My Crisis of Faith: Farewell to God?

My Crisis of Faith: Farewell to God?

My church prayed for Obama to win the election, and we celebrated with a community viewing of the inauguration ceremony. While no president could be exactly what anyone wants, morally, politically, personally, we hoped America would see through the lies, murder, warmongering, torture, and hatred values of George Bush. With all the debate going on now whether or not Obama is a ‘real Christian,’ how is it that none of these lazy thinkers can see that Bush stood for none of Christ’s values at all?

I love my church. After decades of bitter spiritual exile, in which I was a believer without a church, because I had not found a church of progressive thinkers who were not racist and respected women, I felt welcomed into a thinking community where all were encouraged to be leaders in effecting change around the world. I thought my church was giving, courageous, and deeply spiritual- now I wonder if we’re just woefully misguided, along with our more murderous predecessors of faith?

Not yet a week into Obama’s office, I’m on the verge of canceling my faith. Not because Obama isn’t a REAL Christian. It’s because the army of God has made it abundantly clear to me that they are ignorant, prudish yet obsessed with sex, hate mongering, war loving, vicious, hurtful, spiteful, vindictive, uneducated, murderous people.

Inside I’ve known this all along.

Religious hatred is one of the chief causes of war. It was one of the causes of the Holocaust. The cause of the genocide of native North and South American Indians. (Conveniently, my church could always blame these bad things on the Catholics, but plenty of Protestants hunted natives for sport. Don’t believe me? Check your history books.) Oh, yeah, then there were the witch burnings. Thousands, maybe millions, of women and suspected homosexuals tortured and burned at the stake for their husband’s impotence, or for having sexual intercourse with Satan. Then there are all those practices to ensure women’s morality- such as castrating them with a rusty razor, a practice still widespread in countries today. The Pope giving the finger to poverty by continuing to preach his bullshit ban on contraception. And racism, let’s not forget- Christians had to bring the heathen devils to America to build it for them and farm their food supply. I have a few books written in the 1800s. In Defense of Slavery is a Christian treatise on the moral imperative of breaking the backs of other human beings. There was little in there about sexually molesting, raping, and siring with the slave girls, but clearly, our forefathers had nothing against extracurricular sex, so long as it was had by men.

Yet, still, I pushed these shocking, horrible facts aside in order to believe. Like Mr. Jones, I want to be someone who believes. I’ve taken great comfort in my faith through the years, in the feeling of being loved by God no matter what. I’ve felt I had to answer to someone for the way I lived, and that the kindness of Christ was clearly the way we should be living. Furthermore, there is a great comfort in believing in magic and miracles, and in the idea that ultimately, justice will prevail, even if it is not meted out here on earth. Clearly, human beings are religious. Few societies, anywhere, and fewer individuals within them, deny God. We are a religious species. From early rites and rituals to our most spectacular temples and art, people want to believe in God. We need a vocabulary, a way to understand the mystery, to explain the unknown. For these reasons, I’ve never held anyone’s religion against them, including my own, even if it led some to unconscionable things. I believed truly, that the mayhem might be even more profound, given the low intellectual and moral capacities of most humans, than it already is.

But now I’ve been inundated with the venom of my fellow believers, who are looking past the immense strides and progressive morality of a president who has to clean up a world in shambles, clear up the economic catastrophe and war crimes of his predecessor. But Christians everywhere, with no apology for Bush’s war obsession, lies, and megalomania, are yammering on about Obama’s pinko agenda. He’s a babykiller, a radical Muslim terrorist, and a servant of the homosexual agenda.

I find hope and poetry in the fact that Obama is half black, half white. Much of the world, which has rejoiced at his victory, sees this potent symbol. That Obama’s father is Muslim and Obama is Christian is also a symbolic possibility of hope, given the horrifying mess of Christian-Islam relations right now. Obama has reached out to all enemies and asked that they come with open hand, and we’ll work for peace. Not to approach with a fist. I’m not naïve enough to think this means instant world peace- humans have difficulty enough disagreeing peacefully within a single family or country. But it’s a damn better start than bulldozing into terrain that is none of our business and starting a fight in someone else’s home.

The fact that Obama follows Christ’s message to feed the poor and visit those in prison and help those who are tortured is labeled Commie by these ignorant groups shows how deep and impenetrable their inability to get along with others reaches. Let’s recall that Christians are the newcomers on this land, and the cost for freedom here was the blood of native Indians, who had very different faith systems. Yet Christians, never a group for seeing logic, can’t accept that all humans have human rights, regardless of their religion.

Seeing as you can’t agree on the right church, the right interpretation, the right rules within the same religion, how should those to whom you minister know to choose? The feud between Catholics and Protestants- meaning the murder going on between the two- is still raging in Ireland and elsewhere. But right here at home, there are hundreds of denominations with their unique interpretation of the Bible, insisting their view is infallible, totally inflexible. And regardless of how well-meaning any president is, any citizen for crying out loud, OF COURSE the guy’s not perfect. No Christians seemed to mind when Bush was slaughtering infidels. But now you’re all calling for ARMS because Obama thinks gays should be able to find employment?

I’m well enough versed in church rhetoric to know that Christians will conclude that if my faith is wavering, I was never “really” a Christian, or I had never been “born again” or that I was a ‘backslider.’ The third may be applicable, but certainly I was- am- “really” a Christian. I had most certainly been born again as a child, deeply schooled in the Bible, traditionally devout until some major hurdles came my way. I was sixteen when a friend was gang-raped and murdered. The “comfort” extended to me that she “might not be in hell” because she may “have called out to Jesus during her torture” immediately gave me pause to reconsider how Christians view women. I left the church and read all about the great matriarchy, but largely saw it as a symbolic force of history, not a literal one. Indeed, my faith, though perhaps not exactly like your faith, was unwavering, despite embarrassing me frequently among the educated and intellectual circles I am part of.

I believed in God. I had a personal friendship with Jesus. As for arguments about what a ‘real’ Christian is, no Christian has yet sorted that out. Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran, Baptist, Calvinist, Fellowship, United, Unity, Coptic, Orthodox, Mormon- there are literally thousands of offshoots with the same basic premise and a unique constellation of magical ideas who all believe their exact interpretation is the truth revealed. So whoever is right, only an extremely small percentage of Christians are actually going to heaven.

I’m not the only intelligent person to cherish my faith. Indeed, nonbelievers form an extremely small number of human beings. My faith has not been literal and nor has it excluded all other faith traditions, but it has been constant and amazing, a source of deep joy as well as restless conflict. The characters of the Bible are real to me, especially my beloved Jesus, who said even when I am lost at sea, to cling to my belief in him and I would find peace. And I have, great, tremendous peace. I cannot ever blame Christ for the unseemly hatred of his ‘followers’. But now, I feel the truth is being revealed at long last, or unveiled. I have always, always questioned how to have faith, and what kind, and who to listen to as a teacher. But I have never, ever questioned giving it up entirely, or asked with an open heart if I have been deluded all along.

Now with a wide-open heart, I am exploring the question I never wanted to explore: is it possible that it’s ALL bullshit?

I’ve long cherished a belief in the miraculous, in signs and wonders, in the divine blessings, in the majesty of Mahalia Jackson’s gospel music. But now I’m more and more sure that these wonderful experiences are psychological illusions, escapisms, delusions just like drugs. They’re lovely, but they are not reality.

The more I investigate historical messengers, the more corruption is unveiled. It seems the whole of religion- indeed, perhaps, the whole of human history, is all about insecure masculinity.

The biggest uproar I see right away is hysteria over the “extremist homosexual agenda” of which Obama is purportedly a pawn. After all, within five minutes in the White House, they say, he updated the official web page to show support for the gay and lesbian community, giving those evil homos free reign. Apparently hate crime legislation is “dubious and discriminatory” as these Christians want to defend their right to gay bash. The President also called for the passing of employment discrimination acts to end discrimination in the workplace. A law like this might “ force business owners (religious and otherwise) to abandon traditional values relative to sexual morality under penalty of law,” says Americans For the Truth About Homosexuality, a group that adheres to a scientifically outmoded idea that being gay is a depraved moral choice. Now, I’m not sure when basic human rights and freedom to find work and not get beat up where any extremist agenda. Perhaps we should repeal all progress so far, and put blacks back in the cotton fields, and force women out of the voting polls and the workplace.

It’s obvious that president of the organization, Peter LaBarbera, is a self-loathing homosexual, taught to hate himself and so he teaches others to hate, too, in opposition of the words of his teacher Jesus, who preached love. That said, of course there will always be some who believe it’s wrong to be gay, just like they believe it’s unclean to be a menstruating woman, sin to eat oysters, or to sleep with both a mother and her daughter, or to clip the edges of the beard. And so I propose that we renege all equality laws for employment and discrimination concerning menstruaters, shavers, or oyster eaters.

Clearly, this concept is ludicrous. But let’s say, even if you do believe it’s a sin to be gay, can you seriously refute basic human rights? No way. Last time I checked, we all err. If we were to deny basic human rights to liars, cheaters, the greedy, thieves, gossipers, or those who have sex before marriage, guess not one of us would have any rights at all. I would like to deny employment rights to all liars and bigots, because their acts are against my religion.

Of course, the LaBarbera site americansfortruth.com features a salacious photo of leather S and M equipment with the shocking headline Pig Orgy. It can’t just show a nice gay person in his backyard with a barbecue. Yes, sex free for all orgies are a bit disturbing, but no gay man has ever invited me to participate in one. However, straight men have constantly pushed, belittled, prodded, begged, pleaded, whined for sex. Perhaps we can put pictures up on this truth site of straight men buying child prostitutes in the Philippines, or their nice straight magazines featuring spread-eagled pregnant women or gaping female buttholes. Yes, sex is dark and dangerous and dirty, sometimes. Disconcerting. I could get myself in trouble right now by saying that that is something to do with men, not specifically gay men. But I won’t. I’ll just say that there are a lot more S and M practitioners who are straight then gay. While I would hope that after being granted employment rights, the gay man would not bring out his business right there at work, but hey, those sick straights do it fairly often in hopes of wooing the secretary or proving themselves.

At least LaBarbera manages to restrain himself and still use genteel language. This good Christian man was a bit less eloquent. “The bible says that during the end times (2012?) God will separate the wheat from the chaff. I say let the chaff go. Fuck ‘em and every other preacher willing to crawl through shit-smelling rump rangers just to pray at Obama’s feet. I guess when you take it up the ass after God tells you your ass is for shitting then you can’t expect him to do you any favors. Cancer maybe. But no favors. Just remember when you’re infected with some fantastically exotic homo-virus don’t even bother begging money on the corner from all those “close minded hatemongers” that told you not to play with people that smell like shit. You know – the conservatives, “rednecks”, working class, christians, muslims, nuclear and extended families, soccer moms, jews, and all of those other “crazy” people that know clean is better than dirty.” A friend of the nice gentleman above mentioned that he’s stockpiling ammunition and heading into the Appalachians. Right- where the men f* their children up the ass, or their unwilling wife, and have babies with their babies? You know, I’m tempted to observe that every man, for whatever reason, is obsessed with the elimination orifice, especially straight ones. Don’t you know that pornography outsells every other entertainment industry? HUH? Yes. And most of that, but not all, is heterosexual porn purchased by men. Half of it features homosexual acts between women, and the other half is completely obsessed by the female anus.

Or this: “The homosexuals cannot reproduce after their own kind so they prey on the young people of today. If Obama gets into office, our country is surely done for.” You can’t ‘catch gay,’ you creeps.

Why are so many Christians threatened by gays? Why not claim that ‘liars’ or ‘rapists’ or ‘thieves’ are threatening the moral fabric of America? Oh, yeah, that’s right- the Old Testament encourages God’s armies to ‘leave no man, woman, or child’ alive, except for virgin girl children, so that they may be raped.

You know the innocent guy who was beheaded on the Greyhound Canada bus? The upstanding moral citizens of Reverend Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church said he was beheaded by God for Canada’s fag loving agenda. No mention of the sin committed by the beheader. Now they were rejoicing at Obama’s grandma’s death, as she was headed straight to hell for raising a fag lover.

Perhaps Phelps is a little extreme for you moderate minded conservatives. No need to hold up fancy picket signs- just quietly execute the abominators, just like the good book decrees. Well, friends, my Bible also decrees the execution of a wide number of sinners- unruly toddlers, teens who have lost their faith, women who have been raped, those who commit adultery, and those who work on Sundays. Prepare to tremble- by your obsession you shall know them. And seeing as every three days another evangelical pastor is arrested high on drugs with a male prostitute, we know there are many other queer fornicators who have not been found out. Get in line for the guillotine. Those who have not been fancying the fancy boys have surely had their hands full of garden variety pornography, and porn is adultery. Man, death row is overcrowded these days! Why not let your very own Texecutioner do the deed?

Furthermore, for those “Christians” who don’t want your kids polluted by “cross dressers and transsexuals defiling the role of men and women” I would like to ask you if you have ever met a transsexual person. Do you ever consider that no one wakes up and says, “Hmm, I think I’d like to live the rest of my life in identity torment and I’m going to cut off my dick?” Once you thought brain damage in the womb, birthing “tards” (retards, for those not schooled in Christian redneck vocabulary- in our vocabulary, ‘mentally challenged individual), was the consequence of a woman’s lust for Satan. Now you think the same thing about someone who has had serious hormone havoc, not of his or her own volition? Have you ever read a single book? Including the Bible, where Jesus clearly shows compassion and love for all humans, not just his followers?

I’m not going to say, “Some of my best friends are transsexuals,” although I could, because one of my best friends is. Do you know how much she has suffered in this life from discrimination and death threats and public ridicule? Never has she hurt anybody. She is not stereotypically campy or slutty. She is an engineering student unable to find decent work to fit her education, but always working hard. She gave up a fiancée because she had to be honest about her identity confusion. She is a loving friend. Instead of feeling sorry for herself for not quite fitting into the mold around her, she goes to Haiti where the children are dying, and volunteers at the hospitals where there aren’t enough doctors and everywhere she looked she saw small stretchers, covered, dead.

I’m not even going to get into the ‘have you ever met any gay people’ thing, because anyone at all with any education, empathy, or spirit of Christ inside them knows full well that gays are a gift of God, that they bring wit and candor and verve and style and hygiene and creativity and great art and great science and love and kindness and joy to this world. And in a final futile attempt to get it through your sick, selfish minds that gays deserve jobs, too, and that their life is just as sacred as yours, I’ll say this: so what if you think it’s sin to be gay. There are other sins, and if you’ve committed them, you do not deserve basic human rights.

Next is the ignorant faction who hysterically screeches babykiller about Obama, because of course, Bush was ‘pro life,’ a fact evident as the Texecutioner cheerfully presided over 152 death row executions. Several of the deaths were Gulf War survivors who went mad from nerve gas, and were brain damaged. At least one of these was innocent- but George didn’t extend his death despite new evidence suggesting he was wrongfully convicted. Though Bush himself went on a 100 000 body killing-spree in the Middle East, he actually made fun of a woman he sentenced to death, publicly, in the news. Making a mocking face for the camera, he pitched his voice higher and mumbled, “Please, don’t let me die.”

Karla Faye Tucker was the first woman to be executed in Texas. And her crime was abhorrent- she participated in a bloody frenzy with a pickaxe. I knew nothing at all about the crime but when I read that bare information, I immediately was certain the rampage was fuelled by methamphetamine. It’s unfortunate for Karla that her childhood was filled with violence and abuse and prostitution by age fourteen, and that like millions of other Americans, including George Bush, she drowned her sorrows in drugs and alcohol. Meth makes you into a hollow shell of fear and terror. Their terrifying paranoia is real, in 3D. The person really believes that they see men with guns in the house, kidnappers, aliens, wars, or demons.

Karla needed to take the consequences of her crime, yes, in respect to the victims. But meth free, fifteen years later, she was a model prisoner and deeply sorry for what she had caused. She also became a Christian. She did not ask to get out of prison.

Though Bush himself is an alcoholic and apparently, a cocaine abuser, he turned down her request to carry out the rest of her life in prison, and made fun of her- hardly fitting for a redneck, never mind a president. Pope John Paul II, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, and Pat Robertson were among those officials who begged Bush for her life. And though not all of his casualties are dead, about one hundred thousand are. Pimp Daddy Bush has also caused at least 50 thousand Iraqi women and girls to resort to prostitution for survival in nearby Syria. Who knew the land of the Bible would become a destination spot for sex tourism!

Paul Craig Roberts of V World said it best: “The same stupid American people elected a Congress that is too corrupt to impeach a president who is a liar, a war criminal, and a tyrant. Instead, they are prepared to let Bush off with a mere “mistake,” a courtesy denied to President Clinton. Lying about sex is an impeachable offense. Lying about war is a mere mistake.”

Now that we’ve established just how sacred life is to Bush, who established National Sanctity of Life Day, it’s easy to see why Obama’s outreach programs and health care for the poor are so controversial. Because sharing wealth is pinko, and just like he did for queers, he signed up for worldwide baby massacres in the first five minutes of his reign. (The friendly Christians who have dominoed my crashing faith claim that “the nigger is legalizing white robbery by asking the rich for another five percent in tax.” Never mind that the poor have been funding the rich corporations, and slaving for them, for centuries.)

I’ve been arguing on chat boards about abortion now for half the week, a topic I prefer not to talk about. There won’t be a resolution, because the issue will go on legal or not, and like it or not. It is something practiced worldwide to varying levels of safety. It’s an unpleasant, emotional debate and an extremely difficult thing for women the world over to face. Despite my left wing comrades and feminazi friends, I don’t know anyone who takes the matter lightly. Nor do I. Life is precious.

Yes, it is, and sometimes difficult things need to be weighed. No one will ever agree on the right or wrong of it, but on the message boards, most of the “pro lifers” seemed to agree that the best punishment for the crime is the capital kind. Of course, only women and their doctors will be executed in this utopia. I suggested that all men who use the sexual services of children should be executed, but in their eagerness to swap back and forth gruesome photos of mutilated babies, no one heard. I also suggested that men in general- who impregnate the women who should be executed- should share a spot with their lady on the electric chair. Then I thought I’d make a post that showed some brutal photos of other important children- child slaves in Bangladesh, starving kids in Sudan, orphans in Romania. There are many causes that suffer our lack of attention when we only moralize on this one thing.

The simple, cruel fact of the matter is that there are too many children, and yes, they are all miracles. With half a million women dying worldwide during childbirth, and millions more made ill, and billions impoverished, some enough to be forced to sell a girl into slavery or prostitution, it is absolutely imperative that we get contraception to these communities. You don’t have to agree with abortion to believe that there are much larger issues at hand. It could be said that every time we don’t help the starving or sick masses, we commit murder.

Well, the Catholics think contraception is just as bad as abortion. The narrow-minded scream of Obama’s plan to annihilate all children. After all, he immediately passed an order around the globe to start murdering babies.

President Barack Obama struck the rule that prohibited American dollars from being granted to foreign family planning clinics unless they agreed not to use their own private funds for abortion services or counseling. So, because a contraception initiative MIGHT discuss abortion, we have withheld our support. Given that many third world women die during pregnancy and complications, and they could have had access to contraceptives, this is also murder. You don’t have to agree that abortion is acceptable to see that it is unconscionable to refuse to support access to health care.

Obama cannot change the laws of other countries, and the States already has abortion on demand. So he is not actually babykilling at all. He is simply allowing support for birth control services. Yes, those services MIGHT counsel abortion to women who would otherwise die. Poor Catholic or Muslim countries do not offer abortion on demand- only abortion that would preserve the health of the mother! Contraception would reduce this number. But the fanatical self-righteous can’t see beyond their indignation and think about the matter at hand. Obama is not so powerful that he is able to legislate babykilling around the world. In fact, he will drastically reduce it.

Not everyone has the option of saying no, like we purportedly do. I’m sure you’ve wondered why women in India “keep having babies.” I doubt they’re thrilled about it. Believe me, if you are waiting in the rice line in Sudan, you’re not thrilled to by the blessing of a late period. What a miracle! Another precious bundle of joy for the starvation statistics! Another girl child to sell for rice money! That we let this happen when we have an option of providing contraception and education is reprehensible.

“Denominations including the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church and the Union for Reform Judaism, among others, have urged the U.S. to support family planning overseas, teaching that wealthier groups and nations have a special responsibility to help and care for persons in the poorer countries of the world, which includes support for the basic reproductive health services,” writes Reverend Dr. Carlton W. Veazey on www.rcrc.org. It may well be a case of the lesser of evils. Abortion is heartbreaking, but it’s more heartbreaking to endanger a sick, impoverished mother, a child who may live suffering until he’s three or five, and all of his or her brothers or sisters. To withhold contraception because the clinic might talk about abortion is beyond all belief, especially while we are talking about our care for life. We must also care about those already born.

The fact of the matter is that it’s best to avoid abortion, which may be a necessary evil, but an emotionally distressing choice no matter what situation the woman is in. The best way we have to avoid it is to use birth control, lots of it. Organizations that educate about birth control may discuss abortion, and that is why the west withdrew support of those outreach initiatives. MAY DISCUSS. Consider here that in most countries around the world, abortion on demand is not available. Abortion is only considered if the life of the woman is at risk. A sick, hungry, or refugee mother will very possibly die during pregnancy or shortly after, meaning her child will also die and so will her other children. Clearly, in this case, there is less human death by access to safe abortion. Better yet, the woman will have contraception available to her.

The archbishop of Rio said that condoms will continue to be a ‘sin’ because DOGS do not take the time to place a condom over their copulation act. Thus, it is unnatural. Of course, the fact that dogs do enjoy gay sex doesn’t sway the natural argument for gay, because we are not dogs.

Aside from preventing more poverty, more abortion, and more child prostitutes, contraception saves lives by preventing AIDS. We already know that religious groups believe AIDS is God’s special bundle of love to homosexuals, though the fact that it’s rampant among women and children in Africa probably has more to do with lack of clean water and food and other immunity-necessities, as well as the widespread practice of female mutilation which makes even the most monogamous sex bloody. Forget the fact that STDs including AIDS are practically nonexistent among gays- gay WOMEN- because the religious authorities don’t mind gay women as long as they let men watch.

Then there’s the Cardinal Alfonso Lopez de Trujillo, the Vatican president for Pontifical Council for the Family. He stated that condoms are ‘secretly’ made with tiny holes to let the AIDS virus pass through. Nice. And not isolated. Cardinals and archbishops in Nicaragua, Kenya, Uganda, to name a few, told their flocks that condoms CAUSE AIDS. Cardinal Wamala of Uganda said that women who die of AIDS instead of succumbing to the evil of the rubber are to be considered ‘martyrs!’

I can just see it- Saint Bantati, who heeded her Lord’s admonishment against latex and suffered and died! Praise Be!

Of course, of course, ‘real’ Christians aren’t Catholic or Mormon or Lutheran or Unitarian or Anglican or whatever version you are not.

Of course, religions that are heathen to Christianity are even better at social control than we are. Foreign Policy Magazine reported that Pakistan’s AIDS problem was smaller because of reverent Islamic values. Of course, a woman in Pakistan can be SENTENCED TO GANG RAPE to assuage a crime committed by HER BROTHER. Smile, God loves you.

So question- if babykiller Obama will save so many lives through health care aid and contraception, helping to prevent AIDS and prevent unplanned pregnancy and hence prevent abortion among sick women, how will he carry out his murderous agenda?

Question: what if the unborn that we want to save are homosexuals?

Another question: I’m tempted to ask how close to the truth it is that there would be almost zero need for abortion or for contraception if all men the world over would keep it in their pants. But that ain’t gonna happen, and it will be women and children suffering from this double standard, including being condemned as “whores” who should be “executed” or sterilized for ‘not using birth control’ or sentenced to death for ‘spreading their legs.’ (All quotes from the wonderful godly pro life people this week.)

On a discussion blog made to warn us about “Comrade Obama” and against ‘ecofascism’ that refers to the babykilling regime, I mentioned the admitted lies of Bush and the 100 thousand dead.

“ If you call my President a war criminal one more time, I’m going to ask the powers that be on this blog if they will edit that out of your comment or delete your self-righteous drivel altogether. Please. I normally fully support free speech, but sometimes I just get sick of Bush Derangement Syndrome…May Jesus open your eyes to the truth of this matter.”

Yes, it’s a volatile issue. No one wants to hurt a child, but the fact remains that there are millions of hurting children and not enough resources or humans willing to look after them. On that blog, I never once spoke in favour of abortion, merely raised questions about Bush’s pro-life stance, and what we are doing about the millions suffering. Nonetheless, I was referred to as the enemy and as an “Alinsky acolyte.” Apparently they knew my ‘tactics’ and ‘strategies.’ They knew I was coming in from the left!

I regret I’ve never heard of Alinsky, though apparently I’m playing his game, so I had to look it up. Seems these Christians are also anti-Semites. (What about Jewish unborn babies then?) Alinsky is a Russian born Jew who believes in the deadly notion of power analysis, which according to Wikipedia “looks at relationships built on self-interest between corporations, banks and utilities.” He taught the poor how to actively seek democracy and representation. Now, I’m sure it would take some serious study to really know what I’m being accused of, but from my quick wiki skim, I can’t see what in the world is wrong with addressing the rights of the poor. Jesus said, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor.” For starters.

Interestingly enough, I never advocated choice or abortion on this blog, but merely questioned how a warmonger could care about life, and whether contraception or abortion might possibly be more humane options than more children being born into poverty. In addition to being accused of my Jewish or atheist regime, my thoughts were curiously referred to as “parrot droppings” and I was called a “troll” and a “twit” and a “fool” and a “brainless turd” by these loving Christians who never considered that I too, am a compassionate Christian who hopes the world can avoid as many abortions as possible. Hence, why contraception is so necessary. Perhaps Jesus did “open my heart to the truth of the matter” because my belief, which I confess has been shaky after multiple personal tragedies and a deep depression last year, kick started into full erosion with the words of these deeply spiritual and Christlike bloggers.

When I dared to mention that I had dropped by with an open heart and that spiteful people like this certainly don’t make any points for witness to the Lord, I was lambasted as a pitiful and desperate loser who needed to refute those of deep intelligence and conviction in order to feel important. In fact, it’s starting to feel more and more important to run fast and far from anyone who identifies with faith.

I’m also noticing that a seemingly non-controversial topic- pollution, smog, environmental disaster, lack of clean water- is apparently contested by Christians who believe ‘there will be a new heaven and a new earth,’ so no real reason to look after this one. Apparently, the fear of running out of clean water is proposed by ‘ecofascists’ despite vast documented evidence to the contrary. Ummm, it’s a FACT that people in Africa, India, South America, and hell even here in Canada, don’t have clean drinking water. Or food. It may be that global warming is a natural cosmic phenomenon, not caused by us, but there’s no question we have poisoned our own food supply with chemicals and greed and overpopulation.

But apparently people who care about stewardship of God’s stunning creation, earth, are practitioners of witchcraft. That’s right, it’s pagan heathenism to care about the earth. It’s the president’s communist agenda to be concerned about our pollution, and he’s practicing witchcraft.

And then there’s sexism. Because all over, I see religious men writing about how Obama’s sold out to the evil of women’s power. I recall back in the 1500s, Protestant reformers Calvin and Knox also warned us of the monstrous regiment of women. Then they burned us at the stake. Calvin couldn’t tolerate a woman who didn’t want to marry and get pregnant; Knox couldn’t keep his hands off of children and in his 50s married a 15-year-old girl. Both eagerly stoked the funeral pyre upon which thousands of women lost their lives- to both Catholic and Protestant hatred. But now apparently in 2008 I’ve got to rescind my right to vote and if I’m a real Christian, I have to worship and submit to a man’s “headship.” It’s increasingly transparent that that’s all religion has ever been- the hatred of women and little else.

Of course, over and over we hear the catchphrase “family values” as if no family exists outside of the traditional “Focus on Family” style family. To the contrary, there are hundreds of kinds of families in cultures worldwide, and even here in North America. But by assuming that ‘the other’ is ‘against’ ‘family values’ “Christians” insidiously imply that unmarried, single parent families, extended families (read: Catholic), gay families, broken families, family-less families, childless families, are not families at all. How the American family dream came to be the Biblical prototype I’m not sure, because ‘Family Values’ in the Bible are a whole different ballgame.

Abraham fathered children by two women. Jacob married sisters Leah and Rachel, and also had children by two different mistresses. The sexy lovers in Song of Solomon were not married. And unless you totally block out the reality of everything, David and Jonathon were in love. When J. died, David said, I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan, your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women…” [II Samuel 1:26] Then there was a whole lot of incest, polygamy, concubinage, and more. While none of these were held up as the hallmark of perfect family life, neither was anything else. The family, in all of its forms, is imperfect, and based on our culture, neighbourhood, and circumstance. And ALL families are sacred.

James Dobson, who leads Focus on Family, got his knickers in a knot while telling Obama his interpretation of scripture was incorrect while Dobson’s and all other evangelical Christians’ was right. He called Obama’s leadership the “lowest common denominator of morality” (though I vote Bush as much lower!) He said Obama had a “fruitcake interpretation” of the constitution. Focus on the Family has been pumping propaganda of a post-Obama world where terrorists have overtaken the States, homosexuals reign over every family with their sex orgies, where black crack gangs take over the streets, where poor people clog up the lines at hospitals, where doctors are murdering old people left and right, where we all masturbate all the time, where taxes are robbed from white men, and half-dead babies bumble around in the streets. Perhaps there is a different interpretation? That peace is possible, even among Christians, that poor black kids who were not aborted might have access to health care, where discrimination is wrong, where people who earn over 250 thousand dollars pay an extra five percent to help the poor like Christ commanded (yes, that’s what the big Obama tax threat is), where people grow up and realize they can’t live in a bubble and call it reality. We can’t clean up a mess that way.

Dobson said Obama is stretching the Bible to fit his own ‘confused theology” but any group of Christians will say the same about another group’s interpretation. Obama was told he shouldn’t ‘reference ancient dietary laws’ when refuting Dobson’s personal interpretation of the Bible. What Obama said is, “Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?… Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?..”So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bible now…Folks haven’t been reading their Bible.”

So? Who will pick up the first stone to stone me, as I stray from my faith? Mom? Dad?

And then there’s racism. Sadly, Judi McLeod of the Conservative Free Press, is not the only one to accuse Obama of Islamic conspiracy. “What if Obama is engaged in pious fraud? This is a Muslim practice of pretending not to be Muslim to further the cause of Islam or to “defend the faith”. He becomes President and then says, “Gee…I think I want to be Muslim again” after he finds the “football” in his hands that carries the launch codes for the USA nuke forces,” she writes.

“Fuck, I HATE that purple-lipped, slackjawed nigger and his ugly-ass chimp of a wife,” wrote one thoughtful commentator. But hate is empty without murder, and so multiple death threats from God’s right hand were uttered, including: “This is bullshit. There’s no reason to put up with it. Someone kill this platelip and fucking save our country!”

And “nigga man’s gunna get his head blown off.”

Though he has been accused of being a Jew-lover by anti-Semites, some Jewish wing nuts have written that Barack Obama’s name means “Lightning from the heights” or hence, Lucifer, and that therefore, Obama is actually Satan. Haven’t we outgrown the idea that the nigger is the devil in disguise? Or, is he secretly Jewish? His mother might be! “Obama, secret Jew!” some ‘Christians’ write. But if he’s Christian, he’s the wrong kind. The wrong colour. He’s a Muslim terrorist! Religious bickering is starting to sound more and more grade two playground than ever before. Grow the fuck up. IT IS NO EASY FEAT to navigate a world on edge of total war over religion and race. Let him do his job as best he can, and support him.

It goes on and on. Fuck, argue over the economics of health care, go ahead, but one reverend writes about the “sin” of mental health problems and the fact that our future reliance on Obama’s mental health care injections is Satanic mind control because relying on doctors for our health is the aim of the devil.

You know what? It’s one thing to protest partial birth abortions and lovingly rally for resources for women. It’s one thing to ask for freedom of your religion. It’s one thing to disagree with the new president on many matters.

But it’s another matter entirely to hatemonger against homosexuals without viewing the plentitude of perversions in your sick world. To refuse medical care to poor women because you think you have the answers for difficult questions. To say Bush is not accountable for his war crimes, but Obama is evil because he lets homos have jobs? To jump on different hate wagons- he’s the devil, he’s black, he’s a pawn of the Middle East, he’s a pawn of the Jews, he’s a closet homo. Oh, and why is it that those of you who say you are pro life are angry that Obama reasonably thinks gun control is a good idea? What about all those murders, suicides, and accidents? A gun has only one purpose- to kill. If you think you need to protect yourself, use a knife. Of course, now that a nigger is president, he might creep into your home looking for crack and you must be prepared.

Shame on every one of you religious bigots, fearful, sick, disgusting, racist, sex obsessed, self-righteous, idiots. I thought progressive faith would lead us to a place in history where we could follow God in the traditions of our culture, celebrating our uniqueness, while rejecting the narrow minded assumptions, garbage left over by power-hungry religious fascists.

I understand that many, many of you religious people, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, have never acted in these manners and want me to understand that “not all Christians are like that.” Yes, many Christians, Muslims, Jews, and more have given their lives to charity and love and compassion. You may even feel that you outnumber in multitudes the sick few who act like I’ve described. But I don’t think you do. I think kindness is a minority group, marginalized. That you have been kind because you are an extraordinary person, not because God led you to be that way. Did God lead those people to be THAT way? or is it just that we are animals after all? We are ‘filled with sin’ but not the sins you can’t help- your gender, your geography, your orientation. Not the sins that might be foolish errors but aren’t born out of venom and murderous rage. These crimes, genocide, bigotry, torture, greed are not few and far between but make up most of religious history.

I’ll say it now- being female is not a sin, loving and consensual sex is not a sin, being gay is not a sin, being mentally retarded does not mean you are demon spawn- though you used to say it did. You all obsess about the things a person cannot change- the colour of their skin, their gender, their sexuality.

But the real crimes are lying, hatred, bigotry, racism, guns, war, killing, allowing poverty, religious intolerance, withholding medical care from anyone- including the mentally ill, allowing hunger and homelessness, rape, rape of children, pollution, obsession with other people’s sex habits, cutting down forests to make junk, not allowing women to vote or speak at the pulpit or study, wasting food, emotional abuse, the widespread practice of female castration and infibulation, marrying off your girl child to anyone but especially to an older man, censorship, discrimination, child slavery, sex slavery, beating your wife, beating anyone, thinking your wife is not your equal, thinking your husband is not your equal, making fun of disabled or mentally challenged people, allowing the kind of poverty and abuse that leads to hopeless addictions and other esteem issues, not caring about the poor, being cruel to your parents or children or anyone, lying to your partner about sex or other important issues, lying about fidelity, committing to a relationship when you can’t be faithful, using a person, not being there when a friend needs you desperately, arrogance, swindling, senior citizen abuse, lynching, slavery, killing people, exploiting others, stepping on people to get rich, underpaying workers, poisoning the food supply, banning contraception or withholding it, sentencing suicide attempt victims to hanging or suicides to eternal damnation, torture, chopping up native Indians and making their flesh into dog food (yes, we did, oh vile Christians), rape of native children in reservation schools or mutilation of their tongues and bodies if they did not learn catechism quickly enough, hunting natives for sport, parading around putting crosses all over South America holding heads of conquered victims on sticks with great pride, human sacrifice to sun god- no it’s not more barbaric and heathen than Christian crime but equally so and also religious, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, imprisoning anyone for victimless crimes or for different conscience, genocide, the holocaust, war crimes, never-ending religious wars, …get the point? Put a little love in your hearts.

What I’m witnessing today clear as day and remiss to even admit is the fact that obviously, the religious are and always have been warmongers who cannot function in a civilized society. Unevolved, savage, primordial buffoons.

It’s hard for me to believe that we just happened here, so although I believe in evolution, I believe (d) in some kind of intelligent design, that the deepest spirituality was creativity, manifest in the majestic works of nature. The totality of the awe of mountains and cats and the ocean and cultural diversity was the manifestation of God. I can’t really believe that evolution happened, unaided. On the other hand, if there was such an all-powerful master of the universe, then certainly he has the power to end human suffering and correct our mistakes. (Yes, I’m ready for it, interject here ‘the cross corrects our mistakes’. You know what? the cross is not a free for all so you can all kill and maim.)

Now I’m questioning the inevitable, and I don’t want to let go of that which I’ve cherished, that which has sustained me. I WANT to believe we are spiritual, magical, beloved beings, not “just” animals. For the very first time in my life, I’ve started reading what the atheists have to say, and so far Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion is right on the money about what’s really right and wrong. This book, among others I’ve read when I was not this ‘vulnerable’ to “Satan’s lies” have really uncloaked that which we see clearly but do not see: that like it or not, religion is at the root of most “sin”, not “godlessness.” Dawkin’s observes that immorality and greed and murder and torture and war and rape and exploitation all happen, upon closer scrutiny, WHERE THERE IS GOD and not where this is godlessness! (Atheists have been trying to tell me this for years, but I love Jesus and didn’t look into it carefully enough.)

We cloak it as tribal war and it’s happening today. Islam versus Christianity. Islam versus Jew. Christian versus uncertain or undecided. Yet- it’s really the same. My God is bigger than your God. My gun is bigger than your gun. Dawkins writes, “If you were born in Arkansas … you think Christianity is true and Islam is false, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan…”

A book I dropped like a hot potato, condemned to hell by the very title, “god is not great: how religion poisons everything,’ is proving to be monumentally eye opening. It assembles chunks of history we aren’t supposed to find out about or interpret when we do.

I can’t deny my ‘personal relationship’ however faulty, with the Lord Jesus Christ. I feel his presence and I believe (d) in the rituals and mysteries that made him my personal saviour. When we sing, “This is the air I breathe…Your Holy Presence…living in me” in church, I get chills down my spine, I feel the living water pouring through me. But all “other” religious experiences can be reduced to subjective emotion or demonic intervention, according to Christians, so perhaps my experience is the same. Clearly, the  concept that God cares personally and fully about each and every one on the planet is a farce when I see children whose eyes have been ripped out or who are eleven and pregnant. Perhaps my need for divine intervention, for belonging, for unconditional love has conjured this illusion, as it has for people in all the other religions. After all, Mormons, who believe blacks and Chinese are coloured as punishment for their sins in the celestial world, and can’t go on to heaven, are completely positive that Joseph Smith was divinely inspired and not a raving lunatic. And Muslims are completely sure that Mohammed is the prophet of God, but outsiders are taken aback by his child bride (shouldn’t be- John Knox had one, too). Hindus are certain that their pantheon illuminates aspects of the one God, but Christians are SURE they worship wooden statues, empty of all spirit except for the devil. And among those of us who are SURE they have a personal relationship with Christ, we can’t decide among us whether the REAL Christians are Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, Mennonite, etc….

It hurts to stand here, potentially faithless after decades of cherished belief. Perhaps the Bible really is just sacred poetry and historical storytelling at best, or a document to validate the power hungry, at worst. After all, this is what we Christians think of other “holy” books. Can I really survive without belief? Have these haters taken away my joy- or just my delusion? Can I go on without believing that I’ll see Marko again? Dimo, Bobby, Japey? Or maybe I won’t see them again regardless- they could all be BURNING IN HELL, right, in Hitler’s special inferno, where God sends those of us who get it wrong, the billions upon billions who were born in the wrong country at the wrong time.

I can feel my mother’s and father’s heart breaking. They did their best to train up a child. But they could not stop the history of examples of Christian faith that have unveiled themselves this past week, who have made me delve into the past and into geographical strife without blinders on.

Blasphemy is not my intention. My intention is honesty, so that we can all help each other from a place of truth. And so, I’m just going to go out on a limb and make a very bold statement of faith: I DON’T KNOW. I don’t have the answers to the mystery.

I could go it alone, just rejoice in the teachings of Christ to love one another, do my best to carry on loving with an open heart. But I feel sick. I’ve got to wonder for sure if this stuff was all made up to serve some megalomaniacs on earth. Live in peace with one another, Jesus said. I’m going to try my best, but I can’t deny a very large part of me has fallen away because of what I have seen among these “Christians.” I’m losing my religion.

Lorette C. Luzajic

Eat, Drink, and Be Mary

Zelda’s is not your average nosh pit: it’s Toronto’s one and only trailer camp. Keeping camp alive is the name of the game. Queer history keeps writing itself, and we’re integrating seamlessly in a progressive post-Will and Grace-culture. But certain ebulliences of bygone days are necessary complements to our life of Starbucks, Ellen, Utne Reader and the urban dog park (where we’ve never had to sit at the back of the bus!) These include rags like Fab- (because tacky journalism must never die), old-time and heavily powdered queens who remember Shirley Bassey, the feather boa, and the penchant for lisping that neither scientists nor theorists can yet explain but which has such a comforting lull. This is the place where it will always be cool to say “work it, girl” and have fussy pink or purple cocktails. This is the place where no one forgets about Erasure. Think of pink flamingoes and beehive wigs and you’re already here.

No matter that no waiter will sashay toward your table in the time it takes you to say “Cher”. Or, in fact, to read the whole menu and the Fab Boy blurb as well: there is no effing hurry, dahhhling. Now lounge! Zeldatinis like Yeehaw, Bitch Slap, and Sugartits will get you off in the right direction. Hopefully they’ll have karaoke somewhere tonight! Expect your ambience to be swaddled in pink and velvet drapery and gauzes, supremely tacky retro wallpaper, and severed mannequin bits glued all higgly piggly in every manner of boa and Fame-set legwarmer. Yeah, baby, of course the festive and the fey didn’t forget those patio lanterns, tiki lights and buoyant bubbling baubles of light and yeah, order another one of those lip smacking…things with those little umbrellas….

If you’re lucky, Donnarama will be headlining tonight. Long live Cher and Shania but the real dame of Church St. is this brilliant female illusionist and her signature performances of Courtney Love. You never know what song or genre or even gender Donnarama will be next: she’s done Barbra, Bjork and Elton John.

Truly, wacky drag shows are staples here, one of the things that make Zelda’s so fabulous. The campiest wait staff don’t work here, they ‘work it’ here, or even ‘work it oouutt!” here. Other great stuff: ten years of bawdy, zany, humour, so much more buoyant than mine but still sufficiently twisted to feel at home with. Ten years of heavy community involvement and all kinds of trampy fundraising marathons. Zelda’s cares. It’s not all just face paint.

And girl, the gift just keeps on giving, ‘cause Zelda’s has pretty good food. It’s really rather yummy. The yam frites are by now a classic- gooey fries with a stellar dose of beta-carotene. The Mac and Cheese- well, that’s just tacky ol’ hilly billy food now iishn’t it, slurred Dolli Parton one night and I had to try it. Brandine, you’re just divine- oven baked and like, a half-dozen cheeses? The Billy Bob BLT is best for hangover breakfasts: it comes with maple-smoked bacon, a luuurvely detail. Goes down luuuurvely too with a nice Bloody Caesar- you know, while we’re having tomatoes. Honestly, just order anything. Zelda’s has pub food, from people who care about pub food. The burgers, the pierogies, all damn delicious and there’s always a detail or twist that stands out and there’s even vitamins in minerals in most of the selections. Groovy. The salads are wonderfully fruity, perfect for patio picnicking here with another two jugs- yes, jugs, you know, pitchers? of Jackie-Ohhhhh. The scrumptious and dutifully named Cala-mary the jalapeño munchers, and the Marvelous Meatloaf are all delightful.

Did I mention the staff loves to dress up? Go hang more often at Zelda’s- you’ll just be happier overall. You’ll be certain to hit a theme night, cause at Zelda’s, every day is gay Halloween. Which means you, too, can head to that lighthouse in the city in any possible getup without fear of being inappropriate. So c’mon over and have some fun.

Zelda’s
542 Church St.
416.922.2526

Hope for the Flowery (while listening to Elton John)

You know it’s a melancholy day if you’re listening to Elton John at five pm. It might even be the kind of night that I shut off all my phones and my Mac, the kind of night I stay inside and read Cooking Light in the granny chair. Hell, somehow I’ve acquired an afghan this winter…yeah.

Seriously, I’m really feeling the lull of Elton’s gorgeous schmaltz. Elton annoys me, overall, ever since he recycled Marilyn’s song and dedicated it, along with that England’s rose tripe, to poor Diana. Did not the Great Huntress and Hunted deserve her own exquisite lullaby? He ruined a moment, but hell, no one seemed to notice but me. I can’t doubt that the grief he was experiencing at the time made him crazy, but certainly you could have come up with something just for Diana? You’ve got to wonder why he forewent the chance to earn another zillion when my trashiest girlfriend, Anna Nicole Smith, tripped the light fantastic last year. And he mustn’t miss the Britney opportunity ahead!

I must forgive any of this cheese, for the madcap genius and originality of his better numbers. There’s something so old-school about the EJ experience. I must forgive the man for thinking he was locked in a closet- anyone who wears such outlandish, garish, exquisitely flaming clothes is definitely making a statement. Loud and clear, sister. And on top of all of that amazing gaiety, there are the odd moments of musical brilliance and those soaring, friendly, sad-tinged happy vocals. Certainly as an entertainer, El is absolutely, well, entertaining.

I’m not super versed in the man’s magic- I’m scared off fast by shit like Blessed and Can You Feel the Bile. It’s not cruel: if I’m a harsh judge, it’s only because of the moments when Elton gets it. Those moments are pure artistry. Creativity and originality at their apex, with a stellar set of pipes and a stunning engagement, intensity and depth. I’m talking about Rocket Man, Sacrifice, about Benny and the Jets, I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues, Sad Songs. Operatic, but easy going. So what’s going on when dude sells out to this kind of Lion King ballad pap? I don’t know, man, I don’t know.

The very gay bravado of his cinematic selections and collaborator Bernie Taupin’s thoughtful songwriting make sketches of kooky people we might even know. Elton’s blend of swishiness, sentiment, and madness is a very unique brand. He’s just the epitome of flaming, in the most grandiose and chummy ways possible.

And then he might make smarmy, poorly thought out barbs at Madonna, who made a world where he’s allowed out of the closet, but I guess that’s just him being the cranky old queen that he is now. He ain’t getting any younger. My bravado lies largely in my youth, also, as is the way for nearly every sentient being.

Still, for both of us I hope our best is yet to come. A fine moment like Nikita can be a nostalgic trigger for a finer moment, just as velvety, and darker. And pure, polished bubbles of tremendous joy and shininess like Don’t Go Breaking My Heart may be a glossy memory next to another frivolous morsel of sweet nothingness. Despite that my heart was broken by such predictable consumerist slickness as that Lion King debacle, in truth that was something of the comeback to respectability EJ had to have after a rattling career. Recall how many queens hid behind Glam Rock, as if no one could tell. The flamboyance we now revel in, the Gok Wans and Co Jos, all owes a debt of heritage to Elton John. All this ridiculous movie soundtrack balladry just proves that the wildest of us will mellow out in middle age. It’s true that the stress of being forced to admit he was bisexual in the mid-70s closed off the brightest chapter of his career, and from then on was a struggle. He even married a woman, an act I might call cowardly with my cavalier attitude of the Free to Be generation. But I can’t know what it’s like to be afraid your career will end because you are gay. Of course dude had cocaine and alcohol problems and an eating disorder. So did Elvis. Under the stress of fame, a girl needs a little something-something, and how easily that spins out of control as you become a spin-off in our disposable world.

It doesn’t matter if I feel ready to hurl when I hear songs like Tiny Dancer and Circle of Life. There are dozens of shining gems and hundreds of perfectly good rhinestones: I can leave the plastic on the shelf for someone else to coo over. I also have to respect the man because I know he tries to be flexible. He’s been brave enough to bridge the flaming arts with the testosterone riddled fury of gangsta in unusual creative endeavours like Ghetto Gospel. He bravely moved on from the hissy fit (so did Moby, still waiting for B y George to come around) and performed with Eminem in front of the world at the Grammies. This is what I love- to be surprised, to have the unexpected happen. Stan is one of the more unusual chunks of collaborative genius out there. This kind of spectacle is truly diversity. Rumour has it that he’ll be on Eminem’s next project, as well, and that his upcoming solo album might be hip hop. This is THEATRE , dahhhling.

It’s not just limited to the hot and tragic hip hop boys, either. There are more dazzling surprises: Kate Bush changed Rocket Man into a crisp, icy blade, it’s own ethereal world, clean and fantastical. Take three, Baby Stewie. I know the day that Stewie reads my poetry is the day I can say I did what I set out to do.

If you enjoy my candour and wit, please share it with your friends!
www.thegirlcanwrite.net
Order my book The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos at indigo.ca or amazon.com.

Eat, Drink and Be Mary

Zelda’s is not your average nosh pit: it’s Toronto’s one and only trailer camp. Keeping camp alive is the name of the game. Queer history keeps writing itself, and we’re integrating seamlessly in a progressive post-Will and Grace-culture. But certain ebulliences of bygone days are necessary complements to our life of Starbucks, Ellen, Utne Reader and the urban dog park (where we’ve never had to sit at the back of the bus!) These include rags like Fab- (because tacky journalism must never die), old-time and heavily powdered queens who remember Shirley Bassey, the feather boa, and the penchant for lisping that neither scientists nor theorists can yet explain but which has such a comforting lull. This is the place where it will always be cool to say “work it, girl” and have fussy pink or purple cocktails. This is the place where no one forgets about Erasure. Think of pink flamingoes and beehive wigs and you’re already here.

No matter that no waiter will sashay toward your table in the time it takes you to say “Cher”. Or, in fact, to read the whole menu and the Fab Boy blurb as well: there is no effing hurry, dahhhling. Now lounge! Zeldatinis like Yeehaw, Bitch Slap, and Sugartits will get you off in the right direction. Hopefully they’ll have karaoke somewhere tonight! Expect your ambience to be swaddled in pink and velvet drapery and gauzes, supremely tacky retro wallpaper, and severed mannequin bits glued all higgly piggly in every manner of boa and Fame-set legwarmer. Yeah, baby, of course the festive and the fey didn’t forget those patio lanterns, tiki lights and buoyant bubbling baubles of light and yeah, order another one of those lip smacking…things with those little umbrellas….

If you’re lucky, Donnarama will be headlining tonight. Long live Cher and Shania but the real dame of Church St. is this brilliant female illusionist and her signature performances of Courtney Love. You never know what song or genre or even gender Donnarama will be next: she’s done Barbra, Bjork and Elton John.

Truly, wacky drag shows are staples here, one of the things that make Zelda’s so fabulous. The campiest wait staff don’t work here, they ‘work it’ here, or even ‘work it oouutt!” here. Other great stuff: ten years of bawdy, zany, humour, so much more buoyant than mine but still sufficiently twisted to feel at home with. Ten years of heavy community involvement and all kinds of trampy fundraising marathons. Zelda’s cares. It’s not all just face paint.

And girl, the gift just keeps on giving, ‘cause Zelda’s has pretty good food. It’s really rather yummy. The yam frites are by now a classic- gooey fries with a stellar dose of beta-carotene. The Mac and Cheese- well, that’s just tacky ol’ hilly billy food now iishn’t it, slurred Dolli Parton one night and I had to try it. Brandine, you’re just divine- oven baked and like, a half-dozen cheeses? The Billy Bob BLT is best for hangover breakfasts: it comes with maple-smoked bacon, a luuurvely detail. Goes down luuuurvely too with a nice Bloody Caesar- you know, while we’re having tomatoes. Honestly, just order anything. Zelda’s has pub food, from people who care about pub food. The burgers, the pierogies, all damn delicious and there’s always a detail or twist that stands out and there’s even vitamins in minerals in most of the selections. Groovy. The salads are wonderfully fruity, perfect for patio picnicking here with another two jugs- yes, jugs, you know, pitchers? of Jackie-Ohhhhh. The scrumptious and dutifully named Cala-mary the jalapeño munchers, and the Marvelous Meatloaf are all delightful.

Did I mention the staff loves to dress up? Go hang more often at Zelda’s- you’ll just be happier overall. You’ll be certain to hit a theme night, cause at Zelda’s, every day is gay Halloween. Which means you, too, can head to that lighthouse in the city in any possible getup without fear of being inappropriate. So c’mon over and have some fun.

Zelda’s
542 Church St.
416.922.2526

Lorette C. Luzajic
www.thegirlcanwrite.net

Shelter from the Norm: Toronto’s Metropolitan Community Church

Things are very peculiar these days. Everyone is going to church. Where I come from that’s the norm, but in my current circles, no one has much interest. Most don’t see any relevance for them, some just don’t believe, some have been permanently scarred and wounded and won’t be going back, and let’s face it, a whole lot of us just find it at best boring, and at worst, downright offensive.

The Good Lord has had me wrapped in the palm of his hand since I was a wee thing, but I’ve definitely spent the better part of my adulthood as a ‘Christmas and Easter’ kind of girl: out of respect to my family, I’ve gone to holiday services. There was just too much I could not swallow, and I’ve always believed there are thousands of ways to experience, worship, praise or meet God. Still, Christ did call us to church and it’s not his fault that most of them are downright seamy in their tunnel vision and lowbrow, high stake interpretations. My private altars and experiential philosophy would raise a few fundamentalist eyebrows, but I’ve never felt a need to apologize for my faith: it is certainly a fluid, changing, dynamic gift, moving deeper into understanding the ineffable as I am guided through life.

Unlike most church congregations, I never felt my beliefs were fragile enough to be threatened by other religions- better to incorporate them and learn more about the heart. I never felt historical discoveries, like last year’s Judas debacle, or the early church’s obvious pagan links, would shatter or make false the stories that were in my heart. My faith cannot be threatened by deeper illumination. I can’t profess to understand God, and therefore as He unveils himself more deeply, I do not have to be afraid of what is shown. I don’t think a bit of history or anthropology or science can be a threat. The Big Man can duke it out for himself. He doesn’t need my whining, painfully limited human perception to try to explain him.

I was happy not to waste my perfectly good Sundays in a musty old building with Reverend Lovejoy droning impossibly foolish interpretations, insulting my intelligence. As the years went by, though, I stopped being cynical and let people receive whatever they needed, let them go to church in peace. After all, even if I thought they were greatly misled, or corrupt, or broken, it’s not like the places I found myself congregating were filled with people who had figured it all out- raves, poetry readings, drag shows, cannabis legalization rallies. Once I wrote in a poem, “And some to whom she gave herself were vampires, and some were owls, wise souls who could see in the dark.” Church, like school, politics, and nightclubs, is filled with people, so it is bound to have crackpots, sociopaths, and dictators as well as more reasonable thinkers, the compassionate, and a few beautiful losers.

It always bothered me that the church is so frightened of homosexuals- in my experience; queers are a rather evolved, tolerant, intelligent, creative lot. They are funny, fabulous, theatrical, sensitive, bright and good-natured. And they understand Madonna. Certainly there are endless variations, but I think any fruit fly worth her salt would agree that the fey and the gay are a festive, endearing people. There is not much to be frightened of- though those under a misdirected, foolish notion that masculinity should be about belching, arm muscles, and how big your gun is likely find it frustrating that gays do so well with women. They can’t imagine why, but should take a few pointers: stylish, witty, hygienic, and not constantly pawing at the ladies.

I believe sex is sacred, and using it wisely might save a great deal of heartache, though those wounds can be deeply spiritual teachers. It’s none of my business what other people do when they have sex, but it seems to me gays at least have a more cheerful sex spirit than many others, and if you’re not makin’ a baby tonight, then it should be mutual and celebratory. You may view gay sex as a sin, but then what about yours? Heterosexuality is a dangerous, chthonian garden of decadence- seems it’s nothing but porn, prostitution, rape, serial killing, child molesting, wife battering, and jealousy killings. A veritable army of darkness. Even more disturbing is the fact that in so many heterosexual exchanges, the lady is unwilling – as men have long lamented, women have very different sexual needs and desires that may not include being forced, degraded, beaten, or a frequency of ten times a day.

Anyhow, it’s just tit for tat- but taking it beyond sex, I would ask the church why they have tormented so many gays who have as much right to a spiritual home as anyone else. If you lived a thousand years ago in Syria you may have thought being gay was a sin, but did you also denigrate all who had lied, eaten gluttonously, stolen, gambled, cheated on the wife, spoke cruelly to someone less fortunate, walked by a hungry person, yelled at the kids? I’m convinced instead it’s the theatre and the profound interiority sex acts can bring us to or take us from that tests our character and teaches us about relating. Mistakes are made, hearts are broken, and without that, neither can we give our gifts to the right one (s), nor can we fully know what they are.

But let’s suppose it’s really a sin for two grrls to rub their boobies together (I know, I know, when you frightened homophobes are thinking of gay sex, you’re worrying about sodomy, not about this!) Forgive me if you find me flippant or out of line- I don’t think I am and I think skirting the issue can’t get my point across faster. I do not mean any disrespect, though my forthrightness has knotted many a knicker before! I just think if you really think about what you fear, you can dissolve that fear. Recall that not that long ago- oh, yeah, today- the church thought masturbation is a sin. But everyone over nine knows that everyone does it, and that it is unhealthy not to. So, back to my point- if a specific act or context to an act is sin (like before marriage, for example, which conveniently used to make all gay acts automatic highways to hell), are we then to really turn literally to the Bible for sex advice? Is this where we model our libido?

Ummm, I don’t really want to seduce my father or sleep with my slaves and servants. It seems the Mormons are on track with polygamy, and it’s great that the Big Book is so laissez-faire about extra wives and prostitution. Here’s also where guys can say they want to hire 800 hookers! Well, King Solomon got to keep them all, too. The O.T. is an endless array of desert lusts, all in the family. We would have to stop locking rapists up and force him to marry his victim. That sounds like exactly the kind of peace of mind Jesus wants for rape victims. Jesus said, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7: 3,4)

Back when I was twelve, no one at my church was familiar with this passage. My best childhood friend was a bright, dapper fellow whose effeminacy became more and more evident as we approached our teens. After endless sobbing, soul searching, and on his part, suicidal thoughts to escape the shame and persecution that his natural-born gifts inspired from his family and his church, I had a revelation. It was pretty obvious all at once to me that the church was simply wrong. J. was still J. He was not a monster and he was no more and no less a sinner than anyone else. In fact, his confusing orientation, difficult though it was for him, was a beautiful gift. J. would not have been the charming, highly creative, very funny and near genius mind if he were straight. His identity was all tied together- you could not remove one part. A talented actor, he would not have fit his persona of child protégé with any aplomb whatsoever if he weren’t gay. Not that being straight would have been bad- it would have been easier- but he would not have been J. Our friendship was precious and long-lasting- if he’d been straight, it would have gotten confused a few years in when we reached puberty. J. was my soul-mate right up until he died at 31 of cancer, the source of my happiest memories of childhood and one who understood and loved me without question.

There seems to be a lot more effort put into ex-gay movements then into ex-racist, ex-liar, or ex-wife-beater movements. But I digress. Regardless of what became of any of those cruel, insecure “Christians” who taunted (how about an ex-bully movement while we’re at it?) J., I was the one who did not miss out on his tremendous life and the gift he was to me and many others who could see him. My lifelong dramarama of reigning fag hag began at age ten when J. came to sing at my family church. And though I didn’t know it until very recently, a trip we made in our early teens to the forbidden Gomorrah, the ‘gay church’, was God speaking a long way back, giving me a spiritual home in my unconscious mind, so that when I was ready to plunk myself in a pew some 20 years later, it would be in “a place of prayer for all people.”

The Lord works in mysterious ways, as Dad always said, and true enough that Dad will find this very mysterious indeed and definitely not in accord with his own theologies. But I’ll just have to say that’s okay, because God invited me. He invited us as children when J. and I were supportive friends, working through identity problems that weren’t problems after all. Because my heart opened to J. it later opened to a whole slew of fabulous people, and I am never happier than when surrounded by a gaggle of drama queens. No book launch, no art show, no party is complete without them. I have many straight friends, males and females, in case you are wondering. But I have always been the favourite Grace (well, I relate more to Karen) for many Wills and Jacks.

Reading over this, it seems I made only sweeping mentions of lesbians- rest assured, some of my best friends….heh heh. Ironically, my husband had his own gaggle of girls- not my girls, but, er, the ladies who lunch. He enjoyed the companionship of women who could throw back a cold one and call him ‘dude’ and discuss politics and lift bricks with equivalent ease. He definitely enjoyed my circuit as well, but hey, he and the girls enjoyed cement mixing and bourbon mixing at the same time.

Back to the gift of J. -a particularly precious one: I may well have wandered from God if I had not had the poetry of our friendship, our private Terabithia, to explore the questions in. God spoke through this special man and gave a melancholy child a happy muse. But God has been speaking through homosexuals for thousands of years, and every last one of the haters and everybody else on the planet has received those gifts but is too arrogant in spirit to even recognize it. The grandeur, the glory, and the beauty- what would there be of the aesthetic without the homosexual? What of art, especially and including European religious art- those who do not like or get contemporary art, and those who do, would find it hard to argue against the most sacred Christian masterpieces. How can we blindly go through our work and play and live in our culture and not acknowledge the debt that culture owes to homosexuals? Whatever your flavour- whether it’s classical music or Hollywood cinema, gaygaygaygaygay.

Am I saying that every last artistic expression is gay? No, of course not. But would our legacy of art, film, literature, even religion exist at all without the homo’s hand? No way. Not a chance.

Think about it, people, use your heads. While many of God’s soldiers might consider poetry too queer to care about, off the bat, they likely aren’t considering how many writers of hymns and liturgies were gay. Hymns are poetry, too. Da Vinci, Michelangelo- could history have come this far without their contributions? Then, there’s the libertine Shakespeare. Do you think he’d really know so much about men and women if he weren’t on both sides? Music? Can you spell Tchaikovsky? Love architecture? Fabulous, dahling!

You get the picture. I could go on forever. We would be sorely lacking for good movies, good cuisine, and an artistic legacy if it weren’t for the creativity of many gay men and women. Part of their unique gift is the time in which to output creativity- when you’re not raising a passel of brats, you get time to explore God’s other gifts of creation. I am incredibly grateful to all of those writers, artists, and philosophers who changed their world and influenced history. Whether their expressions were documents of the time, giving us historical record, or aesthetics to let beauty flourish in difficult times, I thank them. I live in a world of books and music, a place where imagination brings me a deeper relationship with the spirit. It would supremely suck if we removed all the queer content from our lives.

With all this ingratitude and the harrowing traumas homos have endured from the flock, it’s no surprise that most of my boyz are atheists. While some are exquisitely spiritual, many secretly belittle my beliefs- they haven’t seen the church do much for women, either. Not all think the bathhouse is church, though, – the second most religious person I know is a gay candy raver I met when he was 19 and I was a decade older. He was one of those owls who could see in the dark. Now he is an ordained Buddhist monk and speaks Chinese, Thai, Tibetan and Laotian. He travels around the world and the various monasteries he is with are at turns contemplative: at other turns, he is ministering to trannies and addicts. Many friends mocked his path and asked him to stay gay- he did, but he has no issue with vows of celibacy, which are in place to avoid all distractions of the heart and loin. I do not take offense at the anger our friends may rightly feel at spiritual traditions, and neither does he. I can fully understand it. The many shortcomings of Christian history are what kept me out of the church for so long. But the weekend Tammy Faye passed on, I woke up and thought, “Take me to the church of the KLF.”

(Inside joke with the dead- sorry about that. Hope some of you old school hipsters recall the legendary KLF album The White Room. It was popular at Komrads.)

Okay, I’d been dealing with some private personal struggles and felt the need for a bit of community and some liturgy. At home prayer was fine, but after the debris settled down after a number of earth-shattering losses (one of them J.), I felt disconnected from the earth, I felt I was freefalling. I’d also started smoking again after quitting for multiple years and knew a little face-to-face with the Lord might give me the strength to treat my body like the temple that it is. (Proudly an ex-smoker again!) I nonchalantly checked out a couple of churches in my area. They were all right but I went once and did not return. I was looking to go only occasionally anyhow, so that suited me fine. I longed for childhood comforts of praise and singing, and felt old enough to look past offensive theologies.

As I wandered toward the random church chosen for that particular day, I recalled that I’d been down that road before. As I entered, I suddenly understood why some churches are called sanctuary- I had never felt sanctuary at church in my life. But here it was. This was the place I had come with J. so long ago. This was what is still called The Gay Church. This church seemed custom designed for Lorette! I was elated to look around and see so many gay worshippers- our tribe deserves more fellowship and fewer vapid parties- but the sign at the front said “ a place of prayer for all people” and I did not for a second feel out of place. Gay? Maybe. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight- and they were all here. A real cast of characters, and a pew with my name on it.

Good thing there was Kleenex strategically placed in the pews, because tears streamed down my face. Aside from the welcoming smiles, the wonderfully theatrical piano player’s expressive talent, the handshakes and hugs, there was Reverend Brent Hawkes. How I’d managed not to get here sooner, I don’t know. Of course I was aware of Brent Hawkes and his longstanding humanitarian efforts and how he literally risked his life to lead a church where all were welcomed. I’d been reading and writing, after all. It’s a perfect example of how compartmentalized the intellect and the spirit can be. I knew more about the church than I knew- it had never occurred to me to come and find out in person.

The funny thing is, when I was a kid, we had to door-to-door ‘witnessing’ and inviting people to attend our church. It was embarrassing sometimes but I took it very seriously and likely made a convincing case to anybody I disturbed. For all the hundreds I’d invited, maybe a handful came.

I’m sure the evangelical would envy what has happened here in a few short weeks. I did invite one person, because he is Christian and because he is gay. To my surprise, he and his roommate had just been discussing attending the MCC. And so we all went. The next week, a beloved and troubled friend dropped by in the wee hours, distressed and hurting. In the morning, to my shock, he asked me if I went to church. This man, open-minded and bright, not gay, had a great deal on his mind, his broken life a raw wound that I could hardly balm or salve for a few hours. But together we went to church, and went forward for an anointing of healing. I haven’t heard from this friend since, but I know that in that ceremony a ray of love entered his lonely, hurting heart. Then yesterday, my most pragmatic friend, a man of reason, quite gay, and not at all religious, called me up and asked if he could join me at church, “out of curiousity.” I was mortified that the service went twice as long as usual, worrying that speeches and unfamiliar songs would be a bit much after awhile. But then my friend, who made use of those Kleenex, said he felt the experience was uplifting and he may even come again one day.

I know I will be. It’s good to be home.

Lorette C. Luzajic
www.thegirlcanwrite.net

Requiem for a Queen

Crazy Paul was a sublet roommate for a friend of a friend. In the early days, barely knowing him, we could already see his insanity, endearing and absolute.

Paul’s blue box overflowed with empty wine and champagne bottles and his door welcomed dozens of friends a day. Popping over to Paul’s always involved a glass of wine, or many more, regardless of the hour. “Breakfast of champions,” often included party favours stronger than wine. No one could keep pace with Crazy Paul.

It was clear he never slept. He wore seven outfits a day. Cowboy boots with a dress were not uncommon. His place was so cluttered with antiques and ribbons and books and glowing candelabra that we all feared for fire as much as we feared not finding a chair. Chairs were occupied with fine china and dried flowers- or vagrants from the gay clubs taking refuge in a safe, friendly apartment to wait off their party excesses.

Paul was never too ripped to look after anyone too ripped to look after himself. But in the end he died young from cirrhosis and very few of the many revelers who made themselves at home spent time with him in his last days in hospital.

Of course, some were already dead. His circle was rife with festivity, but with tragedy as well.

Paul was a bit of a saint and a bit of a nutter, to say the least, and the lifestyle he embraced seems outrageous but isn’t entirely alien to most. Alcohol-related illness is very common. Most people have lost someone to the world of fermented grapes and barley, including my mom. Though ‘drugs for fun’ is not within her own experience, she’s familiar with Paul’s penchant for hoarding baubles. The gaiety of Crazy Paul’s circle is familiar to me and its theatrical electricity was humourous and comforting.

Sadly, Paul’s world eventually submerged him and the risk that I could get lost or caught up in its elements was heavy. You could see the ending coming a mile away. Still, none of this reduces the validity of loving Paul, a complex, intricate human being who battled his sorrows with dignity and infectious laughter. He battled his own darkness with less dignity, but hey, don’t we all.

We can certainly take a lesson in living from Paul no matter where we fit in comfort or familiarity with his story. Paul understood he was ill and would die from his excesses, and he used the time he had left to care for others, encourage and support them, to live in even more outrageous outfits, to express his love out loud to those he cared for, to mourn more fully the dead and their unique imprint on us, to decorate more vividly, to forego banal necessities and take up painting, to read fun things and cook Italian gourmet at midnight, to ask others about their experiences of God.

Crazy Paul was waiting for a new liver, but knew it was unlikely to come in time to save his life. He as a firecracker until dementia set in atop his already eccentric spirit. Even when he was down for the count, weak and bedridden in a palliative care ward, he still roamed the grounds mentally, pointing out the hilarious personality traits of his new roommates.

It’s a simple fact that too many nights with Crazy Paul as a neighbour meant too many nights of missed sleep. I recall one hellish night that the music and laughter kept pumping into the wee hours. I hate to rain on a happy parade, but there were parades 24/7. I’ve never known anything like it. On this particular night I was not able to shut out the happy clomping of a veritable square dance upstairs. I called and called, to no avail. No one could hear the phone.

In desperation, I took a broom and banged it against the ceiling. But mere minutes after an attempted hushing, the Shirley Bassey and Diana Ross marathon was pumping up the volume.

Angry, I got dressed and braved the building halls in the middle of the night. When I knocked, some vaguely familiar queens handed me a beer, and the place was as smoky with cigars and weed as a saloon full of hippies. The floor was littered with frocks and there was a whole lot of flower arranging going on. And Crazy Paul was not even home.

Paul never locked his door or turned anyone away, apparently not even when he wasn’t home! The landlord did, of course, eventually evict him, but I had long moved to a quieter part of town.

Paul was larger than life; a real personality from another era of gay history, one that long preceded my De La Soul-era entry. I relish the lengthy, noiseless, sketch free nights, idling peacefully in front of the TV, loafing about with my cats, no dramas within earshot. But I miss Paul and I wish his demise had been much later. Still, he lived all at once, which his kind of nutter archetype can spur us to do. With healthy boundaries, we’ll find ways to trip the light fantastic in ways that won’t pollute our kidneys and skew our perceptions. But I know I can’t spend all my spare time watching Seinfeld. There are real people, real dramas, real jokes and real magic to be a part of.

It’s a good idea to go a little crazy, fuss about, and bring our friends flowers. Ever wonder about those people in Ed Hopper’s paintings? Well, go and ask them. Exchange stories.

Thomas Moore writes at length about the re-enchantment of everyday life, and he can be a wonderful guide into the magical world around you. The door opens when we open our eyes. There’s a whole vivid tapestry of characters that populate this enchanting planet, and Paul was one of them.

Poor Paul, he became so small and vulnerable as he lay wasting, later, in a hospital bed. Abandoned in the corner of the tiny room was a pile of cowboy boots and a feather boa, never to be worn again. His streaked orange hair was comical in the dull, utilitarian surrounding. It’s one of my last visions of Paul that reassures me that despite the pain he was in, he didn’t die in torment. Surfacing to consciousness after days asleep, he sat up groggily and looked around in confusion. All he said before falling back to rest was, “Darling, the poinsettia would look fabulous over there.”

Lorette C. Luzajic
www.thegirlcanwrite.net

The Crinkled Old Bat

Sippin’ whisky from a paper cup, you drown your troubles ‘til you can’t stand up, sang Jesus rocker Larry Norman a long while back. Well, today it makes a week since I’ve sipped from that paper cup. My BFF and I are detoxing our livers this month. It’s not just the hard stuff: no sugars, no chemicals, no nothing. Nothing but milk thistle tea and a bunch of grasses and broths. Yum.

Actually, those who know me know I’m always elated to steer clear of the evil white powder- sugar, that is. They know I love weird vegetables and am apt to serve dandelion greens or curly cabbage soup with my dinners. So a fridge full of leafy wonders is not nearly as challenging as a weekend without gin.

Which is precisely why Al decides it’s a good time to call me up and invite me over for some scum and roke. That’s Allen Dawe lingo for ‘rum and coke’, the man’s only vice besides sausages.

Al is the voice of reason and the elder of our tribe, but he’s a mad hatter, that’s for sure. He speaks in his own backwards language of mish-mashed syllables and it took me a long while to learn it. It didn’t take long, though, to figure out that the crinkled old bat who has seemingly flipped his lid is actually a genius. Though he’s old enough that he can’t figure out how to use the debit card machine, he knows the name of every constellation in the sky, what gases they are made of, how many years they’ve been up there. All this without opening a book- one day Al woke up suddenly knowing stuff only scientists know about the cosmos. Puzzled by this sudden knowledge, he consulted astronomers and mathematicians, who conceded that his information, worth years of specialized study, was correct. I have my own alien abduction theories to explain this, but Al’s a lot more pragmatic than I am. It’s a possibility, though, and if alien abduction was going to happen to someone I know, it would be Al, because everything has happened to Al.

Al’s a private and independent sort who prefers to lay low unless he’s with you in person, throwing phonetic gobbledygook at you until you start to understand. (Soon you start to speak like he does: “I’m going to Chice Propper/Fro Nills/Doppers Shrug Mart.”) He laid low his whole life, and my girly cuddly brand of love is a little overwhelming for the poor old sod. But Al is always there for me, teaching me confidence or accountability, giving adult directions for how to proceed when I feel like a perpetual teenager in torment and need to know what to do. In return, I hope Al can accept my unwavering love and devotion. He may think he doesn’t need a family, and for all intents and purposes, he does not. He has done just fine looking after himself for 65 years, and looking after others, too. But he IS our family. That’s just the way it is. Besides, the day may come when Al actually needs a cane and doesn’t just use it to pretend he’s a crazy old guy, waving it around on the bus and embarrassing us all. And on that day, I will still be there.

Anyhow, as I was mentioning before the predictable tangents set in (“Give her a topic, aaaaaaaaannny topic,” my friend Daniel says), Al prefers to lay low and I will not totally disregard his valued privacy. But he is a magical man who has seen and done everything and some small mention of how much I love him must be made. (Al is not one to gush, but when he says ‘I love you’ he says it by wagging his index finger like a dog tail and saying ‘ree ree ree.’)

Al comes from the UK, where he went to school with the Beatles. He served in the army in some big secret way and never speaks about what he saw in the jungles of Borneo but I suspect that’s partly what made him so hard and soft at the same time. He won the lottery and he also went bankrupt. He has helped groups of thugs and loonies access their feelings. He’s something of a shaman and his Ojibwa friends think so, too. He has a way of letting people be how they are, while supporting the more positive directions they can go in. But he’s seldom so serious, just wise when he is: most of the time, the best medicine is laughter. He likes to say things in the middle of the liquor store or bank, loud things like, “This girdle is killing me.” He speaks no Spanish but spent months in Peru cracking jokes to people who couldn’t understand a word he was saying but loved him regardless. He slept in the jungles and had a close encounter with a big cat, but Al could soothe a rabid grizzly and he lived to tell the tale. He taught me to drive a motorboat. He only complained once in seven years about us staying awake listening to Madonna until the sun came up, with zero regard for our resident senior.

Al’s a big, burly, muscular man with hands like baseball mitts and feet like skateboards and a crop of silver shaggy hair that stands straight up like a freshly mowed lawn. But at any given time, you will see this dude, who dresses like Hunter S. Thompson, with the tiniest, gayest Shih Tzu dog. And he will be speaking to her in a whispery, rustling voice like this: “Ahh, that’s my little tog, my snoggie woggie, ‘ittle toggie, little wiggle, go and tell her, you wanna bickie”. (Bickie is Lola-talk for ‘biscuit’.)

This is what you might see if you pop over unexpectedly: Al laying on the floor with a dog bone in his mouth and the spoiled rotten fluff bomb leaping for it. It’s the sweetest game, but when I tried it with my cats and some dried sardines, I only got a small scar on my lip and no appreciation for my antics whatsoever.

Al’s fun language spills forth like Dr. Seuss. I hang onto every word he says because any elder, especially Al, has much to teach me. Al has watched our circle through thick and thin, living through defeats and celebrating triumphs, and he is always there. He worries that when his time is up, we might have a giant celebration and that is not what he wants. We have had kick-ass funerals for friends who bit the dust too young, but I know that’s not what Al wants and have promised him a humble affair. It will just be the closest friends, a small handful, and Lola the Shih Tzu, and a giant bottle of Appleton’s rum, Coca Cola, and endless amounts of barbecued snidges (that’s Al Dawe for sausages!) And we will BBQ them under the stars. Al is hoping our liver treatment ends before the end is up for him because he’s ready to break out a bottle for Thanksgiving, and so he should- he’s not the one who pickled his innards with bad habits. So I’ll be enjoying a sparse broth and a few carrots with dandelion tea but surely when this month-long fast is over, I’ll pour enough Bombay Sapphire to fill in one of the Great Lakes.

The way things are going, though, Al will likely be planning our funerals before we plan his. Whether Al is actually an alien in our midst or just a brilliant and daffy old bat, we may never know for sure. But one thing is certain- Al says that when he has joined the other pinprick specks of floating gaseous lights up in the sky, if we listen closely, we will hear a still, small voice drifting through the atmosphere. And the voice will say, “This girdle is killing me, but the show must go on.”

visit writer Lorette C. Luzajic at www.thegirlcanwrite.net
buy her book The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos online through indigo or amazon, or through her site.