At the age of five my faith in authority, human and divine, went south. I remember the day, even the exact hour in blinding clarity. I was a credulous child, as I imagine most are, soaking up information and challenging very little besides the obvious - it was clear that liver was not a delicious food, no matter how often I was told it was. Mostly I believed easily. I was a bit suspicious of God who presented as a little too all knowing and nosy with regards to private thoughts but I liked the other Bible folk a lot- Jesus was the hands down favorite since he was into kids and had a compelling story that had animals - donkeys and sheep - I loved animals. Also we got stuff for his birthday. I was jealous of Noah and his zooful of animals, I was a pet nut and I already knew that if you had two of some type of creature you were likely to end up with even more. Didn't much care for boats, but of course the alternative was drowning- I tried not to think about that. For my money though, Moses was the most interesting, the super hero. Water from rocks! Snakes from a staff! Frogs from the sky! And the big one, parting the sea, which I always pictured as a clean cut so you had an ocean sized aquarium on either side of you. It doesn't get much cooler than that. Not to mention we were both adopted, and I knew how special that was.
On this particular day Moses was on my mind. I had just got out of Sunday school and was standing with my mother while she visited with a friend. I'm sure I looked the perfect angel with big blue eyes, blonde curls, crisp Sunday clothes and shiny shoes... but I was deep in thought with important matters. We had been learning about Moses and how brave he was in the face of great danger from Pharoah, really challenging the big man even though he could have been killed. He wasn't afraid, God was on his side and it all came out just the way God told him it would. We should all be brave, like Moses. I wanted to be brave like Moses but didn't see a clear path. My life was not filled with that sort of opportunity. I just stared at the ground. And my mother's feet. And her opened toed Sunday pumps. And I knew. I took a deep breath and launched myself at her closest foot, smashed my heel into her toe and really ground it in. I absolutely expected that the adults would fall back in awe at my display of bravery, and perhaps point it out to every one else. I was sure God would be proud. God, in fact, utterly failed to weigh in on my behalf. I assume I got spanked, but don't really remember that. What I remember like it was ten minutes ago instead of many decades is that I knew I had been misled, not to say lied to, and that I was humiliated beyond words. How could I have got it so wrong? I declined to explain myself then, and in fact kept it to myself for at least ten years, nursing the monstrous injustice of it all. I finally revealed it to a friend, who of course burst into laughter and caused me to reevaluate. From that initial moment on however, I didn't buy every idea handed to me, and I entirely gave up on biblical role models. |
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January 2021
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