Yes, the Harvey-Weinstein stereotype of a mogul makes my hypothesis seem obscene. But you’ll catch on. And I want to tell you the most intimate secret of my life, so I need a little movie magic to embolden me.
Who else has reflected on something we’d just seen in a film, realizing how it functioned as a plot twist to rivet our attention? I may have felt manipulated but I appreciated the entertainment; I might sigh with satisfaction at the masterly ingenuity.
Jesus promised his followers that his return –
the Second Coming – would be within the span of their lifetime. While some wouldn’t live to see it, He vowed that a few in his audience would witness him in the clouds with armies of angels “at an hour you do not expect” (Matt 24:44). The appearance would establish Jesus as a divine King above all earthly authorities, bringing the Kingdom of God to our world.
One reason I resisted becoming a Christian for decades was the silliness of some preachers who prophesied the Rapture and even predicted the exact date (2012?). I was far too sophisticated to fall for that hokum.
I was also quite sophisticated in my plans to do away with myself in 1995. Why? I was depressed about my first divorce. My romance with my next husband was poisoned by his addiction to Portland’s strip clubs. As an incest victim with the memory of my dad’s groin smashing my nose and throat shut, I felt my life had literally been fucked from the get-go.
So I had a permanent exit plan. But I knew the unreliability of emotions, and the need to outsmart them. My trick? I made a vow to myself that I wouldn’t escape life until I’d run out of cash. To ensure there would be no question whether I was flat broke, I’d liquidate my assets. That required a garage sale. I methodically began to place price stickers on everything I owned. Fortunately my roommate was out of town so there was noone to complain when the livingroom filled with piles of “merchandise”: my collection of antique hats, various costumes, camping gear and whimsical thrift-store treasures.
In the process, for two days, Jesus sat in my tatty old Danish armchair.
I’d never done any drugs to speak of, and I wasn’t prone to hallucinations. Despite my suicide plans, I was rational, not crazy, just completely fed up with life. The
divine apparition didn’t reek of hysteria: on the contrary, he did nothing but “breathe, shine, and seek to mend.” Jesus just sat there, glowing with benevolence. For two days.
I kept preparing my belongings for sale: vinyl albums of classical music, Cat Stevens, books. I developed a sophisticated explanation for Jesus’s ability to appear. Wasn’t the obsession of his believers intense enough to have manifested him on the astral plane, a coalescence of their mental energy? He was just another ascended master, like Buddha or Lao Zi. That didn’t explain why he alone had come right when I needed him. But I was so prejudiced against Christianity, so intellectually superior, I clung to my opinion that God was consciousness and nothing else.
I did reflect that suicide might be a bit rash. I withdrew my favorite possessions from my garage sale. And my love life eventually improved.
Several months later, I was lying in bed with a flu. My roommate was travelling again, so I was alone in the house, patiently waiting for my immune system to do its work. I got up to pee, and sat down on the pot. Next thing I knew, I was slipping down a swirling tunnel of demons, their faces grinning at me with hungry teeth. Frantically my brain scrambled to get a purchase on something solid and safe. I failed. “Nothing… nothing is familiar!” The darkening tunnel was sucking me into oblivion.
Then I felt a firm
hand on my left shoulder. It lifted my unconscious torso forward so I could gasp air into my suffocated lungs; when I’d passed out, my head had fallen at such an angle behind the toilet tank that my airway had been blocked. I later noticed ischemic brain damage specifically to the math region of my brain; where I’d once had a a good SAT score and a weird photographic memory for phone numbers, I now struggled to do basic math.
I phoned my next husband at work, and he drove me to an urgent-care center. The doctor said I had a temperature of 105 or 106 (I can’t remember the number exactly, the first sign of that brain damage). I must have suffered a seizure as a consequence of the fever.
I did subsequently buy a thermometer to have on hand.
There was no question in my mind that I’d died and been saved from hell. But that made no sense. I was such a good person! I’d always strived for the greatest good. I volunteered doing puppet shows in schools, teaching kids how to deal with sexual abuse. I studied natural healing and Chinese herbs (I eventually became an acupuncturist). And I’d worked with my first husband as a professional clown (BJ and Scampy’s Merrily Magical Mischief) to bring joy and a sense of giddy freedom to the masses. Both careers were extremely challenging to me, especially working with my ex after the divorce. But I wanted to make the world a better place.
This is the part in the movie where the protagonist realizes she’d made a major miscalculation. But in real life, it took me two more decades to catch a clue. I was at the local library, where someone had made a display of the staff’s favorite books on top of the card catalogue. (Yes, the local library is bizarrely outdated. Computers? Hello?)
One fat book stared me in the face.
BONHOEFFER: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, SPY.
I said to myself, “Oh, fuck.” In that moment, I’d realized that I’d lost any reason not to become a Christian. If a pastor could be involved in a plot to kill Hitler, I no longer had the excuse that Christians are just a mindless cloud of angel farts praying their silly hearts out and running soup kitchens while there are HITLERS TO KILL.
Not that I’m homicidal. Or destructive in any way. On the contrary, I want to create Heaven on Earth. I always did, my whole life. Only, in that moment in the library, I finally realized how to do it.
Faith without works is dead (James 2:26).
I’d been confused by Catholic pedophiles, communist Methodists, Masonic Baptists, and “religious philanthropic organizations” that were probably CIA fronts. Those perversions don’t define Christianity, no more than my dad’s incest defined me. Human free will gives us the opportunity to learn to discern fakery from truth. Consider the satanic elites’ attack on the world, with FBI and DHS labeling patriots “terrorists” for defending democracy; “women” with penises stealing* femininity, obliterating actual womanhood; the Taliban getting an air force, armed by Biden; and scamdemic clot-shot jab-stabbed face-diapered sheeple injecting their own kids with
poison and destroying our most basic human rights along with their own God-given immune systems. Here's another POV (point of view): what if we humbly honored God instead? For one thing, I wouldn’t have married that strip-club lover.
I like the alternate ending to this movie, where I share my days with a God who lives and breathes beside me, vanquishing demons.
Many audition but few are chosen. I’m unworthy to be named when the credits roll. But it’s enough to have had the thrill of working with The Director.
(Sorry about the F-bombs. But hey, that’s Show Biz. And all my sins** are washed away by the blood of Jesus, my Savior. Amen!)
_______________
The author VC Bestor is Director of the
non-profit
FangedWilds.org,
a project encouraging women to engage constructively with apex predators.
"Find the meat of the matter"
*Yes, I know words like "appropriating". But as a 5'2" female former athlete, I calls it like I sees it. Males, get out of girls' sports, restrooms, etc.
** My non-mystical
explanation of how Jesus absolves us of sin is psychological:
distancing us from faults, he’s the archetype (“Word”) of an
innocent, divine human with whom we can identify. He represents us as
an infinitely better version of a human than we could ever be. By
believing in the loving, sacrificial God, we’re not defined by our
failings but by what he did for us. Empathizing with his martyrdom
and resurrection, we could even be persecuted and unjustly murdered,
and yet still transcend the worst of humanity. So the perpetrators of
those vile sins just prove His Glory!
