many years.  Who did I go to heal with when I escaped her home?  My father's house.  She knew full well what she was doing in writing this.

And, to set the record straight, I love women and liquor.  Smoking, not so much. But women and sometimes liquor...bring them on, as much as possible!  Mama misses what is best for her boy every time she considers only herself.]
Joseph [I told you...], my precious son, I have been young, and now I am old(er).  All of my discipling (sic) since I have been saved has been right down this line - relationships and how God allows them to work or not work.  HE DOES NOT ALLOW IT TO WORK IF YOUR PARENTS HAVE NOT GIVEN THEIR BLESSING.
 

[My mother has actually been up on Mount Sinai and spoken to God herself.  Moses has nothing on her.  Moreover, she was thorough in her research before she wrote this letter, insomuch that she interviewed several billion couples that had tied the knot and believed in her god.  (If they didn't believe in her god, well, then they were kinda screwed).

Every couple that told her their relationship was perfect (I interviewed all of those couples afterward and they revealed to me that they were lying anyway) also let her know that they had received a full blessing from both sets of parents.  Those couples that had eloped or had gotten hitched where at least one parent's consent was not solidified, had either gotten divorced, murdered each other, or became lesbians.

My mother was listening to the wrong people.  Those who COULD have been giving her therapy and teaching her about REAL life were not the ones she was listening.  Rather, she was surrounded by enablers.

But wait...she has more! ]

Please do not set yourself up for misery, Joseph.  Please wait until Papa releases you, deeming you fully mature in his eyes.

[Now that went a bit too far.  Mama had refused to have a relationship with Papa since the divorce unless he met her every demand (Exactly the reason why he divorced her.  She would actually beat him into submission.).  So, if that was the case, how the heck did she know what his desires for my life were?  Not to mention, he did exactly as a father should - gave me great counsel in life and kicked me off the branch, believing I could fly.  He was an awesome dad.

Frankly, if I had turned out gay, my father would have been happy.  If I decided to marry a dog, he would have raised an eyebrow and handed me a coupon for Puppy Chow.  If I decided I was going to move to Mongolia and have twenty wives and three cats with no kids, my dad would have sent bags of Qwikrete across the Urals so I could live in a big hut like a king.  He was a DAD!  He loved his son and stayed out of his business.

But that isn't the worst part.  Mama's religion was a set of formulas.  If you broke one, you're toast.  I needed to pass all of her tests...I mean, God's tests, before life would open up for me and success would be mine.  Now THAT is misery!]

I love you so much, and I would take the anguish you are going to go through, upon myself if God would let me.  He cannot contradict Himself, Joseph.

[Seriously?  Well, how about this, Mama!  Your god can't contradict himself here because he NEVER SAID ANYTHING of the sort!  God never said that a man had to ask his parents to get married and only then would his union be blessed.  This is found NOWHERE in the Bible - the purported source for her god.

Sure, there are descriptions of marriages where the father chose the bride for his son.  That isn't quite the formula she is referring to, but details don't matter much to her.  But, if we must get technical, the Benjamites lost a ton of chicks in a war that God brought upon them so the dudes ran to another tribe and grabbed some chicks for wives - also sanctioned by God.  Or, Hosea went and bought a prostitute as a wife - also sanctioned by God.  David had wives and not ONCE did he ask his dad's permission in the text and yet he was considered a man after God's own heart.  Her assertion is pure poppycock.

But, the worst part is that she sees her god as an evil being.  He MUST dole out my punishment to ME when I don't get the rules exactly right and has no mercy.  What's more, the supposedly all powerful being is handicapped, where he is unable to pass the punishment on to another person that is BEGGING him to do so.  There is something more powerful than god in this case - his own set of rules that he himself designed.  How horrid.]

Please ponder Hebrews 13:8.

[Hebrews 13:8 says: " Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever".  Huh?  It's funny she uses this verse.  Verse 7 would have worked toward her point SO much better.  Her loss.]
In tears of anguish for your sake, yet, even so He gives me John 14:27,

Mama XO

*****

You see the thinly veiled spiritual scare tactics and the manipulation?  Oof!

Anyway, more letter to come in this series.

A Devastated Little Boy

Halloween came quickly this year.  Our family rustled up the last of our costumes around the time we were supposed to go out the door and start terrorizing the neighborhood.

As we knocked on every door with a light on, the kids got more eager to grab the candy offered them in the bowls.  The owners of each house ran the gamut of love for children or simply doing the deed out of hapless irritation.

One elderly couple made an evening of it, genuinely enjoying every youngster that crossed their threshold.  They had dragged an old television and a space heater out to their three-season porch and sat on two rocking chairs with the light on, waiting for that footstep on the stairs and a knock on the door.

When my squirts ambled up, knocked and weakly whispered "Trick or treat!", the old woman jumped into action.  She was out of her rocking chair in a flash with a gigantic metal bowl, filled with candy, under her arm.  The old man smiled from ear to ear, loudly praising the children for their costume choices and getting them to slap his hand many times.  Handfuls of candy went into each pillowcase with Jack (2) begging loudly for the only candy he really cared about (any food, for that matter) - a sucker.

Then Frederic stepped up.  He had on a cheap Incredible Hulk costume with a thin plastic mask.  The teeth on the mask were bared, revealing bloody gums.  It looked gruesome, but fake enough to allow a dog to look once and slink away without growling.

When the old man caught sight of him, he let out a whoop and said "You're ugly!!!"  Frederic's frame immediately stiffened and he stopped in his tracks.  Nothing.  No words, no movements.  Nothing.  The old man chuckled and said again, "You're really quite ugly!!!"  You could see the wind escaping from Frederic's body and the devastated hunch of the shoulders began to show.  Then, slowly, his right arm moved upward toward his mask.  His hand lifted the mask off his face and up onto his hair.

Without skipping a beat, the old man loudly declared, "Wow!  Now you're cute!!!" 

Frederic's transformation was real.  His whole body softened, the shoulders became loose, and his beautiful smile beamed across his face.  You could read his mind and knew that he understood that the old man was just talking about his mask - which he already knew was ugly - not Frederic himself.

The rest of the evening was uneventful.

I Am on a Need to Know Basis

A friend at work mentioned to me the other day that a few of our colleagues were deeply religious.  Ten minutes later, I had listed all forty fellow employees' religious leanings.  Yes, every single employee!

Now, why would I know that information?  It's not like I make a point to extract it out of them over time.

As many of you already know, I grew up in an Independent Fundamental Baptist church that worshiped Bill Gothard and later, Vision Forum.  These organizations are very strict in their religious dogma and require that all members, friends of members, and everyone else (the lost - those that are destined to go to hell) adhere to the same.

In order to require adherence, these organizations emphasize, heavily, the education and training of their victims.  The victims need to understand the exact formulas for salvation and religion, which includes all life decisions.  Thus, just like the Amway representative sees all of his friends and everyone else as potential dollars, the IFB/BG/VF person sees everyone through their fundamental lense of religion.

And that is how I lived for nearly thirty years.

I actually cared what people believed.  It allowed me to slot others into their religious boxes and identify myself "correctly" amongst them.

I'm ready for a different classification.

What beer do you like?  No, not the brand - the type!

How about, do you enjoy mowing the lawn?  Yard work?  Do you care about weeds?  What about raking the leaves after they fall?

Yeah, that should begin a good new habit.

Classify away!