No loss
You've been waiting all your life
For your big jump
You felt sorry for me in my face
But in my back you talked badly
In my weakest second
You no longer hid your knife
You also kicked
Using the opportunity
Acting as if you felt empathy
Let me down
Got your money out of me
Sold for your own good
Held up memories
Building upon my sentiment
Caring about me by plan
Having changed sides for a long time
Talked out my cards
At the other table
Blending me with old times
Playing your mean game
Finally on your rules
Feeling like the king
Overseeing in your extasy
It was too big a number for you
Acted out being my friend
While only suffering
Only forgetting jealousy
With every new kick
Throw me out as food
When I wasn't standing for long
Enjoying my weakness
Your final battle
It was all about measuring for you
You are no loss
You were never an enemy to me
Trusted on you a thousand per cent
Told you everything
Melted the most intimate to you
Maybe I forcedly
Put up a halo above you
We never had problems
Who should give and who should take
We were never rivals
This security is messed up
Life is harder
We've lost our innocence
You bit on your tongue
You tightened your lips
Cut up by ambition
You never named anything
You silently survived me
Always keeping up your looks
Waiting for your opportunity
Using it at once without thinking
It was all about measuring for you
You are no loss
I Ain’t No Hippa Crit
i sure do love muh countree,
i love beeing n amarry cun,
just ain’t to fond of all them ferenors,
ya knows the ones i mean.
they come over here,
steal or jobs,
don’t never pay no taxes,
and squawk about being perseecuted,
complaining all the time how we are bi-assed about’em.
and blacks, mexi cans and china people,
what the hell is wrong with them?
don’t they know we let’em live here
cause we are the land of the free?
i swear, if’n they don’t like it,
they can move back to where they came from fer all i care.
then there’s them so-called librells,
with their fancy talk about changes,
ain’t nuthin’ wrong with amarryca;
they can suck wind fer all i care.
if’n they ain’t a republic can,
then i say they ain’t amarry cun.
but i love my countree.
got me a question though,
what’s a hippa crit?
____________
Just in case, this is a challege and not how I really feel.
Don’t want to leave a wrong impression of myself.
Growing Up Christian
Cherrypicked chapters of Leviticus read by
Pastors wearing polyblend
Just before working on a Sunday
Make me sick.
Red faced Bible bangers
Proudly proclaim from the pulpit that
you'll inherit the kingdom of God...
Unless you have premarital sex,
Unless you love another woman,
Unless
Unless
Unless.
Meanwhile, the same
Polyblend wearing pastor is
Molesting the mousy church girl
Behind closed doors.
The Bible bangers protect his pride.
"We should pray for him,"
They say, refusing to turn him in.
But oh, if that girl gets pregnant
What is she?
Whore.
Sinner.
Liar.
No matter that she's twelve.
No abortions for you!
(We'll just help him molest your baby later.)
"Keep God in school!"
Where is he when those kids get
Killed?
Was he perhaps
Watching Netflix?
Taking a nap?
But let me guess,
Jesus wanted us to carry guns, right?
(Thou shalt not murder, anyone?)
Fuck hypocrisy.
Fuck being civil to
Relatives who only keep me around
Because one day,
I'll surely be converted!
They hope that one day, I won't be "disgusting"
In the eyes of my uncle,
A man I trusted until
He spat it at me because my grandpa is "queer,"
as they say.
So am I.
(Birds of a feather, I guess.)
Men in the spotlight
molest in the shadows.
Women shouting outside abortion clinics
wish their kids were dead for being gay.
Hypocrites are
Heinous.
Hellish.
Hateful.
I rebuke them in the name of
Sanity.
Care
Was it your aim? To take my mind, make me less than you could imagine?
When did you decide to steal my worth and take away my meaning of freedom?
Where were you before you saw a victim to abuse and us and accuse of doing
imagined slights and things against your tethers reach tied so closely to your post?
All consumed in indecision and confusions, born of your delusions and your own paranoia.
Drugs foul cures of no efficacy, healing little cracks where cavernous gulfs span the life you allow.
The vengeances you vow. Curses you expound with evidences of wrongs and faults and all the miseries vaulted up. Inputs of self loathing, me, making you controlling, no thought for tolls you extract and charges you exact upon my person.
The nothing that is now my meaning and seeming ideal.
An image concealed behind furrowed brows that wonder when you?, no we, fell off the trail of was a rail for balancing along?
The tightrope course so tort and under tensions pulling together that magnetism that pole of opposites exert for repelling. Forcing the triangle into circles far too small for hollows to hide in when feeling miserable about ourselves.
For I am sure that you could not be living a parade, no jamboree. The masked fiesta, hiding where the pain is coming from and where the spark has gone,
as you, the thief of many a piece of what I was and that which glittered as my magpies eye that roved and stole a flirting moments baited hook. I was landed in a net of many strands and many threads, a maze of yarns and stories
leading ever down an oubliette, a trap I entered into of volition without perceived need for shield nor buckler. For the armour of sentiment and faith in love, blindness, “childness”, needs and crutches, shoulders for the leaning, the
support alluded to when, glances once connected to the flame of attraction and distracted actions of a self sacrificed, fell into you.
Adulation toward a wall that is no wall at all but rather a dark terminus where busses leave at dead of night towards refuges a ticket away.
We scrabble for the piece and scraps we need and so deserve for every second served to pleasure curses and demeaning positions on the floor, as you step over any part of me that I might carelessly leave laying.
For me is it that you care?
The Prophet of Nothing
I learned about hypocrites from my mom’s second husband, Dean. Dean was one of those pious, Bible quoting, born in the church types. His mother had him convinced at an early age that he would be the next Apostle Paul. On the less than holy side of things, Dean was also a wife beating, drug shooting, adulterous, porn addicted asshole. Still, he learned to play the religion game early. Any sin, no matter who it battered or abused was forgiveable so long as he saught forgiveness. Dean was a master repenter and my first example of what it means to be a hypocrite.
Part of Dean’s religious upbringing centered on the fact that the mark of the beast was coming and that only a place called, “Zion” would be safe. In addition to a safe place for the righteous, Zion would be the place where God’s army would be gathered before going to war against the anti-Christ. Dean’s mom was certain that God revealed to her where Zion was. Conveniently, Zion was far from where she lived. You see, Dean had a habit of sponging off her and she did not like that he moved his common law wife, their two children, and what she perceived as a bastard son in with her. So, it was a blessing that Zion would lead Dean and his brood far away to be some of the first soldier’s in God’s army.
So, shortly after my mom married the would-be general in God’s army, she and Dean moved me, and my half-brother and half-sister (yes, both born out of wedlock) to the prophesized location of Zion. Apparently, Zion was located in Trinity County, more specifically, in Hayfork, California. If you’ve never heard of Hayfork, there is a good reason. Hayfork can be found in extreme Northern California. It is nestled like a cancerous tumor in a small valley within the Cascade Mountains. The tiny pustule of a town had two thousand people, no work, and a thriving meth lab and marijuana producing economy. Once, the timber industry thrived there, but as trees were cut and never replanted, the remote area became ripe for take over by those who had no intention of being productive members of society. This Zion offered Dean the chance to cling to his religious delusions and indulge his addictions. It also offered the added benefit of allowing Dean to exercise his complete aversion towards work.
Upon arrival at the purported Zion, Dean made an executive decision. Instead of finding a job at ground zero for God’s army, he chose to raise his family on welfare. Dean felt that it was a way of robbing the anti-Christ, who controlled the government. It also gave him time to witness to lost souls while sitting on a bar stool or slamming crank (what we now call meth) in his favorite drug den. Of course, saving souls took money, so the welfare that should have paid the rent and kept the lights on was routinely snatched up by Dean on the first and fifteenth of the month. He would then disappear for a few days, eager to continue his mission to save souls. If he had the opportunity to get high in the process, he would do so. After all, being a general in God’s army was stressful and he needed the energy meth provided to strike fear in the hearts of the anti-Christ’s demonic legions.
My mom, like a good Christian woman chose to forgive her husband when he would return home with empty pockets and soul filled with shame. After all, she was told that she had to, “Submit herself unto her husband.” Surely, her dutifullness as a wife would lead Dean away from his sinful ways. On the rare occasion that my mom argued with Dean about the lack of money to pay the rent and feed the children, she meekly took her beating. A broken nose, torn earlobe, and pulled out hair was the price she paid for speaking against such a Godly husband. When the fight was over, Dean would sob, say he was sorry, and then he and my mom would pray that they could both be better Christians.
Dean’s sinning ways went beyond drugs and violence towards his help-mate. He was equally addicted to sex and all things pornographic. As a result, Dean made his way through my mom’s friends. After all, these single women needed to know what it was like to be cared for by a Godly man. In addition, the methamphetamine abuse seemed to twist Dean’s lust. In a small town like Hayfork, it didn’t take long for us to hear rumors about Dean’s depravity. It was rumored that Dean had a stash of child pornography. He was later accused of molesting my mom's friend's daughters and even his own little girl. We also heard stories that he was into beastiality and that he regularly sold himself as a means to pay his drug debts. The rumors were never substantiated, but a part of me has always felt that the whispers held a shred of truth.
All through the chaos, I learned that my situation was precarious. Having the instincts of a child, I loathed Dean from the day I met him. Being young, I tried to make myself invisible. That is, until I got older. As life grew worst, I started to open my mouth more. Dean quickly realized that I was a potential problem. After all, I was the product of my mom’s previous marriage to an atheist. This all but labeled me as a possible demonic force within Dean’s family. To make my situation worst with the would-be profit, I didn’t like church, and I talked back. Of course, the biggest threat was the growing possibility that I might report the empty refrigerator, beatings, and drug use to my teachers.
Unfortunately for me, Dean decided to turn me towards the light. As a man of God, Dean felt it necessary to purge his wife’s nine year old son of evil. All books other than the Bible were forbidden to me. This was intollerable for me because books were my escape. So Dean’s rule was promptly broken by secret trips to the library and books I read at school. These books became more and more centered on fantasy, science fiction, and very non-Biblical subject matter. Dean also tried to purify me by limiting my musical curiousity. Music could only be Christian music, more specifically, holy roller gospel music complete with people speaking in tongues in the background. Of course, I rebelled there too. I indulged in Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. The more pious he wanted me to be, the more I gravitated towards the darker side of things. When he spouted scripture at me with the omnipresent, "Praise God" thrown in for emphasis, I would drown out the bullshit in my mind with my favorite heavy metal lyrics:
"Gen'rals gathered in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction,
Sorcerer of death's construction"-Black Sabbath
It was a small rebellion, but it kept me sane.
By the time my mom stopped drinking the Kool-Aid and devorced Dean, I had developed a severe hatred for hypocricy. Unfortunately, it was a misguided hatred fueled by growing teenage angst. Due to my experiences with Dean, I came to think that Christians were either monsters wearing a cheap religious disguise, or they were sad pious door mats like my mom who were trapped by a belief in bronze age nonsense. By the age of fourteen I developed the opinion that the practice of feeding Christians to the lions needed to be revived post-haste. I wanted no part in God, Christianity, faith, or religion. That way was the way to madness. Or as so eliquently stated by AC/DC, "If God's on the left, I was sticking to the right."
Time has allowed me to develop the wisdom to understand that religious belief doesn’t need to reside in the realm of absolutes. There are good Christians and bad people who proclaim themselves to be Christian. There are even people who aren’t Christian’s who live closer to the Christian ideal than those who are in church every Sunday. I will never belong to a religion. The usual demand of religion that one must accept someone else's blind definition of, "God's will" leads towards genocide, wars, hatred in the name of cryptic dogma, and hypocricy. However, I have made my peace with a benevolent, loving God who understands why that scared little kid didn’t want to go to church. If being Dean meant being Christian, he didn’t want to be Christian.
Hypocrisy
It first visited me when I was young and starry-eyed. I had gone to church with my mother in a different town when we were visiting relatives one summer. Same religion we practiced at home; just a different congregation. That should not have mattered; but I had recently discovered I was a color, and that it was different from my mother’s and that it wasn’t terribly pleasant to be a color surrounded by, well, no color. People looked at me with unfriendly looks in their eyes when I had done nothing to garner such looks. I was a quiet, obedient child. Yet, I had only to be, to exist in my skin, and for some reason I did not understand, I was despised, less than, odious. And in this church, where I had been told we were all children of God, love thy neighbor as thyself, didn’t mean everyone.
If I listened to the murmurings after church amongst those converging outside on the steps – any church I ever attended - it was rampant, vividly present. Clearly, all were without sin as they cast stones on neighbors I did not know and would never meet. It was worse, years later, when I was in an adult choir and had to quit because the virulent comments between pastor and choirmaster and other choir members was so at odds with the words we sang, the prayers read. Even though none of it was aimed at me, it made my heart ache.
When I had a child of my own, my son had his first experience with it when attending a religious school…when a child told him he had to go to the back of the line of children who wanted to see some new toy the child had brought to school…because my son had color in his skin while the others did not. Clearly, the religious teachings were not as strong as others being learned by that child. My son didn’t understand. I had no words to explain, only love and hugs. We are all children of God...
And then, a few years after that, the pillar of a church called him an unforgivable name - without knowing him, the good, kind, generous, thoughtful loving person that he was and is. He simply saw a tinge of color and without regard to the faith he professed, the God creator he worshiped, he called a child he did not know, an ugly, ugly word. And scarred that child who still did not understand why simply living in his skin should be cause for maltreatment. Thank God he was surrounded by good people and friends – and parents and relatives – who helped him to see his worth despite those who would allow their judgement and behavior to be skewed, rather than guided by the faith they professed.
My son is now agnostic, perhaps atheist. Yet, he is accepting of all faiths, all races – all people. In the face of behavior that scares or angers me, he is forgiving. Understanding. Loving. Indeed, his behavior more closely follows the teachings of various religions than any of the hypocrites that we have encountered over the years who do not live by the precepts they profess. I thank God for them, though, for even they helped him to become who he is: “We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.”
That’s what he is, but what am I?
Everything he says is a lie,
Everything he does is a crime,
Every thought he conceives is sinful,
Every gesture he makes is hateful.
I sure do hate that awful man,
I hope, I hope to see the back of him,
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
On second thought,
it should give you good whack.
That slimy sludge of humanity,
That toxic spill, with legs,
That rancid inside out
Of a lower intestine,
Where nothing good is left,
Only brown stuff.
Weak, fickle, boring.
Inexorably drawn ,
To the wild nectar of the trash.
Full of hate, repulsed by his peers,
Feels inferior, and rightly so.
Glad I’m not like him,
Not one tiny bit...
Hypocrisy, Our Lord and Savior
Ted Haggard- Evangelical pastor, founder of the New Life Church, infamously known for condemning homosexuality. Caught with male prostitute whom he had been paying for sex with and purchased and used crystal meth with.
Pastor Ernest Angley- Anti-gay televangelist and author who claims AIDS/HIV can be cured by “God’s Healing Power”. Admitted to having a forced same-sex sexual encounter with one of his staff members in a recording.
Jim Bakker- Televangelist best known for the PLT Club and the Jim Bakker Show. Embezzled from his own church group of donations, which he served 5 years for, and raped his church secretary and tried to pay off said secretary with hush money.
Bishop Eddie Long- Extremely anti-gay pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Pressured and sexually abused his male practitioners when they were teenagers.
David Matheson- Notorious Mormon gay conversion therapist. Now identifies as gay and wants to start dating men.
Jimmy Swaggert- Pentacostal televangelist behind the Jimmy Swaggert Telecast and A Study of Words broadcast programs. Involved in a sex scandal with a prostitute. TWICE.
Ken Ham- Australian-born Christian fundamentalist young earth Creationist and president of Answers in Genesis, a creationist apologetics organization that operates the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. Has no science degree, continuously lies to the public (specifically impressionable children) with no real evidence to back up his claims, and used tax-payers money to build arc replica.
Joel Osteen- Televangelist with a big-ass megachurch and a bigger-ass mansion. Turned away people who have lost their homes from flooding during Hurricane Harvey from his church, which is big enough to house over 16,000 people to serve as a shelter.
The list could go on. Hell, I could list the numerous child sexual abuse cases made by members of the Catholic Church, but I think I’ve made my case.
Honestly, I could say that religion is nothing but a breeding ground for hypocrisy, but it’s far too easy and just a very broad and untrue statement. The real, cold truth is that the people that I’ve listed off are some of the biggest hypocrites of all time, and there are like-minded individuals who are doing the exact same thing around the world. What’s worse is that they’re using their faith as a means to justify their actions while at the same time causing so much harm to others. This my friends, is the true definition of hypocrisy.
#religion #hypocrisy #atheism
