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The Only Reason I (Temporarily) Stopped Reading Ania Bula’s Young, Sick, and Invisible
In the last days of Boo, I started reading our own Ania Bula’s new book Young, Sick, and Invisible: A Skeptic’s Journey with Chronic Illness. I’d put a fuzzy blanket on the bed and Boo was being super-cuddly. I figured I’d read a few pages of this, move the cat, and get some work done.
Note to readers: do not begin Ania’s book if you do not intend to go on reading it for a while. You get sucked completely in. And you keep promising yourself one more chapter. They’re short, so it’s easy to get away with telling yourself “It’s just one more little chapter. It won’t take very long.” You will continue telling yourself that with every subsequent chapter. Continue reading “The Only Reason I (Temporarily) Stopped Reading Ania Bula’s Young, Sick, and Invisible”
“The List of Ugly Realities” – Escape Chapter 17: Marrying into the Jeffs’ Family
This is a short chapter, but it gives us quite a bit of insight into Merril’s thirst for power, Warren Jeffs’ creepy early years, and FLDS hypocrisy and dysfunction.
Content note for forced marriage, child abuse, and spousal abuse.
Merril wants more power and prestige within the FLDS, and of course, the way to get it is by bartering your young daughters into sexual slavery. He’s already married one off to ancient prophet Rulon Jeffs. Now he sacrifices pretty Paula. As she’s married off to a man 60 years her senior, “Her still smile barely [hides] her despair.” All Carolyn can think about is how she and Paula had joked in school about “having to marry an old man who was a rest-home patient.” This is Paula’s nightmare: her new husband is so old and weak he has to sit throughout the ceremony. It’s one thing to marry someone older for love: it’s quite another to be sold off, with no choice in the matter. Continue reading ““The List of Ugly Realities” – Escape Chapter 17: Marrying into the Jeffs’ Family”
How Fifty Shades of Gray Sporkings Sparked My Supernatural Obsession and Enriched My Life
How could some of the world’s worst fiction lead me down very rewarding paths? I didn’t think it possible. When Fifty Shades of Gray first impinged itself upon my awareness, I thought it had no redeeming value whatsoever. How shocked was I to discover it does? And how did it lead me toward Supernatural, which has become one of my favorite problematic shows of all time? Continue reading “How Fifty Shades of Gray Sporkings Sparked My Supernatural Obsession and Enriched My Life”
“You Should Know I Will Fight Back” – Escape Chapter 15: Hawaii
After all the drama of the past several days of Carolyn’s Hawaii vacation, we finally get a moment that doesn’t completely suck. Enjoy it while it lasts: it’s going to be about the only one.
Content note for verbal, emotional, and religious abuse.
The family flies to Kauai, which Carolyn thinks looks like the Garden of Eden. She’s always lived in a desert, so all this greenery is incredible. I know those feels well, having lived in the desert Southwest for nearly the entire first three decades of my life. I used to think Flagstaff, Arizona was lush and magnificently green. Then I moved to Seattle and encountered places where you literally cannot see the ground for all the plants, and was awestruck. Also intimidated. Temperate rainforests have a way of looming at a person.
Carolyn is free to enjoy her first day in this paradise, as Merril decides to take a nap and Tammy and Cathleen stay with him. She and her other mother Rosie have a lovely walk on the beach, where Carolyn enjoys the waves washing over her toes. However, this is an FLDS vacay, so you know there has to be some fucked-up shit going on. Continue reading ““You Should Know I Will Fight Back” – Escape Chapter 15: Hawaii”
Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus Excerpt: God Hates Mothers
VI
(Leviticus 12)
Most of us are aware by now that the LORD’s not too fond of women. He’s fine with them being used as sex slaves, or sold to their rapists, or stoned to death for getting pregnant out of wedlock. But this is the chapter where we’re going to see just how much of a misogynistic asshole he actually is.
See, we know from our Biblical readings so far that a woman’s only worth is in her ability to squirt out babies (or convince her husband to fuck her handmaid pregnant if she herself is sterile). There’s pretty much no other value assigned to womenfolk. And we know that ritual purity is a Big Fucking Deal.
So what does God do? Continue reading “Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus Excerpt: God Hates Mothers”
“Competing for a Man None of Us Loved” – Escape Chapter 15: Honeymoon
Do you think it’s impossible to despise Merril Jessop more? After all he’s done, you’re pretty sure your opinion of him can’t sink any lower? Well, my darlings, as we continue this ill-conceived Hawaiian vacation with Merril and three of his wives, I do believe you’ll find your opinion grabbing a drilling rig and heading for the Earth’s core. (By the end of the book, you’ll be wishing you could drop him down the hole, trust me.)
On the flight, Tammy and Carolyn shag the seats beside Merril, leaving Cathleen the odd woman out. She sits on Tammy’s other side, upset and not hiding it. Merril could have done the decent thing and assured her he loved her and promised her a seat beside him on the flight home. Alas, Merril doesn’t have a decent bone in his body. So instead, he says something shitty that causes Cathleen to head for the back of the plane, where she sobs loudly enough for them to all hear.
Tammy, wanting Merril to herself for reasons probably having much more to do with power plays than affection, starts berating Carolyn for not going to take care of Cathleen. She keeps it up until Carolyn, pregnant and ill, loses her temper and snaps at her. Pretty hard to keep sweet in these conditions.
And what does Merril do? Continue reading ““Competing for a Man None of Us Loved” – Escape Chapter 15: Honeymoon”
“An Unmitigated Disaster” – Escape Chapter 15: Hawaii
This chapter really highlights how dysfunctional Carolyn’s family is, and how fucked up FLDS doctrine is – and keep in mind, this is before Warren Jeffs took over and it got extreme.
Imagine getting the opportunity to vacation in Hawaii. Awesome! Only… you have to go with the husband you hate. Not as awesome. And he’s taking two of his other wives… so not awesome. And your husband doesn’t even bother to tell you and your sister wives that you’re going: he just kind of lets you find out on your own… even less awesome. And you’re pregnant and have horrible morning sickness. Now we’re pretty fucking far from awesome.
Merril usually isn’t interested in his wives other than Barbara, but in the FLDS, you have to at least keep up an appearance of treating all wives equally, and his tendency to only take Barbara on long trips is getting noticed. Because a woman can only get messages from God through her husband, it can damage his standing in the community if he appears to be failing at the task of keeping his family under control. Merril has tried to keep the illusion of equality going by keeping most of his younger wives pregnant. But that only gets him so far. So he figures he’ll knock down three long trips in one and haul three of his wives to Hawaii. Continue reading ““An Unmitigated Disaster” – Escape Chapter 15: Hawaii”
Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus Excerpt: Unholy Fire?! You’re Fired!
IV
Unholy Fire?! You’re Fired!
(Leviticus 10)
All the priests of the LORD have now been consecrated, and God’s business (of burning up sacrificial animals on an industrial scale) can now begin. Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu are pretty keen, and so they get right to work. Problem is, they’re new on the job, and maybe they dozed off a bit while Moses was relaying God’s interminable instructions, because they fuck up and put the wrong incense in the censer. Oops! (Lev. 10:1)
It’s the kind of mistake any new employees could make. And it’s not like there was any training program or anything, just a really long, boring lecture with a lot of persnickety detail (and the occasional death threat). God should know how fallible human memory is – he’s the one who supposedly designed it, after all. If the servants of a kinder, more sensible deity with good anger management skills had screwed up, there would’ve been a deep cosmic sigh, and then a gentle booming voice saying, “Nope. No. Guys. You put the second best incense in. No, I know, it smells really nice, and honestly, A+ for effort, but you were supposed to use only the best. You know, my exclusive blend? Let’s put that stuff out and try again. And, y’know, maybe you should store them in different parts of the tabernacle so this doesn’t happen again, okay? Great.” And the unholy smoke would have cleared, and the holy fire burned, and everything would have gone perfectly smoothly after that.
But we’re talking about the LORD here, so you know he completely loses his shit.
He doesn’t give Aaron’s sons a chance to realize their mistake. He doesn’t give them a chance to correct it. He smells that “strange fire,” and he flies into an instant rage, and he burns those two boys to death right then and there. (Lev. 10:2)
Moses, the snide little shit, tells Aaron, who just watched God burn two of his sons to a crisp, “Oh, hey, that’s what the LORD meant when he said ‘I’ll be sanctified by the folks who come near me, and I’ll be glorified by all the people.’” Yep. Cuz it sure is glorious to strike two poor noobs dead for bungling the incense one time. (Lev. 10:3)
And Aaron, the poor bereaved bastard, can’t say a word.
Moses has a couple of Aaron’s cousins carry the charred remains of his sons out of the camp. They haul them out by their miraculously unburnt tunics, like a couple of sacks of potatoes. Then he has the gall to tell Aaron and his two surviving sons that they’re not allowed to grieve. (Lev. 10:4-6)
Seriously. Imagine watching your children or your brothers die an agonizing, gruesome death, and then being told you are not to mourn them under any circumstances, because if you do, then your god’s going to kill you and then fuck up everybody else. Imagine being ordered to stay in the tabernacle – the exact place your loved ones were just brutally murdered, where you can still smell the smoke and see the char from God burning them alive – because if you step foot outside it, your loving God will strike you stone dead. I mean, there’s being a sadist, and then there’s being an unforgivable, appalling, torturing, sadistic asshole. I think we can all see which is the LORD. (Lev. 10:6-7)
The LORD has plenty of coarse, pure salt to rub in their wounds. He won’t even let them get drunk to help cope with the trauma. And if their grief gets to be too much, and having to bow down and worship and serve the murderer of their kinfolk becomes a weight too heavy to be borne, and they sneak a sip of the ol’ 100 proof before entering the tabernacle? Well, then, God will kill them dead, too. So they’re ordered to stay stone sober, and teach this homicidal tyrant’s rules to everybody, forever. (Lev. 10:8-11)
Moses takes over lecturing for the LORD, telling them how they can and can’t eat the various offerings and sacrifices they’re to make, and then he goes looking for the goat of the sin offering. Only, it’s already been burnt. He loses his shit, and yells at Aaron’s surviving sons: “I can’t believe you fucked this up! You were supposed to eat it in here! That was for you to atone for everybody with! You didn’t even bring the blood in here! I mean, seriously, you fools, you should have eaten it in the holy place like I told you to.” (Lev. 10:12-18)
And poor Aaron blames himself. “If I’d done it right, and eaten the sin offering today, would the LORD have been happy with it?” And Moses, the snide little shit, is really pleased with himself for gaslighting Aaron into taking the blame for God’s murderous temper tantrum. (Lev. 10:19-20)
Victim-blaming asshole.
So you see, children, it’s very important to do everything exactly the way God wants you to, even if it’s the first time you’ve tried doing it. Because if you fuck up even the smallest detail, God is either gonna smite you personally, or he’ll burn your own flesh and blood to death right before your eyes – and then forbid you to mourn them.
That’s his idea of glory.
Are you really sure this abominable deity deserves our devotion?
Copyright © 2015 by Dana Hunter. All rights reserved.
Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus coming soon!
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(Sorta) New at Rosetta Stones: Some Magnificent Eruptions Photos Have Funny Stories…
We’ve reached the areas where some of the most iconic photos of the early moments of Mount St. Helens’s catastrophic May 18, 1980 eruption were taken. The good news is, everybody lived! The bad news: not all of them were wearing pants…
(I totally forgot to schedule this. I’ve been working on fiction and suchlike this week and got a little discombobulated. Sorry, everyone!)