Weird Voicemail

The other day my phone rang in the middle of a massage. Strictly speaking I'm not supposed to have it in the room with me, since it has a camera on it, but I keep forgetting to take it out of my pocket. The rule seems a little silly to me, since I can't imagine stopping the massage long enough to take pictures without the client noticing, and even if I did, they'd be completely draped. What the hell would I take pictures of? Back hair?

It was on vibrate, but even that's noisy enough to be embarrassing.

I remembered to check it on my next break. My girlfriend, who works with me, had a break at the same time as me (slow day), so we went outside to enjoy the weather for a few. I saw it was my mom (no embarrassing secrets there--not the credit card company), so I put my phone on speaker and played the message. She wanted to let me know they were going out of town this weekend; she's going to Indiana with my dad for his USMC reunion because she loves him, and she loves me, and she's so sorry I decided to follow Satan.

At this point I burst into laughter, and my girlfriend, who hadn't heard it clearly, or hadn't believed her ears, said, "What was that?" So I rewound it and played it again.

"Oh, Faithy," Jessica said, putting her arm around me and shaking her head. She seemed to feel some pain for me, while I was only laughing.

My mom went on to recommend that I read Isaiah chapters 14-16, which was her daily bible reading for that day, specifically in the New Living Translation. Perhaps she thought New International Version wouldn't be in plain enough English.

We dutifully walked down to Borders, grabbed an NLT bible, and looked it up. It's one of those selections in which god threatens to smite the people who forsake him in graphic detail. Corpses, ashes, rape, Lucifer fell from heaven . . . you know the bit. (If you don't know the bit, and you're into horror movies, I recommend picking up the old testament every now and again for a good dose of gore and violence.)

That night Jessica and I drove to the shore for a 24-hour mini-vacation, and I haven't really had a chance to write until today. I mulled over what I should write about the phone message; thought about making an mp3 file to share with my brother (he'd laugh, too); thought about using it in some music editing software that I downloaded and don't know how to use yet (I decided to go ahead and delete the message, in case you're wondering); thought about why I'd laughed while Jessica looked troubled; thought about how I feel about my mother. For more giggles, I also thought about what she'd say if she knew I spent my spare time listening to a woman channeling a group of entities who call themselves Abraham. See the post about Abraham for ideas of what she'd think. Specifically, the bit about the herd of pigs going off the cliff.

I do care for my mother. To be sure, she doesn't call every week with a message of fire and brimstone, weeping and gnashing of teeth. It does come up occasionally, though. I've discovered that the best thing for me to do is to not say anything. If it's a live phone call, I just sit there until she says something else. Every now and then I'll try a "We'll never agree about this," or something similar, but it's much more effective just to clam up. So I emailed her, "Thanks for letting me know you guys are going out of town."

My mother is very religious, if you hadn't guessed. She also has anxiety disorder with components of depression and obsessive-compulsive behavior. I link her beliefs with her state of mind because I know that my state of mind greatly improved when I gave up on trying to reconcile those same beliefs with what I felt to be true. I would never suggest that she give them up, though.

That's not because I fear she would feel lost without them, though I'm sure she would. I just know that there's no point arguing with people who have their minds made up. No matter what evidence you come up with, they stick to their guns, digging themselves deeper illogical trenches, until there's no way they'll ever change their minds because they've invested too much time and energy in their stance. Look at one of my mom's heroes, Glenn Beck, for example. (I try not to look at him too much myself. It's hard to stay in vibrational alignment when you have the creeps.)

So there's not much for me to do except picture how relieved she'll be when she dies and find out that there's no god waiting to send her youngest child to hell for being homosexual and forsaking the church. Still, I feel a little off about it all, and today I realized why.

I feel sorry for my mom. Genuinely, sadly sorry.

Imagine what it must be like to go through life believing in an angry god, believing two* of your children have forsaken him and his very narrow offer of redemption, believing . . . well, lots of things that don't really warm the cockles of your heart. Obsessing over those beliefs and worrying yourself into distraction, illness and loneliness.

I really have no idea how to find a downstream thought from there.

*The other child who has forsaken god is my brother, Andrew, who is divorced and living with a woman he's not married to. Her name is Tracie and she's super awesome. Add to that the fact that he's not poor, and our parents taught us that while money is not the root of all evil, the love of money is; and if you have any money you must love it enough to go out and get it. My sister has not lost the faith, but she and her husband do own a vacation cabin in the Adirondacks, so I'm not sure where that puts her on Mom's worry list.