For those of you who haven't read the book, I'd definitely recommend reading it. And possibly holding off on this entry until you do. Not that I'll give anything major away, but still, even the lesson itself is sometimes best left as a surprise, for it is sometimes best to have it whallop you across the temple from out of nowhere.
That said, I admit to having been left in a bit of turmoil by the book. For all of the growth, reconstruction, and stabilization I've done in the last few months, I feel that I was forced, through Dominick's character, to examine my own "museum of pain" or "sanctuary of justifiable indignation." To consider what I was doing with my collection of painful memories and the sense of myself that I've had for such a long time, that I would be able to do the right thing, even in the face of great personal loss or pain. ESPECIALLY in the face of great personal loss or pain.
I see the problem, and the solution, but it's hard to simply let go. Even now, when I can still see how everyone is coming from a place of hurt, and knowing that I don't want to contribute any more to it, I still cling to my wounds and injuries as if they're a series of treasures. That every slight, every rejection, every sacrifice, can then be put together with all of the rest to give me... what? That's what I don't even understand. That I don't even know what they give me that I have so much difficulty letting go.
I have the whole collection laid out before my eyes, too. My mother, first of all and most of all, then moving to my father, all of the kids I grew up with, went to school with, moving on to all of the betrayals, whether real or only real to me when I experienced them, such as those inflicted by my best friend in high school and my crush, who later became my girlfriend, and the further collection of wrongs that I've placed on my mantel from her... I move to college, and have a whole new set of wrongs that I've collected, the writing on my college dorm door, the rejection of the gay-straight alliance to become part of a larger anti-oppression network of student organizations, the isolation I felt from other queer students, the isolation from Mike... Mike, whose hurt holds a special place as a prize in my museum of misery, even today. Moving on to Bond, another special little hurt. To Ben, and after that to my self-inflicted wrongs with GC, just to prove to myself that Ben had no more power over me... and onward out to Ray and Steve, and the wrongs I've placed in my museum from them. All of the wrongs and hurts that I've catalogued, all of the times I've been stood up, or rejected, even Matt's struggling conversation based entirely upon honesty, sure, the conversation was great, and we've been able to talk well with one another since then, but what did I do as soon as I hung up the phone? What else but twist the entire thing in the most self-deprecating way, and feed it into my twisted collection of pain and injustice?
The book is brilliant, really, in its scope and purpose. For its ability to simply tell you to let it go, cleanse yourself of the hurt and forgive, in order to better move on. But it's simply too hard for me to accomplish right now. And looking back, I know how hard it has always been. That I've been collecting these early, and had the struggle even way back when.
I remember having such a sense of injustice in theology classes, and at masses, with the story of the prodigal son. Because, after all, why DID the good son have to miss out on the ability to have some sense of validation that he had done the right thing all along? Even as a child, it burned me up to think that religious figures like Paul and Augustine were the centralized figures of the Church's development and power because of the fact that they were such despicable people throughout their lives, and just up and one day decided "hey, I'm going to do something different now." Suddenly, they were literally saints and could do nothing wrong, could not be contradicted, and in many cases, the teachings and decisions they'd made since their conversions were just as despicable as their acts before. And where did that leave us? Those who had been faithful all along and done what we were supposed to do?
It's why, when I left Christianity, I've STILL found myself returning again and again to the book of Job as my favorite book of the Bible. Because it's the book that shows us what a son of a bitch God is. That's the irony, though, as well. That my identity as an atheist doesn't come about because I straight-out don't believe in God at all, but more of the fact that I feel that, if God *does* exist, then He's a massive son of a bitch, the biggest bully out there, and that it's better to simply not believe in a God than to believe that that bastard has any control over us, because you know that the first chance he gets, which is infinite, he's going to screw any one of us over. Just to prove a point, or to force us to obey him, or to make us place value on Him more than anything else... as if He *needs* it. Human beings, all frail creatures, every one of us who has been broken by the world in some way, all needing a little bit of tenderness, and what does Christianity tell us? Put God before anything. As if every single human being immediately and eternally ceasing to give God credit for anything would even have any sort of negative impact upon God... would hurt Him, or make Him cease to exist or something. But we're supposed to bleed out our lives to *serve* Him? That's a fucked up recipe if I've ever seen one.
But here it is again. I'm left back to my sense of righteous indignation and the fact that I just can't seem to let it go. To just allow all of those past slights, injuries, rejections, and attacks simply be in the past. To just look forward and live, and stop tending to my museum of pain and injustice... I don't know what the answer is, honestly. What the trick or the secret is to just letting it all drift away from me. I know it's there, and I know it's unhealthy. But it's the thing that you just can't bring yourself to throw away, no matter how rotten it is, or how much it's stinking up the place.
I guess I still have a lot more work to do...
