Go To College You Dummy

In 1971 I returned to my parent’s home in Springfield Virginia, where I went into a deep depression.  I was suicidal.  It wasn’t the first time, nor, as it turned out, was the last time I would wish myself dead.  What I could not stand was the thought that I was going to just be a grown child loser living with my parents.

If I was too afraid to kill myself, what was I going to do to live?  If you stay alive, you have to move forward.

I owned and was making payments on a brand new Gremlin.  To keep the car I needed a job.  

I was so depressed I just could not figure out what to do.  I did not want to live at home.  I had no idea how I would earn enough money to rent an apartment, make car payments, and feed myself?

That is when I got the idea of going to college.  

It occurred to me that a college provided the students with a place to sleep, and a cafeteria.  I could borrow money to pay for my place at the college.

My father liked the idea when I suggested it to him, but he preferred that I go to Abilene Christian College [ACC].  Abilene Texas was a long way from Springfield, Virginia, so the location seemed good.  The problem my father had with ACC was that it was then some time in Spring, and that meant I could not start at ACC until the Fall.

My father had talked with somebody and learned that Oklahoma Christian College had a Trimester System.  My father felt that there was a risk that I might marry my high school girlfriend, Pam, and he did not want me to marry Pam.  This was his fear even though she was away at the Blacksburg Polytechnic University in Blacksburg Virginia.  So my father’s plan for me was to send me to OCC in April, and then have be transfer to ACC in August.

I had to sell the Gremlin.  My mother outfitted me with stuff I could put in a footlocker, they bought me a plane ticket and off I went to OCC.

What happened to me while I was there:

I had a great roommate, Berry Hopwood, who guided me into the world of OCC.  Unfortunately, I talked up Abilene, and when Fall semester rolled around Berry transferred to ACC and I stayed at OCC.  

I met Kathie Eavenson, the woman who became my wife.  Kathie was beautiful.  I was very attracted to her both physically and to her personality.  After spending that Summer School Semester together I decided to propose which I did.

I returned to OCC in August, and I was there a day or two before Kathie showed up.  I couldn’t wait.  I asked her to meet me at the tennis courts.  I went back to my room and got the engagement ring I had inherited from my great grandmother Norman.  I asked Kathie to marry me and she said yes.

It is clear to me now, at the age of 65, that I am not very romantic.

I was also a little disappointed that being engaged to Kathie did not result in an increase in physical affection between us.  Kathie was “a good girl.”  I had some experience with girls who were willing to mess around, and receptive to the braille method of sexual expression.  I was still a virgin and I think all of the girls I dated were also virgins.  I was hotter than a $2 Cook Stove, but I was still in the church of Christ, I was a Bible Major, and so I was not just willing, but I was supportive of “waiting” until I was married to have sex.  I loved Kathie so much that I was willing to limit our affection to hugs and kisses ONLY.  To touchy-feely stuff went on between us..

Kathie noticed that when I had a test coming up that I spent a lot of time with her, or playing PingPong.  I didn’t study.  I thought the test was to find out how much I could recall from sitting in the class.  Kathie explained that you could actually memorize information and improve your test scores.  This was a foreign concept to me.  Kathie insisted that I study with her, and she showed me how to study.  I wasn’t great at study, but my grades did improve.  I started to think maybe I could finish college.  It was possible, maybe, that I could get a college diploma.  It seemed unlikely, but possible.

Kathie was an insulin dependent diabetic.  At this time, diabetes was poorly controlled.  The intake of food had to be controlled.  Sugar levels were checked by urine tests.  The diabetic had to pee in a cup, pour some pee into a tiny test tube, a tablet was dropped into that test tube, and instantly there was a chemical reaction.  The test tube would be instantly too hot to touch the glass of the test tube.  The urine in the test tube would turn a color.  Then you took a paper with colored squares and a cut line telling  you that the color in the test tube matched the color on the paper that your sugar level was 40, or 100, or 200, et cetera.  I learned all this mostly after we were married.  I also, eventually learned that if you test urine you are getting the sugar level that was in the blood about 2 hours before you took the test.

Urine tests were inferior to blood tests, but at this time in Kathie’s history home blood testing of the sugar was not possible.  The problem is you could have a high urine sugar level, but since it was two hours old, your actual blood sugar level could be very low.  Since the test would tell Kathie her blood sugar was high, when it was actually low, she would take more insulin.  Taking insulin when your sugar is already low means the insulin reaction that would follow would be horrible.  At other times the urine test could show your sugar level was very low, when the actual blood sugar level was high.  Instead of taking enough insulin to knock the high sugar down, Kathie would eat something sweet and take a low amount of insulin, or perhaps she would take no insulin at all.  The result of this would be extremely high blood sugar levels.

Low blood sugar and high blood sugar both made Kathie feel like something you wouldn’t want to step in, if you get my meaning.

Kathie and I talked and she told me she was afraid to have children.  She talked with her diabetic specialist about us getting married, and he said he thought she could have one baby if she had it before she’d had diabetes for 10 years.  Kathie had had diabetes 9 years when we met.

I remembered when my mother was pregnant with the twins and how she would run to the bathroom and vomit violently heaving over and over again.  I remember thinking then, “I am never going to make a woman go through that kind of misery.”  I was OK with us not having children.

I was so OK with the idea that I actually made an appointment with a church of Christ doctor who had an office near the OCC campus.  I told him I wanted a vasectomy.  He made an appointment and told me to bring $300.  For a kid in college coming up with that much money was difficult, but I’d been working jobs around and we had it.

When the time for my operation arrived Kathie went with me.  We sat in the waiting room.  I was nervous.  I’d read up on the operation and although it was “out-patient” it was still an operation on a place on my body that was not eager to be operated upon.

A nurse or receptionist came and said the doctor wanted to see us both.

Odd.

We were escorted back to his office and there was the doctor behind his desk.

“I know you came here today expecting to be operated on,” the doctor said, “but I have rethought this whole thing.  The health problem is hers,” the doctor said, “not yours.  So whatever we do, should be done to her, not you.  Kathie has diabetes.  It is not uncommon for people with diabetes to die in their thirties,” he said.  “If you have a vasectomy, and she dies young, well, you could remarry.  Your next wife might want children.”

I hadn’t had sex with one person and he is imagining there could be two women on earth that would be interested in having sex with me?  That seemed farfetched.

The doctor suggested that instead of a vasectomy, that we consider Kathie using an IUD.  

We left the doctor’s office and Kathie broke down in tears.  She was understandably upset that she was a 20 year old woman who was just told she would probably be dead in 10 years.

Years later I would learn that the way an IUD works is it prevents a fertilized egg from implanting on the uterine wall.  To some that is the classic definition of an abortion.  The IUD allows the egg to be fertilized, but not to reach fruition as a living human being.  It was an odd suggestion from an OCC graduate and medical doctor.

We decided that when we got married Kathie would start out on the birth control pill and we’d have this vasectomy done later.

My Cousin Jim

I suppose this looks like name dropping, but then, I have a name to drop and I’m dropping it.

The cousin closest to me in age is Jim Beaver, who had significant roles on HBO’s Deadwood, and TV’s Supernatural.  He has actually been in tons of stuff.  Google him.  He was Bobby on Supernatural so he has a huge fan base.  You don’t have to be known by everyone to still be known by millions, and my cousin is such a person.

Here is how he comes into my college years account of life.

While I was NOT in Vietnam, Jim enlisted in the Marines and was shipped of to Vietnam.  We exchanged a couple of letters while he was in bootcamp, but I just didn’t hear much from him, and, of course, he didn’t hear much from me.

Jim was just gone.  I didn’t know what was happening.  Then one day around the time the Fall semester at OCC was starting I am walking down the sidewalk holding Kathie’s hand and I see this guy, tall, he has a full beard and he is wearing blue tinted sunglasses like some kind of hippy.

This hippy looking character took off his sunglasses and tilted his head like a puzzled labrador retriever.  It was clear he was looking at me, but I did not recognize him.  Then suddenly it all came together.  It was my cousin Jim.  He was out of the military and enrolled at OCC.

I’d just lost my dear friend Berry Hopwood as a roommate, so I was able to room with Jim for the next year.

Jim was smoking, which I wasn’t.  I had smoked earlier in my life.  I smoked later in my life.  But since I was a Bible Major I figured I would not smoke at that time.  

Jim was involved in theatre there.  He seemed to be gifted in performing.  He was new to the campus and right off the bat he was the lead in Molière’s The Misanthrope.  I remember his costume had this long beard that appeared to be a modified Mop Head.  He was great.  Jim was actually too great to stay at OCC.  I don’t know if the church of Christ ambious was too stifling to his creativity, but after a year he transferred over to Central State, more properly called the University of Central Oklahoma.  I hate how distance, proximity, so often has so much to do with being part of one another’s lives.  Over time Jim and I just didn’t talk or get together that much.  I remember going to see him in my favorite Shakespearean play, King Lear.  

I should add here that Jim has not only been like a big brother too me, at least through part of my life, but he also was the bane of my existence.

bane: a cause of great distress or annoyance

Therefore the  bane of your existence is the chief annoyance or distress in your life, it is something that prevents you from enjoying life, turning it instead to misery.

When I was young, my parents had this sort of routine they did every time I got a damn report card.  

“Why can’t you be like James. [They called him James when he was very young, which Jim may hate, but hell, they started off calling me Richy so there.]

“James could read before he started school.  James makes all good grades.  James can spell.”

I am pretty sure Jim is a genius, or, at the very least a really, really smart dude.

In my adulthood I wanted to be an artist.  I don’t mean a hobby artist, but a serious, makes his living from his art artist.  But I really wanted to have sex, and, being in the church of Christ, that meant I had to be married --there would be[no living in sin for this guy-- and married people have to support their partner and so rather than give myself to my art, I gave myself to the more common demands of life.

My cousin Jim, did something else.  I don’t know everything Jim did, of course.  Remember, we were only sporadically in touch after he transferred to UCO, but I know Jim went to New York City to act.  I was told he did Shakespeare in the Park there.  I heard that he was getting tiny parts in TV shows like Dallas.  One night Kathie and I drove to Shawnee to watch a movie.  I think it was Semi-Tough.  I remember how stunned I was when this happened.  The scene was a bunch of people in some sort of cult like training where the participants were locked in a room and not allowed bathroom breaks.  One lady stands up and says, “I just peed in my pants and it was wonderful!”  The joke was that Burt Reynolds had gone out and purchased a Truck Driver's Friend -- a bottle taped to the calf with a tube that goes up the pant leg and on to the end of Mr. Winky.  Burt Reynolds is just sitting there and you can hear the sound of pee hitting an empty metal bottle.  LOL.  But the shocking part to me was that the guy sitting right next to Burt Reynolds in that shot was my cousin, unknown actor, Jim Beaver.

One time in more recent times I heard an acting student ask Jim about how he “made it” as an actor.  His answer was, “I had no plan B.”

That was true.  Jim slept on the floors and couches of friends, so he could  keep working to make it as an actor.  Jim was only briefly married in college and that relationship didn’t last.  I felt bad for him.  To me Jim gave up the pleasures of ordinary life in order to be an actor.  He had no wife, no children, and when other people were home at night watching TV he was acting.

I remember another time Jim came to Oklahoma City to perform in a traveling play, Natalie Needs a Nightie.  He was great in the play.  He was funny.  But he was, at that point, just a common bread and butter actor.

Later Jim did marry, and he now has a daughter.  Jim’s wife died of cancer and he did a magnificent job of telling that part of his life in a book published by an actual publisher, Life Is That Way.

I still have little knowledge of how Jim is doing, but my impression is that Jim has succeeded.  I have seen him in almost all of my favorite TV shows:  Third Rock from the Sun, The Mentalist, CSI, Monk, et cetera, et cetera.  You should google him, or wikipedia him to see all the stuff he has done.  Jim had the courage to pursue his art.  Like reading and spelling, and making good grades, Jim Beaver bested me yet again with his courage to be an artist.

Other College Life  Details

While at OCC I found out they had a program where you could “challenge” a course of study. What this meant was you could go to a testing center, just take a test on a course of study, and if you passed it, all you had to do was pay for the cost of the course and receive credit.  I’d recently dropped out of Preston Road School of Preaching where the Bible study had been intense.  I felt I could probably “challenge” some of those Bible course.

I took the test on New Testament Survey and Old Testament. Survey.  The test question was this:  write a summary of every book of the Old and the New Testament.

I challenged another course where I was asked to write a paper on the topic of Church Discipline, in the New Testament.  The requirement was 25 pages for 1 hour of college credit, up to 75 pages for 3 hours of college credit.

I wrote the paper and was proud of the work.  At that time a 75 page long document was the longest thing I’d ever written in my life.

This was at a time when there were no personal computers.  I was typing using a small Sears manual typewriter.  I wrote something that I felt was surprisingly good.  My research on the topic of Church Discipline later played a major role in my life.  

Getting Married

I did not graduate from Oklahoma Christian College [now it is Oklahoma Christian University], but I did complete my Bible Major.  The Bible Major part was my justification for dropping out of college.

I know it is like beating that poor dead horse, but I wanted to have sex, and I thought I knew enough about the Bible to get a preaching job.  I could get married, get a little church somewhere, and start my life.

I got married on the last day of finals at the end of my second year at OCC.  I’d “tried out” at several churches around Oklahoma.  That is how you got a preaching job in the church of Christ, you “tried out.”  The church would invite you to preach, maybe teach the auditorium class, you might be questioned by the Elders.

The Wewoka Church of Christ hired me as their associate minister and song leader.  We were on our way to confusion and despair.  

Satan Goes to Preacher School

To me it seemed like I was the dumbest dumb ass who was ever given an ass.  I was pretty old before I realized my name was not Stupid Knot-head.  My parents seemed to give more attention to the arts [singing, and painting pictures] and as long as you passed that was good enough.  Education was not valued.  In fact, education was sometimes mocked and distrusted.  

Once I sat down and tried to recall the number of schools I attended in my life.  I counted 33 schools.  If I tried to count the public schools I attended now I doubt if I could come up with that same number.  Either I was right then and have forgotten some of the schools, or while the exact number of schools might be wrong it is a fact that I went to a lot of schools before I graduated from high school.  Because my family forced me to change schools so often it was not unusual for me to attend four different schools in the same school year.  I grew up without friends.  Part of the reason is I never lived any place long enough to develop a deep friendship.  Part of it was me.  Why even try to make new friends when you were going to move away sooner than later.  

Now while I am absolutely sure that I’m a big ole dummy, it is also true, probably, that moving a lot meant that there was no continuity to my education.  The last school was studying something different from the new school.  I was so confused and unmotivated that the only constant in my life was my feelings of being confused and unmotivated.  

As I approached my graduation from high school I assumed I’d probably be going to the army.  There was a draft, and the Vietnam war was raging.  I thought I would be pressured to go into the military and I doubted that I was up to going against my family, so I also thought I might flee to Canada.  There were several problems with going to Canada.  First, it is cold there.  Secondly, how would I support myself there?  I knew no one in Canada.  Thirdly, I had a girlfriend who was sort of gung ho on serving one’s time in the military if called upon to do so.  I imagined if I was ever to have a chance at sexual intercourse I would have to keep that girlfriend happy with me.

My senior year in high school I got my “Report For Your Physical”  letter.  It is understandable.  I was held back  in grade school, so I was a 19 year old senior in high school.  Each time I got a draft notice I went down with a document showing I was still in high school and I was given an I-H draft card [Registrant not currently subject to processing for induction].

On December 1, 1969, the Selective Service System of the United States had a lottery to determine the order of call to military service in the Vietnam War for men born between 1944 and 1950.  I was born in 1950.  My number was 294.  I got a special draft card and the letter said it meant I was not going to be drafted in the year 1970 and every year after this I would be less and less likely to be drafted.

That was both a relief and a dilemma.  I was relieved not to be forced to go to war, or to flee to Canada.  But what was I going to do?  I had not applied anywhere to college.  Why would I?  I was stupid, that was the one thing my father had convinced me was a clear truth.  

My father asked me if I would be interested in going to preacher school.

The church of Christ had developed these unaccredited schools designed for older men, later in their life, who wanted to preach.  The goal was to give men enough of a background in the scriptures to go out and preach, without having a Christian College degree in Bible.

I was only 19, but what else would I do?  I agreed to consider preacher school, filled out the application, and the ball was rolling.  There was a preacher school in Dallas and my grandparents lived in Dallas.  I could go to the Preston Roads School of Preaching, and stay with my grandparents.  After I moved to Dallas, I was asked to consider being the youth minister at Webb Chapel Church of Christ.  I preached a sermon there, it was well received, and I was hired.

I was a terrible youth director.  I had no clue what to do.  I started having devotionals at people’s houses.  Sometimes I would dim the lights, we would all hold hands and do a chain prayer.

The elders called me in and told me that was not appropriate.

One very scary thing happened to me during this period.  I brought one of the other preacher school candidates to church with me, and he attended one of my Sunday night home devotionals.  The other preacher student, let’s call him Dale, asked me if I would consider going home with him and spending the night.  I agreed.

Dale was a huge guy, with a baby-like face.  He had to have been six foot seven or more, and his weight was like 190 lbs.  Dale was a “lambda” the Greek letter we were using to identify our class.  Secondly, Dale said inappropriate things, and had outbursts where he said odd and sometime ridiculous things.

One thing he said often that was very odd to me would happen if anyone mentioned chicken.  

“I love fried chicken.  There is nothing I like better in laying in bed with a leg in each hand and a breast in my mouth.”

At his place he got to acting strange.  He started talking about how he had a sin, that he could not tell anyone about, and that made it hard for him to be fully Christian.  He told me that he had been kicked out of the Navy because of this sin.

That was enough for me to figure out that he was gay, but Dale continued to tell me about a party he was at with other sailors and they had all been naked and when they were caught he got kicked out of the Navy.  I said some generic things about how God is able to forgive anything humans could possibly do.  I made pains not to mention gay behavior as a sin.

It was after 1 am and he suggested we go to bed.  

I’m feeling very ill-at-easy.  He has a double bed and he suggests I take a side and he’ll take his usual side.  I slip into bed wearing my tighty-whities.  I was afraid to move.  I was afraid to sleep.  Dale got up after a few minutes to pee.  He did an Open Door Urination.  The flow of his pee sounded huge.  I was too afraid to stay.  Dale came back to bed and after a little while his breathing changed and he began a very slight snoring.

I got up as quietly as I could and carried my pants and shoes out of the bedroom.  I pulled on my pants in the living room and I’d just pulled a sock from one of my shoes when Dale entered the room wearing nothing but some yellow and red striped briefs.  The underwear was tight and it was obvious he was getting an erection.

This is the approximate conversation as best I can remember it:

Dale:  Where are you going?

Me:  I thought I’d go on home.

Dale:  It is late.  Why not wait until morning?

Me.  Oh.  Well.  I just can’t relax.  I figure I’ll sleep better in my own bed.

Dale:  It’s because I told you about myself.

Me:  No.  [I lied.] It wasn’t that. [It was exactly that.]

Dale sat down on the floor very close to me, his face less than a foot from my face.

Dale:  It was a mistake for me to confess my sins to you.

Me:  It was nothing.

Dale:  It was not nothing.  If you tell anyone, they will kick me out of Preacher School and no church will ever hire me.

Me:  Why would I tell?  You have asked for God’s forgiveness.  

Dale:  You know I could kill you now, and then kill myself.

This was starting to get really scary.  I read about this murder suicide stuff in the newspapers.

Dale:  In just a few minutes, you would be like the beggar named Lazarus in heaven, and I would be like the rich man in hell.

He was referring to the parable in Luke 16 usually referred to as the story of the Rich Man and the beggar Lazarus.

Dale:  I would be in hell looking up at you, just like I’m looking at you now.  I would be begging you to dip your finger in water and put a drop of cool water on my tongue to help ease the burning fires of hell.

Suddenly Dale reached out and took my foot and he put my big toe in his mouth sucking the toe.  

Me:  Don’t!

I tried to jerk my foot away from him but he was sasquatch strong.

Dale:  Don’t act all grossed out.  You wanted me to do that.

Me.  I want to leave.

Dale rose up on his knees and put both his hands around my throat and started to choke me.  I could feel my face get hot, and my head felt like it was swelling.  I was pulling at his hands trying to get them away from my throat, but Dale was stronger than me.  I thought that this was it, this was how I would die.  I almost felt OK with it.  I hadn’t really enjoyed much in my life.  What would I be losing?

It almost seemed, at that moment, that Dale read my thoughts.  He seemed like he was just going to refuse to give me release.  Dale released his hold on my throat and stood up and stepped to one side.  

Dale:  You can go.

I didn’t hesitate. 

 

You may find it hard to understand, but I didn’t report Dale to the police.  I didn’t tell any of the teachers at the Preston Road School of Preaching.  The following morning I went to class, Dale was there, and what happened between us was never mentioned again.

I have no explanation.  I was afraid, yes.  I was partly ashamed, yes.  It was his word against mine, yeah.  Also, other shit came down on me and I just moved on.

The Play

In my work as the youth director I found myself attracted to an 18 year old high school senior, who just happened to be the daughter of one of the elders.  I’ll call this young lady, Mandy.  Mandy was much taller than me and she had appropriately large breasts.  Mandy was a little angry with her parents, especially her dad.

Mandy was not a prude and I found her to be a promising lead in my search for eventual intercourse.  I could imagine myself married to this girl.  I wasn't actually thinking of proposing, but I was at the point where I thought, Wow, she is fine, and if grow even closer, well, it is possible she could be THE ONE.  

Mandy and I spent as much time together as possible and we shared a lot of our interests.  Mandy said she was involved in the drama club at her high school and she had been in several plays.

It just so happened that while I’d never actually been in a play, I had written several one acts.  Mandy wanted to read one of my plays and I wanted Mandy to admire me.  So I gave her one of the plays I’d written when I was a high school senior.  The play did contain the word “fuck” in some of the dialogue.

During the Wednesday night service one of the elders came by and said they were going to have an emergency Elder’s meeting after church, and I was to stay at the church building until that Elder’s meeting was over.

I had no clue what was up, but as I walked out of the building I met Mandy and she looked like she’d just witnessed someone putting her cat into a wood chipper.  Mandy demanded that we go sit in my car and talk.  Mandy started to cry and to tell me how sorry she was. It turned out she’d left my one act play on the front seat of the car when she drove home from school, and later, her mother got into the same car, saw the play on the passenger side seat.  She picked the play up and scanned to the first F word.

I was fired.  I was also ordered to go see a psychiatrist or else I would be exposed at the Preacher School.   I was also ordered to go forward Sunday morning and repent.

I repented.

I went to the psychiatrist.  

 

The shrink was my first mental health visit.  It did not turn out to be my last visit with a shrink.  The psychiatrist told me that anything we said to one another was in confidence.  This surprised me.  Why would the Elders send me to see this church of Christ Psychiatrist if they were not going to get a report back from him.  The shrink told me that I was angrier at the Elders than I seemed willing to admit.  He felt my shame over writing the word fuck on paper, in an unproduced unpublished play was my shame alone.  I was shaming myself. 

 

Later, Mandy's father called me complaining that they had send me to, and paid for me to see this Psychiatrist and he got no report back.

 

Later Mandy’s father met with me.  He was a big guy.  He was a big angry guy.  He, of course, forbad me from ever seeing his daughter again and I was forbidden from telling Mandy that he had ordered me to stay away from her.  His suggestion was that I tell Mandy that I was upset with her for leaving that play out where it could be found and I never wanted to see her again.

That was partly true, so I complied with that order.

It was clear to me soon after all this came down on me, that someone had told the staff at the Preacher School already.  The head of the school called me in and suggested that I leave the school.  I’d been there over a year, but I dropped out.

Just before leaving town I got a letter from the Psychiatrist.  The shrink letter said that while our time together was in confidence, that IF I wanted him to, he would draft a letter to the Elders.  Since I was returning to my parent's home, I just let the matter drop.

I packed my stuff and drove back to Virginia.

Was I angry?  Yes.  I did think that a lot of people were overreacting to the F word, but I was also a preacher candidate that had written the F word on paper and other people had read the word.

I left Preacher School with greater doubts than I had when I arrived there.

The class I’d taken on how we got the Bible talked about how some manuscripts were found.  There are no original manuscripts of the Bible.  Everything was copied by hand.  Some of the verses that we find perplexing the teachers blamed on Scribner errors.

In my Koine Greek class we were given a passage to translate as homework.

I must admit here that I was not a great Koine Greek student.  I had what I called an Underwater Grade:  UNDER C LEVEL.

Nevertheless, I had more trouble than usual trying to translate this passage.  When I got to school the following morning several of the other students shared that they too found the passage impossible to translate.

When the teacher came in the teacher asked if anyone had trouble translating the passage.  Every hand went up.  

The Teacher:  Don’t feel about failing to translate this passage.  The reason it is so hard to translate is that the Greek passage contains a grammatical error.

My immediate thought was, GOD MAKES GRAMMATICAL ERRORS?

The church of Christ doublespeak answer to a grammatical error in the original Greek  is that there are no original manuscripts, that Scribner errors  entered the passage through recopying. The problem I have is that the claim that the originals were perfect, is that there is no way to check that assumption.  If the church of Christ theory is right, that while there are no originals that God’s providence made sure that we were able to piece together the Perfect Word of God, then shouldn’t our piecing together have found a passage that was without the grammatical error?

In Preacher School I learned:

• the scriptural rationale for why women were to keep silent in the churches.
• and why it is a sin to sing with instrumental music
• and how we know we are supposed to worship on Sundays instead of Saturday [the Sabbath day]
• I also learned that you should circumcise your baby boys because the foreskin is extra sensitive and it will cause the uncircumcised to have uncontrollable lust.  Really.  That was taught in the classroom at the Preston Roads School of Preaching.  

What I didn’t learn is:

• How could I be a member of the church of Christ without doubts
• What I could not figure out was how to be OK with the repressive beliefs of the church of Christ
• How was I ever going to stop hating myself?
• How was I going to be saved given my propensity to do, and think bad things?

Back in my father’s home my mother and father looked at me like I was a huge embarrassing disappointment to them.  It was a look in their faces that I have seen throughout my life.

I didn’t know it then, but I fell into a huge depression.  I sat around in the dining room, where the record player was located, and I listened to Cat Stevens songs over and over again.  It was hard for me to breath.  I felt like the weight of a car was resting on my chest and just to draw in another breath seemed very close to impossible.

 

I wanted to die, but, of course, I was afraid to die.  I was obviously in a bad relationship with God.  It was clear to me that if I killed myself I was going to be in pain from the death stuff, and as soon as I was dead, rather than relief from the pains of this life, I would be immediately in the Lake of Fire.  I needed a plan.