Trump asking the boy who called about the whereabouts of Santa Claus if he still believed in Santa Claus at age seven, thus putting doubt about Santa Claus where his parents might not have, caused me to recall the moment my dad told Barry and me.
It was an innocent enough morning. The kitchen in the little house in Doushore Pennsylvania. (I laugh every time I say that name.)
Barry was just about to turn seven and I am nearly two years younger. Barry was ready to have the truth but I was not.
Barry's attitude was "Fine with me if it's Dad who buys our presents and not Santa so long as I get presents."
But I was all, "Goddamnit! Another lie. Here I am struggling my hardest to figure out how the world works and everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, I talk to including my own parents, all of my adult relatives, purposefully fake me out. And that delays my comprehension of how the world works. New rule: Never trust anything that anybody tells me about how things work. Question everything."
So how am I supposed to believe in Jesus and all his miracles when I've been bullshitted so seriously about everything. Including where presents come from, North Pole, flying reindeer, fat man coming down chimneys even when there is no chimney to be seen.
In the Coplay Pennsylvania church I was dropped off while services ran upstairs, all the children were singing.
"Jesus loves me yes I know for the bible tells me so."
I ask the nice lady running the little Sunday School.
"Ok, how do I know Jesus loves me?"
The kids looked at me like I'm a freak.
"Because the Bible tells you so! You just sang the song. That's how you know."
"So it's in a song. So it's in a book. Still, how do I know for certain that Jesus love me. Are you telling me to believe every song, everything that I read when I learn how?"
"You believe everything in the Bible."
"How can you believe everything in a book? How can you be so sure?"
"You just sit right there, young man, and your mother is going to hear about this."
"Good. Maybe she'll have a better answer than you. (But she's a huge faker outer too. "Eyes in the back of my head" and all that." Nobody can be trusted. Nobody.)
At my mother's mother's place I did something reasonably good, I forget what, but I asked my Nana, the sweeter of two grandmas, what do I get for it. She said, "You'll be rewarded in heaven."
What a cheapskate. Come on. Shake it out. Give me something material for reward.
"How do you know that? How can I be sure of that? "
I'm five years old and already a philosophical little shit.
Because of the Santa Claus lie.
"We know it, you know it, by faith."
"I don't have any faith. I don't know what that is."
I never saw her change so rapidly. From kind sweet harmless Nana to vicious fire breathing dragon lady. She grabbed my two shirt collars and lifted me off my feet by my shirt and put her scowling face directly in front of my face and spit out, "Well you just better get you some faith." Then dropped me back onto my feet. Disgusted with my faithless little self. I'm certain she told my mother.
I could never look at her the same since. Absolutely every adult was dangerous. Unpredictable. Unfathomable. And Bullshitters.
I spent the next decades trying to get me some faith. Looking for faith. Trying to understand what it is. And I did that with everyone bullshitting me.
It's nearly impossible sorting fact from fiction. And the opinions and saying of others are virtually useless. I am on my own. And the story of Santa Claus was only the beginning. But it was the beginning, when this sorry state of never ending bullshitting from everyone became clear.
2 comments:
I was raised rather differently. Questions were encouraged, because my parents were supremely confident answers existed, even if they themselves didn't know them. That said, my parents had pretty good answers, something I have come to appreciate more and more as the years gone by.
I was very much the skeptic, to the point in religious instruction, where I piped up how could the Jews be responsible for crucifying Christ when the Romans pounded the nails? Or did this have something to do with all the Popes being Italian?
Thankfully, the nun teaching us, Sister Marietta, was an absolute sweetheart.
I think a grandma who would get that angry and grab you by the earlobes probably had some deep-down doubts (or fears) herself.
I got hit and yelled at for a lot of things, some of which (actually, more than a lot IMHO) weren't even my fault, but I never got a hard time for thinking for myself.
Well, almost never.
Post a Comment