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Do I Have to Die to Be Happy?
Do I get Happily Ever After now, or “Pie in the Sky, By and By”?
I started this article a while back, before being sucked into a death spiral of fatigue. My father has been dealing with a series of health challenges that make me wonder if he has much longer to be here.
I have complicated emotions about that.
He raised me on a steady diet of church and the fear of hell. He is a minister, a Baptist preacher who passionately proselytizes and leaves tracts and believes his view of God is the One True Fact.
He enforced his parenting edicts with spankings and lectures and wasn’t a particularly soothing father figure. He seemed to love church more than anything else, especially his family.
What the Hell?
Hellfire and eternal damnation are Dark Thoughts to put into little kids’ heads, no?
That kind of mind fuckery sets you up for control and for years of fear.
How do you even question that? If it’s not real, well, then you’re fine; but if you disagree with Them and you’re wrong, then the consequences literally go on forever.
That’s what they said. It was part of their proselytizing schtick.
Oh, and they would open conversations with “If you died today, would you be one…
