September 23: God is Listening, Purgatory, Human Failings

"Did that really happen?" said Maggie White.  She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies.  Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away.  She hadn't had even one baby yet.  She used birth control.

"Of course it happened," Trout told her.  "If I wrote something that hadn't really happened, and I tried to sell it, I could go to jail.  That's fraud."

Maggie believed him.  "I'd never thought about that before."

"Think about it now."

"It's like advertising.  You have to tell the truth in advertising, or you get in trouble."

"Exactly.  The same body of law applies."

"Do you think you might put us in a book sometime?"

"I put everything that happens to me in books."

"I guess I better be careful what I say."

"That's right.  And I'm not the only one who's listening.  God is listening, too.  And on Judgment Day he's going to tell you all the things you said and did.  If it turns out they're bad things instead of good things, that's too bad for you, because you'll burn forever and ever.  The burning never stops hurting."

Poor Maggie turned gray.  She believed that, too, and was petrified.

Kilgore Trout laughed uproariously.  A salmon egg flew out of his mouth and landed in Maggie's cleavage.

I don't think Kilgore Trout believes in Judgment Day or God or eternal fire.  He's simply messing with innocent Maggie.  Telling her things to elicit responses that amuse him.  Or maybe he does hold that concept of God, the Almighty Judge and Jury.  No matter.  His laughter is genuine and more than a little cruel, regardless of his personal theology.

I was sort of raised with this depiction of God.  I remember, when I was a kid, reading a really thick book about Purgatory.  It had a black cover, with white lettering.  Hundreds and hundreds of pages about punishment and purification and souls.  It was more terrifying than Stephen King or William Peter Blatty or Bram Stoker.  It gave me nightmares of lakes of fire.  Molten lead being poured into my mouth for lies that I'd told or repeated.  Hot pokers being shoved into my eyes for looking at pictures in magazines my brothers kept under their mattresses.

When I attend Mass now, I don't hear a whole lot of talk about Purgatory.  It's still a part of the Catholic belief system.  However, it's not a huge selling point for the Church.  Not that the Catholic Church is a commodity to be advertised and marketed.  But, torture does not give people the warm fuzzies.

I know what you're wondering:  Does Saint Marty believe in Purgatory?  My answer to that question is complicated.  I believe in redemption.  I believe that everyone can be saved.  I believe in God's love more than God's anger.  Being a parent, I know that my kids can drive me crazy sometimes, but I still love them.  So I'm sure the God gets a little insane about the stuff His kids do, as well.  That doesn't mean He sends hurricanes and tsunamis to punish us.  I don't think God is like that.

God wants me to be the best me I can be, because I'm a reflection of His love.  That's the thing that people tend to forget.  God wants each and every one of us to make the world a better place.  If we don't do that, God isn't angry.  He's sad.  Disappointed.  But He understands that we are human, with human failings.  And He understands and loves those failings, as well

Saint Marty is thankful today for love.

June 2: Darning Needle, Chronic Masturbators, Punishments

It is this peculiar stitching motion of the dragonfly's abdomen that earned it the name "darning needle"--parents used to threaten their children by saying that, if the children told lies, dragonflies would hover over their faces as they slept and sew their lips together.  Interestingly, I read that only the great speed at which the egg-laying female dragonfly flies over the water prevents her from being "caught by the surface tension and pulled down."  And at that same great speed the dragonfly I saw that day whirred away, downstream:  a drone, a dot, and then gone.

A terrifying little story to tell kids.  An insect hovering over a naughty child's mouth, stitching lips together as punishment for a white lie, fib, whopper, tattle, deception, fabrication.  That's almost as good as the story I read as a child in a book about Purgatory.  In that book, sinners guilty of telling a lie were forced to swallow mouthfuls of molten lead as penance.  Combining the two punishments (taking in a mouthful of liquid lead and then having your lips stitched closed) would probably have kept me awake for weeks as a kid.  (By the way, you don't really want to know what they do to chronic masturbators in Purgatory, but it was enough to keep me away from the Penthouse under my brother's mattress for a couple months.)

Punishment is a strange thing.  I have learned, in my years as a father, to choose my punishments wisely.  Grounding, for example, is a terrible form of punishment.  It forces parents to spend entire nights/weeks with surly adolescents/teenagers.  The punishers become the punished.  Frankly, I think I'd take molten lead over spending extended periods of time with my sullky, fifteen-year-old daughter.

My wife and I have been having a battle with our daughter these past couple weeks.  This summer, my daughter has been invited to spend the month of July in the state of Washington with my sister, her husband, and kids.  My sister made the invitation without first consulting with my wife or myself first.  For various reasons that I will not discuss here, we have told our daughter that she is not going to Washington this summer.  Of course, she accepted our decision with grace and maturity.  She said, "I understand, father and mother, and I bow to your collective parental wisdom."  NOT.

According to my daughter, we are "ruining her life," and she "is going to be absolutely miserable all summer."  These pronouncements have been accompanied by tears and shouting.  I believe a few doors were slammed, as well.  (Where's a dragonfly when I need one?)  Tonight, she has lapsed into quiet recalcitrance.

Certainly, my daughter is determined to make herself miserable this summer.  And, because we share a house with her and are the cause of her misery, my wife and I will, by association, be miserable as well.  That's our punishment for being responsible parents.

Saint Marty is planning on sleeping with one eye open tonight.