|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 10:24:51 GMT -5
Post by Tyler on Nov 28, 2005 10:24:51 GMT -5
There are moments that you look back on and it hurts the mind to try and understand how close we were to touching the veil. That thin sheet that separates and dulls all things. I want to reach back and share those moments with you, and I want you to share yours also. I want your memories. The ones that shaped you.
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 10:39:32 GMT -5
Post by Tyler on Nov 28, 2005 10:39:32 GMT -5
Here's my earliest memory: I was old enough to walk, but not taller than my mother's hip. My parents and I were in the huge backyard of our green house down in a suburb of Houston. We were flying a kite. One of those black plastic ones that you put the blood-shot eye stickers on to make it look kinda like a manta-ray, though I think they refer to it as a bat on the packaging. My dad was flying the kite and it was swooping and swinging circles in the air. The kite took a weird turn and flew down into the yard next door to be met with a sudden din of growling and snapping dogs. Our next-door neighbor raised big horse-dogs. The kind you ride. My dad started pulling furiously at the string, struggling to get it back over the fence. Finally, suddenly, it came free and he fell back on his rump holding only the thin clear piece of hardened plastic that is the center strut of the kite. All that was left was thin shreds of the black plastic on either side. He had this look on his face as he held it like he'd pulled back a wheasel tied to the end. He looked over at me with the same look on his face, as if he were looking to the 3 year old for an explanation. I started to laugh. I laughed so hard I held onto my sides. I laughed so hard I fell sideways over onto the grass. I laughed so hard, I remember my mom looking down on me and laughing just to see me.
My first memory is laughter.
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 11:16:31 GMT -5
Post by Betterout on Nov 28, 2005 11:16:31 GMT -5
Not my first memory, but an early important one. I was four or five years old, and sitting on the school bus that took us to the Kindergarten building from the Elementary parking lot, where we were usually dropped off. I was wearing a blue and white 3/4 sleeve Dallas Cowboys t-shirt with white stars on it, and a picture of a guy leaning back to hurl the ball down the field. For some reason, I felt particularly strong when I wore this shirt.
"OWWW!" I heard a girl yelling up front.
Matt Camargo was going around with a straight pin and poking people in the arm. He was heading right for me. I remembered the shirt suddenly, and I got a quick boost of courage. But somehow I knew that courage wasn't going to be enough. I needed strength. I needed God. I stood up tall and straight when Matt came over to me, pin in hand.
"Matt, you can't hurt me." It wasn't my Dallas bravery shirt talking, it was Justin T. McBride, and I was speaking from the proverbial depths. "God won't let you hurt me." I said those words before I really even knew what I was saying. But I knew for a fact they were true. I had been given the distinct idea that I could simply wave my arm, and God would gird my skin with a divine steel. God might even cause Matt to crumble to dust, because I spoke with such authority and true, true faith. So, I did just what I knew to do. I waved my arm slowly and majestically before my befuddled opponent.
"Ouch!"
Yes, Matt saw in my corny tai-chi arm sweep his moment to strike, and he did just that... HARD. He drew blood with that pin!
It was at that very moment that my faith was first challenged. And I struggled on the bus ride to Kindergarten to come to terms with what exactly happened. Was my faith not strong enough? Were those stars on my shirt really satanic symbols? Did God not like it when Native kids wore cowboy imagery on their clothes? Did God allow the miracle to fail as way of trying or testing me? Was God trying Matt? Was Matt just more firmly convicted? (Well, much later, Matt would be tried and convicted a number of times--but I had no knowledge of that back then). Was the arm motion not quite right? Why didn't God just work that minor miracle? At any rate, my mustard seed moved no mountains that day, and I've never forgotten about it.
Years later, I was reminded of the whole affair while watching Excalibur... Freakin' Arthur, wouldn't you know! Upon challenge of his wife, Arthur calls for Lancelot to defend her honor. He says something to the effect of, "No one who is pure of heart can lose in single combat against one who is impure." That's it, I thought, that's what I was trying to come up with back on the bus that day. I suddenly felt validated. King F*&^ing Arthur. Dude, HE can't be wrong... Clearly, my soul was just not in order when Matt came at me.
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 13:53:54 GMT -5
Post by Thanin on Nov 28, 2005 13:53:54 GMT -5
Two great examples of interesting, compelling writing and we have no active writers in the group. What a waste.
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 14:32:30 GMT -5
Post by Tyler on Nov 28, 2005 14:32:30 GMT -5
David, you have ghost stories... tell them!
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 14:58:43 GMT -5
Post by Betterout on Nov 28, 2005 14:58:43 GMT -5
David, you have ghost stories... tell them! What a great idea! Actually, Chris and I were talking about horror movies, and what a wasted genre it is for the most part. There aren't really very many scary movies, just boring movies with a few tense moments scattered around here and there. There's nothing that comes close to the sheer mortal terror you get from reading a good Poe or Lovecraft yarn ... or listening to about 30 seconds of a good ol' P-Town ghost story! Those stories always manage to scare me to my very soul, and it might be good just to codify them someway. Hey, we might even work 'em up as a film script for Chris to shoot when he's a zillionaire!
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 15:46:16 GMT -5
Post by Thanin on Nov 28, 2005 15:46:16 GMT -5
David, you have ghost stories... tell them! I'm more interested in you pursuing writing. I think you could make it as a writer.
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 17:32:42 GMT -5
Post by chris on Nov 28, 2005 17:32:42 GMT -5
Let's not start s%cking each other's d&cks just yet gentlemen. Actually, there is no need to wait until I'm a zillionaire. There's no need to wait at all. I've been desperately hunting for something short that I can shoot and edit, and bringing one of y'all's stories to life would be perfect. And with a ghost story, we can really explore exactly Justin and I were talking about the other day, what makes a scary movie scary, etc.
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 18:01:59 GMT -5
Post by Thanin on Nov 28, 2005 18:01:59 GMT -5
Let's not start s%cking each other's d&cks just yet gentlemen. Why not? And whats with the % and the &?
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 18:34:51 GMT -5
Post by chris on Nov 28, 2005 18:34:51 GMT -5
And whats with the % and the &? What, a little civility isn't welcome? Actually, I thought Jeff had once implored upon people to keep it PG-13... although as I think about it, some of the postings as of late have been nothing less than R. Oh well, whatever. I'm gonna bounce this thread....
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 18:42:41 GMT -5
Post by Jeff on Nov 28, 2005 18:42:41 GMT -5
Jeff routinely breaks his own rule, so I officially renounce it. I no longer think we can make our thoughts safe for Maddie and Nick. I guess David's warning system is probably the best idea we've had in dealing with the young 'ens. Feel free to post your own suggestions concerning this issue to the general board.
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 28, 2005 22:36:14 GMT -5
Post by Jeff on Nov 28, 2005 22:36:14 GMT -5
Faith is peculiar. And Justin gets at what is perhaps its most peculiar aspect: How do you know that you have faith? If you think that you do, then here is a thought experiment: Ignore all the questions about God’s existence and the value of religion, and simply prove to yourself that you have faith. That should be easy, right? All you have to do is prove to your own satisfaction that you believe what you say you do…
You might start by asking whether or not the question is ridiculous on its face. For example, if you are seeing the color red, and someone asks you to prove it, you might say something like, “Come here and look at that. That is red.” But faith doesn’t work like sensory perception does. Even the faithful think that two people can look at anything in the world and disagree about whether God is real and the Bible is true. There is no fact about the external world that proves that you have faith.
Okay, well maybe you think you can prove your faith by some kind of demonstration or act of faith. But this is difficult or impossible. First of all, there is nothing in the nature of any action that proves it to be something only a faithful person would or could do. Whatever action you can imagine doing is something that you can imagine doing without faith. Think of it. Imagine that through faith you called Lazarus from the dead. You could just as easily imagine that you raised Lazarus through some super-power that you had. No faith required. More to the point, a demonstration is another kind of external if its essence lies in its effects. What effect could ever prove the faith? Any effect that was rationally expected would be easier explained according to some physical law. There would be no reason for an outsider to appeal to faith in such a case. The same is true even if some especially unlikely effect occurred, say Matt tripping before he reached Justin. We would still prefer the naturalistic explanation, e.g., he slipped by accident. For what effect is left over that needs to be explained by faith? If something truly supernatural occurred, for example, if Matt turned lighter than air and simply floated away, then you still could not absolutely conclude that you had faith because you would need to assume the efficacy of your own faith. Clearly the supernatural event could be the result of Divine arbitrariness or the faith of another person on the bus…even Matt himself...or a person on the other side of the world. The supernatural, if anything that deserves this label should ever occur, does not wear its meaning on its sleeve.
Perhaps we should look to the cause rather than the effect. Maybe our personal feeling of faith is how we know we have it. But this won’t work either. Such feelings are purely subjective. How do you know that what you are calling a feeling of faith is the same as what other people are calling feelings of faith? It would be as if everyone claimed to have a bug in a box. No one can open any of these boxes, not even one’s own. And the bugs give no external effects: They make no noise, emit no odor, etc… But everyone still claims there is a bug inside. How does each one know there is anything in the box at all? Or if there is, how does he know it is the same something? Even if we have feelings that we want to call faith, there is no line of argument that proves they are faith. After you have given up public access to faith, there can be no recourse to private access. For the meaning of the term “faith” to be public, it must be something that we can critique among a community of speakers. And this requires some testing, some externalizing. But we’ve already agreed that externalizing is of no use. Therefore, I cannot prove that my private motives are those of faith, because by defining faith in a wholly private way, I cannot thereafter say what faith actually is. My use of the word “faith” may be completely peculiar to myself or worse…it may have no consistent meaning at all. (After all how can we set a linguistic rule for a use that one’s own thoughts completely define? There’s no rule where there is nothing definitely included and excluded from some category or another.)
The conclusion follows: You cannot prove to yourself that you have any faith at all. The tragic humor of Justin’s story plays on this fact.
Yet…
Early one morning in October of 1974 the sound of the front door closing awakened Jason and I. Grandma Dannar was in the house, and she told us that mom and dad had to leave quickly for the hospital. The baby was coming. They had not told us goodbye. We ran to the window just in time to see their red tail-lights disappear over the hill. Why didn’t they take us with them?
"Children cannot go to the hospital."
Beyond the hill some unimaginable ordeal was about to take place. And we were not invited. Grandma told us to lie back down and sleep. We could manage the first, but the second was impossible. Jason and I climbed into mom and dad’s bed and whispered to each other until Grandma allowed us to get up and officially begin the day. During those early morning hours I had the strange sense of being surrounded by others, many of whom I could not see: my parents, whom I could smell on the bed clothes; my grandmother who caused our talking to be whispers; and my brother, my best friend, who was right before my eyes. There was another presence, too. Jason and I both strained to feel this new being whom we had never met…
Having a sibling close to your own age is an exercise in how few words it takes to live together with someone else. Our memories fail long before this sense of united alterity does. When we forget everything, even our names, we still smile—perhaps dumbly—at the ones we love. We feel the presences of others all around us, so much that it is nearly impossible to overestimate how much they affect us, and sadly, limit us.
It seems impossible to prove to yourself that you have faith. But this is a result of a too narrow understanding of self. The problem is not faith but our inability to really know who we are. Those who try to find out without first recognizing the vast sea of living presence around us and how futile and shallow are all our attempts to sound it are trying to see the crepuscular as noonday.
|
|
|
Stories
Nov 30, 2005 13:28:58 GMT -5
Post by lonniemarie on Nov 30, 2005 13:28:58 GMT -5
The thing with memories...good ones...bad ones...small moments...big moments...etc...can play such an impact on our lives...I debated for the last two days about posting my two earliest memories...mostly because they are the memories that haunted me most of my life and have shaped and ripped my soul...
When I was two...I remember laying in a thin single bed in a bedroom not even the size of a decent closet. The wind was blowing around outside and knockin' hard against the trailer's frame. Monsters of various shapes and sizes were playing on my walls and threatening me with their presence. I would hide under my blanket and hope they were gone when I would peek out but they weren't...instead they pounced from their shadows and ran at me...I started screaming and crying for my grandpa to come and get me...to get the "scaries" out of this room...The man I would later know simply as daddy rushed in and picked me up. He sat me on his lap and patted my back, rocked me. I kept asking for my grandpa and he had to tell me my grandparents were back in their house in Oklahoma, that I was going to be living with him and mom...that they were the ones that would take care of me. I asked the only sane question a 2 yr old could ask..."Why?"...he didn't answer. I figured it was because my grandparents were mad at me for not picking up my toys, or for wanting that barbie doll at TG and Y. Maybe it was because I cried too much...I only knew they didn't want me anymore.
About a yr and a half later, my parents announced to me that I would soon get to be a big sister and I started counting the days on the calendar my mom had put up in the kitchen...I got to cross the days off until my bro would arrive. Every morning for two months, I ran excitedly to the kitchen with my red pencil poised to draw the slashing line. Late one night, I awoke when I heard the scream of a woman...a long wail of pain...it took me a few moments to realize it was my mom. I slowly climbed out of my bed and tip toed to their bedroom. The door was partially opened and they were laying spoon fashioned. They didn't see me because their backs were to the door and I could see my dad holding my mom with a vise grip. She was crying, sobbing, and repeating "I'm sorry, so sorry, Oh god, I'm sorry"...Dad kept telling her it was okay, that they would try again...it wasn't her fault...it was no one's fault..."But I wanted you to have your own baby, to give you a son...now you are going to be stuck with her...and she isn't even yours"...Dad said nothing for a moment then came "It's okay...we'll try again, honey, it's okay"...Apparently I wasn't going to get a baby brother...and my dad wasn't going to get his own child...and at 3 almost 4 yrs old...I realized I needed to make up for a child that didn't exist...that I would have to work harder so my dad wouldn't be disappointed in "being stuck" with me. That I would need to be some sort of perfect child...a child that he would be proud to call his own. The next morning, the calendar was in the trash and a broken red pencil on top. Mom never asked me how that came to be...she just made me breakfast.
|
|