WHEN DID SUFFERING START?: Part IV of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

As God created the heavens and the earth each completed phase was good. Each day prepared the way for the next. First an atmosphere and water, both conducive to life, were formed. Then came the dry land for the plants and vegetation to grow, which would be the food for the creatures that would follow. There was no killing, no bloodshed in these early times. Animals, including man, were vegetarians.

Adam and Eve had it made. There were no storms, not even a mild rain. There was a mist that arose in the night to provide moisture. The climate was mild enough these early people didn't even need clothing for protection, and there was no thought of lust, so they didn't need covering for modesty either.

They had a job to occupy their time so they would not be bored. They tended the garden and the animals. Food was plentiful and for the taking. They had each other to take pleasure in and enjoy. And they had a direct relationship with God. I don't know if they sometimes stumped a toe or cut themselves on a branch or fell and bruised a knee. I would imagine they might have, but God had probably provided protection from serious injury or cured them on the spot. I am certain they understood physical pain at some level. But pain in itself is not suffering, but a blessing, for it tells us when something is wrong and guides us in finding the problem. They were probably spared from the prolonged and sever pains we can experience today that turn into suffering.

One indication that pain existed was after they fell when God told Eve in Genesis 3:16, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children." You can't greatly increase what doesn't exist. It sounds as if women would experience some pain or discomfort as their bodies changed to accommodate the growing baby, but did not experience the pain associated now with delivery, but after the fall that pain came as well. Although these added pains were a result of sinning, they were not the suffering of sin.

God had given Adam and Eve a paradise of pleasure and reasonable responsibility, food and companionship, comfort and joy. He also gave them one other thing, free will. Was this a flaw, a mistake? No, for without it man would have been nothing but a robotic toy and you cannot show love to anyone, even God, if you cannot also choose to withhold it. You cannot know love from another for the same reason. Adam and Eve seemingly had no limits and no need for sacrifice. Without limits and no alternatives to choose, free will is meaningless. Without some self-sacrifice, love is meaningless.

Without the free will to make a choice, there would be no sin. After all, what is sin? Sin is disobeying the will of God. Not being able to sin may sound great, but consider how you would feel about your child if they could only do what you allow as opposed to choosing to do what you wish?

Adam and Eve had only one item on the don't list. They choose to do it. At that moment, not just sin entered the world, but immediate suffering as well.

I don't mean being banished from the garden and what came along with that, I mean suffering caused directly as a result of sin. What happened? They ate the fruit and immediately realized they were naked.

Was this a sexual thing? No, this was shame and a feeling of vulnerability.

Next came fear, something new to their experience. They heard God and tried to hide. They didn't want to be accountable for what they choose to do. They were suffering mental anguish. They were suffering for the first time.

When I was a child, probably 9 or 10, I wanted something from the

Five 'n' Dime. I had no money of my own and it wasn't time for my quarter allowance, which wouldn't have been enough anyway. So I sneaked into my parent's room and stole a fistful of change from my mother's purse.

I set off downtown, anticipating getting the toy I desired, having chosen to steal from my mom to get it. By the time I reached the edge of the shopping area the money was slippery in my hand. My mind was in agony, warring between my greed and my guilt. As I passed a small side street, I turned and I flung the coins down that alley, turned and ran home in tears.

I had committed a sin and I was suffering. I felt bad for betraying my mother's trust and I feared her finding out. I guess She never did. I was never confronted, never punished, never brought to account by my parents. But I worried about it for a long time. Not just punishment, but that I was a bad person. I had trouble sleeping. I have never forgotten it, as you can see.

But why did I react that way?

It was this funny little thing called a conscience.

The conscience is really quite amazing, but what is it? I ask that with all seriousness, because scientists, psychologists and evolutionists can’t really tell us. It’s a problem for them, especially the evolutionists, since based on the Theory of Evolution it shouldn’t exist. You see, a very basic plank of evolution is survival of the individual and “only the fittest survive”. When you read or see films on evolution there is usually an example of a creature changing [evolving] because food has become scarse or to fool an enemy or due to a sudden change in the environment.

Take the cuttlefish, which evolutionists say developed the ability to change colors and patterns because it had little protection from its enemies. They also explain how many, many, many years, like a million or so, it takes for such changes to occur, not explaining why the creature doesn’t starve or be eaten by it’s enemy in the meantime. Nonetheless, the point is, there is no room in evolutionary theory for altruism or empathy or guilt; a conscience should not have developed.

Here is how it should be. If food was scarce and you were starving and I was starving and we came around a bend in the road and there was a

Happy meal sitting on the macadam ahead, what would happen? Well, if you were weaker from hunger than I was and needed food more, here is what would happen according to evolution. I’d grab that Happy meal and gobble it down because I had more strength and could beat you to it. I wouldn’t offer you so much as a French Fry either and I wouldn’t feel an ounce of regret. If there were two Happy meals in the road, same result.

There is no room in evolution for conscience. Evolutionists have worked hard to explain this, starting with the idea of “group selection”, which gave way to George C. Williams idea of “gene selection”, which Richard Dawkins expanded to the idea of the “selfish gene”.

This did not quite solve the problem and so W. D. Hamilton came up with “kin selection” and then David Sloan Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould tossed all that aside and proposed “levels selection”, proposing that evolution must have occurred on different levels with different species and it all gets a bit convoluted and confusing. But it wouldn’t include any one laying their life down for a friend.

I kind of follow Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one. What is the simplest explanation for conscience?

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:15-17

Conscience began when Adam and Eve ate that fruit. It was not the Fruit of Doing Bad, the Fruit of Sin or the Fruit of Evil Deeds. It was the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What is conscience, but the knowledge of what is good and what is bad.

So we suffer when we commit a sin because we know we committed a bad.

We do have an ability to rationalize our behavior when confronted by our conscience and this falls under the term “moral reasoning”.

But a sin committed isn’t in a vacuum. Sin is like a stone dropped in a still pond of water. It ripples and expands. Even if we think we got away with it, we really don’t. Truth will out, as an old saying goes and if that truth doesn’t come out in this world, it will at the judgment.

Sin also is responsible for the suffering of others. There were two brothers. One made the sacrifice God called for, the other didn’t and instead of reforming and doing the right thing, he built resentment against his brother to the point Cain killed Abel.

Who all suffered?

Abel obviously, he might have experienced physical pain, but he was also now dead.

Cain, who tried to lie himself out of it, suffered banishment and was cut off from God (Verse 14: “and from your face I shall be hidden” – like the psalmist of Psalm 88). Note the mercy of God, though, that He didn’t kill Cain and not only allowed him to live, but put a mark of protection on him so others wouldn’t harm him.

Adam and Eve suffered lose of both their children, one murdered and the other sent away.

This one sin devastated a family, but the suffering doesn’t stop there. Just as the sin of Adam and Eve affected all mankind afterward, so does Cain’s sin. Notice after Cain is punished we are given his genealogy in Genesis 4:17-24:

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.  To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.  Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.  His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.  Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

 Lamech said to his wives:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
    you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
    a young man for striking me.

If Cain's revenge is sevenfold,
    then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.”

His descendents are listed as accomplishing worldly success, “inhabiting tents and purchased possessions”, “father of every one handling harp and organ”, “instructor of every artificer in brass and iron”, the beginning of business, industry, music. And then another sin, Lamech becomes a bigamist, and then a murderer.

I’m not saying starting a business or playing music, etc. are sins in themselves, but I think it is important that we are shown Cain’s descendents were worldly, not Godly. I think this is emphasized when Seth (the son Eve had after Abel) fathered a son named Enos and it says, “then a beginning was made of preaching in the name of Jehovah.” Genesis 4:26 (YLT)

Now what I am about to say is my interpretation. Others have different viewpoints, but I think these passages in Genesis 4, 5 and 6 have a logical progression. In Genesis 5, we are given the descendents of Adam and Eve through Seth up to the birth of Noah.

Then abruptly, in Verse 6:1 we are told “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose…”and skipping down to verse 4 we read, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them...” and in verse 5, “the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth…”

Some think this is talking about the fallen angels, whom went into the daughters. The Nephilim is sometimes translated as giants, but in the literal translation this reads, “The fallen ones were in the earth in those days.” Yes, this could refer to the demons being on earth, but the sentence goes on to say, “And afterwards” [after these Nephilim], “when the sons of God came into the daughters of men.” This sounds as if the fallen angels could have been enticing the Sons of God to sin, not that they were the ones engaging with the daughters of men. I believe the sons of men, the Mighty Ones of old, the men of renown, were the descendents of Cain and the daughters of the sons of God were the descendents of Seth and now the whole world became corrupted because of sin of Cain.

[A bit more on the idea that fallen angels had offspring by these daughters of men. First, the Angels are not presented as creatures that reproduce through sex nor have sex. Jesus tells his questioners the risen in Heaven will be like the Angels, neither male or female (Matthew 22:30). Some then point to Job where it says in Chapter 1:6 (as well as similarly in Job 2:1 and also Job 38:7) “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them,” claiming the Angels were referred to here as sons of God. However, if we look at the literal translation of the verse, it reads: “And the day is, that sons of God come in to station themselves by Jehovah, and there doth come also the Adversary in their midst.” This does not indicate that Satan was considered as one of the sons of God, but as an opponent.

Still, are the sons of God Angels?

Yes and no.

Who are the sons of God? They are those who put their faith in God. John 1:12-13, “but as many as did receive him to them he gave authority to become sons of God -- to those believing in his name, who -- not of blood nor of a will of flesh, nor of a will of man but -- of God were begotten.” Or Romans 8:14: “For as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Or Galatians 2:26, “For ye are all sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus.” There are other verses as well, so how could Satan or the Fallen Angels be called the sons of God? The Angels who stayed faithful and the humans who put their faith in God are sons of God. The humans who put their faith in themselves are the sons of Man, which here I believe are the sons of Cain. Notice after describing the descendents of Cain inventing worldly pursuits, Scripture in describing the offspring of Seth states, “then a beginning was made of preaching in the name of Jehovah. Or in the ESV, ”At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.”

Anyway, one of the greatest reasons for suffering in this world is sin.

So think about your own life and about how some of your suffering might have resulted from your sins…or even from the sins of others. If a person should hit me over the head and steal my wallet (hardly worth the effort) I, though innocent, would still suffer because of sin.

Also, think about what happened to Adam and Eve and to Cain, which might hint of another reason we suffer that we will deal with next.

And if you guess, think about some Bible characters that may have suffered for that reason.

References: Genesis Chapters 1 through 6, Matthew 22:30, Job 1:6, Job 2:1, Job 38:7, John1:12-13, Romans 8:14, Galatians 2:26.

Also Martha Stout, PH.D, The Sociopath Next Door , Chapter 9 – “The Origins of Conscience”, MJF Books, New York 2005 for the scientists and evolutions views on Conscience.

Next time, “Yes, That Is the Price.”  What could that mean?

Getting Here Part IX: Atheism Has No Holy Days

There are those who call the 'Sixties the Decade of Love and Peace. But exactly when was that? It really wasn't the 'Sixties, not 1960 through 1969 anyway. Do you mark the beginning when the Beatles arrived in 1964? Or did it begin in 1967 at Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love? Psychedelic Art became popular in 1966 along with the Nehru Jacket, was that the beginning? The Hippie-look was everywhere by 1968, but many would count Woodstock as the apogee, not the beginning. If someone asked me to put borders on that period I would say it was from November 22, 1963 to April 30, 1975, the assassination of President Kennedy to the fall of Saigon.

Odd choice some may say, but those events pretty much framed the period because what was so peaceful and loving during that decade?

 There were fiery riots in cities across the nation. There were dogs let loose on people who just wanted to sit down at a lunch counter. Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy were all gunned down. The Vietnam War raged through all those years, with the disgrace of My Lai and the chaos at the retreat in Saigon that brought that undeclared war to a disgraceful end. If people wore flowers in their hair in San Francisco for the summer of love in 1966 you had the summer of madness in the Hollywood Hills in 1969 with the Manson murders. If Woodstock symbolized love and peace, then it all fell apart at Altamont in December 1969. Truth is since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden there has never been a decade of love and peace.

Maybe the truth of this occurred on May 4, 1970 when four college students lay dead at Kent State University (picture above).

My own life seemed to reflect that period. 1970 was probably my most successful year as far as my writings being published. My byline was appearing in several different publications, even on the covers and two of my poems had been selected for an anthology of American poetry that year. But as the new year began I was beginning a job at a fourth company since May 1969. By summer we left the roach-infested apartment in Philadelphia and moved to a "luxury" apartment in Aldan, Pa. I don't know if they defined the place that way, but they were luxurious to us after where we had lived.

They were good enough that Joe Watson (pictured left) one of the stars of the Philadelphia Flyers lived there. My wife sometimes met his in the laundry room. She taught that young lady how to operate the machines. The laundry room was sort of the social gathering place for the housewives in that place and my wife made friends with another lady living on our floor. We were soon invited to their apartment for a dinner and we became very close friends with this couple over the next five years.

But not all was so great for us. Since Lois had lost that first baby in 1963 she had suffered two more. Both had happened around the fourth month, so were classified as miscarriages. Now in 1970 she was preggers again. She got through the fourth month this time, but as the fifth month progressed it happened, she said she felt she was going to lose it.

I took her to Fitzgerald-Mercy Hospital. Ironically several years hence I would be working at that hospital, but then it was just the closest. The baby was born, but not strong enough to survive. This was bad enough, but Fitzgerald-Mercy was a Catholic Hospital run by a group of nuns. Because of this the baby was baptized and given last rites. They all told my wife we had to name the child and arrange a funeral. We named him Michael, contacted a funeral director in West Chester and buried the baby in its small casket atop my paternal grandfather's grave in The Grove.

This hit my wife very hard. I wanted her to stop trying to have a child. We were 29 years old and had now lost four babies. It was hopeless, even the doctors were saying so. We were not going to have children. So, what was the purpose of life? I didn't believe in any God or Heaven or Devil either. It was all an accident of time and space, a meaningless chance encounter of some mysterious cosmic chemical. All this meant was you were born, lived several years and died. That was all there was. I might have been changing jobs a lot, but I worked hard when I had them and for what? There was only one reason, to have the money to enjoy this short life we people lived. I decided the purpose of life was pleasure. You know the old motto, "If it feels good, do it." Well, we were going to do it while we were young enough to enjoy it and we would worry about old age when we were older, like after 40.

And so we went for pleasure. We were still good people, we certainly though so. We weren't hurting anyone. My mother wasn't too pleased with our lifestyle, but we were adults and she had no say in our life. Then one day I received a letter from the minister of my parent's church. He said a lady in the congregation had come to him and said my mother was unhappy with how I lived and thought he should try to talk to me.

I hit the ceiling. How dare this lady butt into family business and how dare he criticize. Churches were full of fools and hypocrites. I called him and asked to meet and this began my Atheism activism. Now I began having debates with ministers right in their churches. I wrote letters, often full of blasphemous language. Worse yet, I felt I was winning these debates. When one minister told me it didn't really matter what the members of his congregation believed it was an "ah ha" moment to me. What was he doing preaching anything to them, then, if it didn't matter?

Meanwhile we were getting together regularly with the couple down the hall, the lady my wife met in the laundry room and her husband. He was ten years older than the rest of us and had a somewhat shady background, at least according to him. He had been some kind of mercenary in Vietnam, talked about having killed one or two people somewhere in the past. I don't really think he was making things up. He also had at that time 72 tattoos, and this was long before tattooing became an in-thing.

We went back and forth between our apartments often. Evenings were similar. We played cards and swapped stories, often x-rated and drank. We drank a lot. For some reason alcohol had little effect on me. I could drink anyone under the table, but I'd still be walking a straight line, not slurring my speech and totally conscious and in control. I don't know why, it just was. I never forgot the night before and I never experienced a hangover. It drove my friend nuts. Most of our evenings ended when I either helped guide him back to his apartment or picked him up from where he passed out and carried him to his bedroom.

The four of us went out together. On one occasion in southwest Philadelphia I had to drag him into the car and escape before the police came when he insisted on getting into a game of street hockey with a bunch of kids. He had once played semi-pro hockey. A mother called the police. There were other times I pulled him out of bars before the fights started.

My old gang of friends had disappeared by this time. My closest friend, Joe, was in Vietnam. The rest disappeared as I changed jobs and addresses. So this couple was our social circle now. There wasn't much artistic talk. This was just party time and drinking.

I'm trying to be discreet about my life in this period. There was a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to my life. Family and old friends didn't see this part of it. I was considered as nice, a hard worker, a decent fellow, which I honestly saw myself being as well. The drinking and the sex was private and hurt no one. And as far as I was concern my campaign against religion was a beneficial endeavor. I was exposing this sham called religion.

The couple we befriended at the apartment house weren't our only friends in this period. There was another couple as well. We met them in a lingerie shop. There was drinking involved on these get-togethers, too, but that wasn't the focus. This relationship revolved totally around sex. I don't want to go into details here. I do want to emphasize this was not a wife-swapping situation. I have never had sex with anyone other than my wife in my life. This was games, this was picture-taking, this was spending the night in the same room and having breakfast in the nude. In other words, this was not a healthy friendship.

The road I had taken as the 1970s began and we neared thirty years of age, was drought with sin and danger. If it had continued I do not know where I would be today. Like the pornography it would only grow worse in order to get the same thrill. It is also true my attitude toward the world was not very positive either. Underneath the constant partying was a feeling of worthlessness. My wife was also having more and more bouts of depression.

But something must have changed the direction of my life or I wouldn't be writing this now, right? Something did and it came out of one more great loss.

To be continued...

Getting Here Part VIII; Peep Show into My Soul

One day during the mid-nineteen-sixties an establishment opened on Walnut Street directly opposite Rittenhouse Square. It popped-up between a couple of boutique shops and above the cement stairs between them. It was a different type of business. (These stores are no longer there. Today a large parking garage is on these lots.) It was not fancy. In fact, was quite plain and sparse inside. I had never seen anything like it. The two rooms contained a counter with a clerk who would make change (all quarters), and these old time Nickelodeon machines. I had only seen such contraptions in the Penny Arcade at Dorney Park. There was a viewer atop them that you pressed your eyes into much as you do with binoculars. You dropped a quarter in a slot and a film began. At Dorney Park the films were old cowboy movies. Here each film featured a lone, but different woman. Each woman would dance about a bit and then removed a piece of clothing. This would continue a few minutes and then suddenly the screen would go black.When you dropped in another coin she would pick up where she left off (or should I say, "taken off") peeling her layers. She would soon be only in her underwear and bingo, the screen would darken once more until another quarter plinked down the slot. After dropping in a dollar worth of coin the woman would be cavorting completely naked.

This was the opening salvo in the so-called sexual revolution.

It was not long afterward that the first adult bookstore opened, I believe on West Market Street or perhaps Chestnut. Soon adult bookstores popped up here, there and everywhere. Eventually, perhaps by city edict, these adult bookstores and peepshows coagulated on Arch Street near the Reading Terminal. A whole block between 13th and 12th Streets became one big sex tease. (Picture on right. The last of these was torn down to build the new Pennsylvania  Convention Center in 1993.)

There had been a few so-called "Art Theaters" in Philadelphia, such as the Art Holiday (in its heyday on the right and after it closed in 2007 on the left). We sometimes went to these movie houses. They showed grainy short reels of well-known strippers, such as Blaze Starr [ real name: Fannie Belle Fleming] and Tempest Storm [real name: Annie Blanche Banks] along with the occasional Naturalist (Nudist) flick with the requisite volleyball game. But as the 'sixties progressed, so did these theaters (if you can call this progress). They had to. By the 'sixties even mainline theaters were beginning to show Russ Meyer sexploition films and in the early 'seventies hardcore pornography such as Deep Throat (1972) was playing on main street. The little fringe art theaters soon were featuring live shows.

It was in these places, the peep shows, adult bookstores and art theaters, I spent my spare time and my spare dollars. And over those years I progressed as well. Before these establishments opened I was content with the popular men's magazines such as Playboy. My wife had even given me a subscription to Playboy for Christmas one year. Once I had a taste of what was in those Nickelodeon machines such magazines became too tame. The repetitious centerfolds gave me no thrill and as the years went by that thrill became more and more elusive. The magazines and films had to grow more explicit and then more kinky. Let me just say there is little in the way of deviate sexual acts I have not vicariously indulged in through flickering images or printed page.

Was I addicted to pornography? I know there are psychiatric professionals who hold there is such a thing. Personally I chalk it up to a weakness in character. I liked doing it so I kept doing it not thinking there was anything wrong in doing so. Today we don't want to recognize that people are at fault for their own failings, so we must redefine our behavior as a "disease" of some sort, which absolves us of guilt. We couldn't help it! I think I could have stopped it, but simply didn't want to. 

Nonetheless, The American Society of Addiction Medicine believes there is such a thing as pornography and sexual addiction calling it non-substance addiction and defining it thus:

"Food and sexual behaviors and gambling behaviors can be associated with the "pathological pursuit of rewards"

Furthermore an expert in sexual addiction research has even defined a reason for sexual and pornographic addiction. According to Dr. Patrick Carnes this addiction usually results from a child "growing up in a dysfunctional family, especially one with rigid rules, little warmth and affirmation, abandonment, and sexual or emotional abuse."

Certainly this description comes very close to my own childhood experience, with a couple of notable exceptions. First of all, I was never sexually or physically abused, but I was emotionally abused. The other exception is "one with rigid rules". I grew up with little in the way of rules or guidance. However, there was a lack of warmth and especially affirmation. We were not a hugging family. In fact by my teens I had developed an aversion of being touched. I dreaded those aunts or family friends who insisted on greeting me with a hug, or worse, a kiss. As far as affirmation, there was very little. There was no positive encouragement, but there was a lot of negative criticism and discouragement. Also, although technically there was no abandonment in the usual sense within the family, there was definitely the feeling of abandonment in my psyche. My father had "abandoned" me by going to war. That was something most children of my generation had to deal with, but he further "abandoned" me by becoming a long-distant trucker who was seldom home. My parents reinforced such feelings by sending me to my grandparents on the weekends when my father was home. I also felt strongly rejected in the last year of my grandfather's life when he sunk down into a sea of alcohol. My grandfather had been closer to me than my dad, but when he turned to constant drink he turned mean and berated me. 

These conditions at home combined with the bullying and rejection of my peers at that time contributed to me being a very troubled adolescent.

Dr. Carnes further outlined four core attributes leading to pornographic and sexual addiction.

1. The person believes they are basically bad and unworthy. I don't ever recall feeling I was a bad person, but I did often feel unworthy. I never felt I could live up to anyone's expectations: dad, teachers or other kids.

2. The person believes no one could love them as they were. This is certainly something I felt as a teen. I constantly complained no one would ever like me and no girl would ever date me. I was too skinny, I wore glasses and I was too shy. I wished all the time to be completely different than I was. I wanted to be tough and aggressive. I dreamed of being six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds, because in a lot of what I read this was given as the ideal he-man. I did eventually obtain this dream. I grew to be six feet tall and in my thirties I reached 200 pounds and then some, and I will tell you I never want to cross that 200 pound boundary again. It wasn't being a he-man; it was just being hefty.

3. The person feels their needs will never be met if they must depend on others. This is exactly what happened to me. I did not trust anyone else. I preferred to work alone and  learn in secret because I feared ridicule if I failed in front of others. I also did not trust any kind of help from anyone. This self-dependance could have easily have gotten me killed. Since I feared my father's badgering to learn to swim, I went off alone one day to a lake when there was no other soul in sight. I walked to the deep end and I jumped in. That is how I learned to swim. Obviously I succeeded, because there was no one about to pull me out if I sank.

4.  The person believes sex is their most important need.  "When a child's exploration of sexuality goes beyond discovery to routine self-comforting because of the lack of human care, there is potential for addiction. Sex becomes confused with comforting and nurturing." For example, a lonely and abused 13-year-old finds comfort in masturbation and pornography. More and more, he or she uses that for solace. As years go by, the type of sexual acting out may change. It can involve promiscuity, affairs, and visiting massage parlors or prostitutes."

Here I divert from this last core rule. I never felt sex was my most important need. Perhaps because by the time I experienced sexual feelings I was already using writing as my escape. My writing had become the most important need by the time I was thirteen. But I did also find escape in sexual fantasy, although I still really didn't know much about sex. (This is not as weird as it sounds today, the idea that a boy age 13 to 15 could be very ignorant of sex. Sex information was not as common in the 1950s as now.) I suppose you could say I found comfort in pornography since I was then getting ahold of such magazines, but I knew nothing of masturbation at that time. I was indulging in some playacting that bordered on it, I suppose, but with no awareness of why my pretending to be captured by scantily clothed lady pirates (don't ask) made my body feel so good. I certainly never visited a massage parlor or a prostitute.

In the 1960s, when I became a regular at the adult bookstores, peep shows et al, I still didn't consider sex as the most important aspect of my life. I didn't indulge in any affairs since my relationship with my wife was just fine. We were not neglecting each other, and of course, my wife shared in some of this be going to the art and Burlesque theaters with me. In the summer we made regular visits to Atlantic City and we always went to the shows at the Globe.

I saw nothing wrong in such behavior. Who was being hurt? It was just pictures or performances. I was not having trysts with anyone. I never had sex with anyone else but my wife. By all worldly standards I was an exemplary husband. There was no cheating, no committing of adultery.

I emphasize none by worldly standards. God's standards are somewhat higher, but in those days I was an Atheist, so what God wanted didn't matter to me.

But by the 1970s my life was to become more tied up in both sex and Atheism. I was to become much more an activist in both. And in the meantime our dead children were piling up.

To be continued...

A Little Folding of the Hands...

There is hanging on the walls of our home office paintings of cats. The ones clearest in the photo are of Big Cats, not lions in this case, but a tiger and a leopard. We've had these canvases for years; for decades. They are reasonably large, I suppose, three foot by two foot. They are not particularly heavy for they aren't framed. Well, I guess that isn't quite true, there is a frame of light wood over which the canvas has been stretched and fastened. See, we often look at something and admire it and forget what it may hide underneath. We forget there is a not-so-lovely wooden frame behind the image.

There is also, hidden, rather thin nails that hold these pictures on the wall. I can't see the nails, but I know they are there because I am the one who hammered them into the wallboard sometime ago. They are there, but I ignore their presence, not certain whether they have become bent with age or if the hole they occupy has wore.  I have put out of mind that these pictures stand only as long as the pins that hold them remain straight and true.

The title of this post is taken from verse 33 of Proverbs 24.

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:

Yes, I know in context this line refers to laziness. But there are many reasons for a little folding of the hands.

To pray is one, for many of us were taught to fold our hands while speaking with God. It's a sign of honor.  Some even fold their hands to show respect and honor to others. There are a great number of people in Central Pennsylvania who could use some folding of hands in prayer at this time.

This is because of another purpose for a little folding of the hands, a representation of doing nothing when something should be done. There is probably a lot of folding of hands, or more precisely, a wringing of hands now by some or many who folded their hands and went to sleep over some recent years.

What happened at Penn State should be illuminating to us all. It should give us all pause.

Here we have a great institution sullied by one pin in its wall. A sin, any sin by any one, may have grave consequences for all. Eve took a bite of fruit and she shared it with her spouse and they tried to cover it up and look to where it led? A man became an icon and a VIP and he started a worthwhile charity (if perhaps not for so worthwhile motives) and he befriended people upon pedestals. But this man was a bent nail and when someone noticed the bend all the others folded their hands.

Now a legendary coach is dismissed and disgraced. A large university is rocked and socked and heads have rolled. The worthwhile charity is wavering, perhaps to fall as well, because of the bent nail at its foundation.

Do not think sin, big or small, of commission or omission does not have consequences in this world.

Proverbs 24 has other things to say. Verses 10 to 12:

If you falter in a time of trouble, 
how small is your strength! Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.  If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” 
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? 
Does not he who guards your life know it? 
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

Some men of stature saw a troubling thing and they did not take steps to rescue those being led away, those whose childhood and innocence was being slaughtered for the pleasures of a predator, much a wolf in sheep's clothing. Do you think they now see they are receiving their due according to what they have done?

Welcome to the Real World

After getting married, I was free of church. My wife and I didn't attend any church. We were riding high and fine without any help from religion. We both worked for the same big oil company and both made what was considered better than average salaries for our age, our position and our time. We bought a four bedroom Cape Cod house even before the wedding. We had a new car. We had Honeymooned throughout New England and Canada and we went to New York and Virginia the next year. We ate out regularly in fairly expensive restaurants. (Keep in mind that you could buy steak dinners for two with drinks for $12 in those years.) We would rather go off to the shore for the weekend than spend anytime in a church. We started off having it too good, so who needed God.

When things went south, we blamed God.

We were fine with two salaries, but when my wife lost her job it was difficult to meet all the monthly bills so the trips and high end restaurants disappeared from our routine. Then my wife became pregnant.

She was two-thirds through term and home alone. I was at work in Philadelphia, a trip I made every week day by train. We lived halfway between each of our parents, a half hour drive to either one. My wife didn't drive then. She felt she was going into labor and called our doctor.

He told her that was impossible. She asked him to come out, but he refused. He told her he would have the drugstore deliver a prescription to her to ease her pains. It was just as the drug arrived that the baby came. She didn't go to the door and the delivery man left. She delivered a boy, who lived briefly and died.

She placed it in a pan in the bathroom and called me. I left work and caught the next train home. When I got there she was in the bedroom. I asked if she had called the doctor again, but she hadn't. I called him and he came to the house. After he had attended to my wife, I asked what we should do with the baby. "You can toss it in the trashcan for all I care," he answered.

Not exactly great bedside manner.

As my wife recovered from this loss, our financial situation continued to worsen. Her father was giving us about $20 a month to help pay the bills. (Again, $20 was a fair amount back then.) Finally, we decided we need sell the house and engaged a realtor who put the House for Sale sign up by the driveway.

During this period a friend of our's visited with her boyfriend, who was a black man. This visit was observed and it was perceived this couple were house-hunters. Soon we received a warning from the Realtor not to sell to any Negroes, not that she (the Realtor) cared, but some people might make trouble. We told the Realtor we'd sell the house to anyone who wanted to buy it. Next we started getting threats that we better not show it to any niggers if we didn't want all our windows smashed out.

I don't know if anyone would have carried out their threats. The house sold soon after the threats to a white couple. Perhaps the Realtor pushed the sale to get rid of us "nigger-lovers".

We didn't make any money on the sale. It was a down market at the time and we sold for slightly less than we bought. We had no escrow built up. We had no savings. We were naive and didn't think we could rent any where and we moved in with my father-in-law. (My wife's mother died while she was in high school.)

This was not a good arrangement. Things reached a point where we separated. She stayed at her fathers and I moved back with my folks. We both began dating others, although no formal separation was filed or any talk of divorce had happened.

I quit my job at the oil refinery and she got a job at the University of Pennsylvania. I was spending my time writing, although I did take a part time job at a chewing gum maker.

After a few months we went back together, but on the condition we leave her father's. We moved into an apartment in Philadelphia's University City area, a place that had seen better days. It was an interesting place, occupied by college students, drug addicts, prostitutes and radical Black Power groups. The building behind us was a college dorm and all kinds of things were hurled from its windows into the alley behind us. (To the right is a picture of our kitchen there.)

We were living on her wages, which weren't great, and the very few dollars I sometimes got paid for a piece I wrote and sold. Sometimes I would walk along the streets, looking about the trolley stops for dropped change. I usually found a couple dollars each day and that often bought something to eat.

But it was an adventure. We were living the Hippie life. I was actually getting published regularly. In the summer, I got a job with a publisher and we had money now to go to concerts at The Trauma, The Kaleidoscope and the Main Point, even to a Dylan show at Convention Hall. We had the Hippie car, a VW Beetle.

Soon after I got that job my right to vote was challenged and I had to take off from work and go to court. But that is another story.

Our experiences from spoiled newlyweds to Hippie activists was complete. We had "soul", but not The Spirit. One of my campaigns, my cause, was to show up the hypocrisy of ministers and I was back to smugly throwing those challenging questions at pastors again.

Oh, I was so smart when in my twenties. I knew everything then and I knew there was no God.

Here is what I didn't know:

"A man's own folly ruins his life,
yet his heart rages against the LORD." Proverbs 19:3