New Correction From God

This week my copy of The Death of Santini arrived.

If you read this blog, you know I have been reading about the dysfunctional family of the author Pat Conroy. The movie The Great Santini was based on Conroy’s dad, but the real-life Santini was much worse than the Robert Duvall version. He was a habitual wife-beater, and he beat his children with his fists. He even beat strangers who tried to stop the beatings.

I bought Conroy’s autobiographical book My Losing Season because I found out it contained material about his dad. I felt like I had to read it.

Something supernatural is going on. Conroy is not a skilled writer, and he can be annoying, but I still feel compelled to read his books.

Today something odd happened. I went to Youtube to watch a couple of Christian videos, and as might be expected, I drifted off into garbage video. I watched some Jack Reacher clips. For some reason, I clicked on a video from a show called True Detective. I have never seen the show. The caption said the video was about a character named Ray Velcoro, beating up a bully’s dad. That appealed to me. Morbid curiosity.

The video is easy to summarize. Velcoro’s young son is a fat victim. He had some expensive basketball shoes. Another boy stole them and cut them up. Velcoro berated, insulted, and threatened his son (like Pat Conroy’s dad) until he gave him a name. Velcoro went to the boy’s house, got his dad to bring him out for a lecture, and beat his dad senseless in front of him.

The bully’s name was Aspen Conroy.

That’s not a coincidence. It can’t be. Pat Conroy is a well-known writer who appeals to soft left-wing males, and soft left-wing males are the kind of people who get hired to write TV shows.

The writers chose that name for a reason, and I came across the video for a reason.

My dad was a bully. My sister was a bully, too. She always found people to torture, wherever she went. She probably has some victims right now. She always liked picking on homosexuals. She and her friend used to torment an effeminate young man when we lived in Miami Shores. I thought his name was Sally because that was what they always called him.

She also tried to feminize straight men who attracted her abuse. Like a bull lesbian, she likes men to be small and weak. Maybe that’s a response to her aggressive, assertive, intimidating father.

My dad was a bully, and now that I’m in charge, the bully aspects of his nature cause problems. He curses me when I tell him things he doesn’t want to hear. He tries to make me think I’m crazy when I disagree with him. He holds me responsible for things like his boredom, his incurable back pain, everything that goes wrong with the house…you name it. I am the genie who has a duty to appear on command, wave a wand, and make all discomfort and resistance vanish instantly.

He also has some extremely filthy habits which derive from a lifetime of treating other people like porta-potties.

To me, the big problem with my dad isn’t the way he treats me. It’s the way I respond. I get angry with him. I’m not saying I scream at him or physically abuse him. I just get angry. I behave like someone who isn’t angry, but I still feel it, and I have to fight it using supernatural means. I don’t want to be a place where anger sits and festers. What happens in the world outside of me is beyond my control, and I have low expectations, but I don’t want the filth inside me.

I believe God is telling me it’s wrong to hate bullies.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I hate bullies.” We say it without guilt, as if hating bullies makes a person righteous.

Bullies are horrendous. They taunt. They rape. They invade our boundaries and put their hands on others. They look for the things that disturb us most, and those are the things they do. The humiliation of others brings them joy. They do things like shoving people’s heads in toilets and holding people down and spitting in their mouths.

A bully doesn’t just hurt you while he’s with you. He leaves pain inside you and makes you hate yourself for losing. Nonetheless, we’re not entitled to hate them. If you accept hate, you damage yourself and grieve the Holy Spirit, so it’s another victory for the bullies. It’s the biggest victory a bully can get.

Cursed people who serve demons are always looking for dance partners. They latch onto others, and if they succeed, demons join with the others, and sick relationships are established. This is why beating a woman is one of the best ways to keep her from leaving you. The demons want to keep dance partners together.

I have to get over the idea that it’s okay to hate a bully. Self-righteousness is poisonous. Besides, I have bullied people. Not a lot, but I have done it. Something came over me, and I yielded. I did what I hate. Who am I to feel like I’m in a superior class?

Two things are true, and at first glance, they may seem inconsistent. First, we are not to develop relationships with bullies. It’s correct to cut them loose instantly and to refuse to take them back when they whimper and beg for forgiveness. Forgiveness and taking people back are different things. As for taking up with a bully, it’s like dating a pimp; you’ll get what you asked for, and God won’t listen when you ask for deliverance. Second thing: we are not supposed to hate bullies. You can cut a mentally diseased person out of your life without hatred.

Unless I am literally forced to accept relationships I don’t want, my dad will be the very last abusive person in my life. I wasn’t to blame for being born in a house with two bullies, but I am responsible for the problems caused by new bullies I choose to tolerate.

I have to keep a watchful eye on my social circle, but I can’t harbor active malice toward those who mistreat me. It’s like a break in the skin where demons can enter.

If you’re not submitted to God, he will put people who hate you over you. The Bible says so. It leads to bad marriages, horrible jobs, tyranny, and toxic friendships. God will make you the tail and not the head. I put contemptible people in positions of power over me, and I didn’t know I was doing it. The reason I didn’t know is that I wasn’t close to God. He would have advised me, had I been spending time with him.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be my dad or my sister.

My sister is vicious and mentally ill. No one can stand her. She has no law license, and there is no way she’ll ever meet the requirements to get her license restored, because she would have to admit what she has done, apologize to the bar, and complete a rehab program. She used her looks to control men when she was young, but now she is old and physically repulsive. She was disinherited 14 years ago. Her cancer is in remission, but cancer comes back.

My sister thinks she’s a holy woman. She thinks God and the world have cheated her. Everyone who knows her thinks she deserves worse and is glad to be free of her. Her relatives dread contact with her, as do many of her former business contacts.

My dad’s life has no meaning. He wakes up in a smelly bedroom, bathes in a filthy bathroom, puts on the same basic outfit every day, and then thinks about nothing except his own comfort and pleasure until he falls asleep. He can’t do anything to entertain himself. He can’t have a real conversation. He doesn’t have a single friend, and he can’t make new ones. He doesn’t have the comfort of prayer.

I think the only reason he has for living is fear of death. He can’t be thinking about heaven. He may die this year, but he refuses to think about the afterlife. He is dying from a terminal disease, and he insists he’s in great health and ought to live to be a hundred.

I can’t help thinking of David Carradine, a screwup and human cipher who met his end in a closet in Thailand, naked, obsessing on his own base pleasure.

My dad and my sister have no one they can talk to about their thoughts and feelings, and if they did, they wouldn’t do it. They think they’ve done everything right, so there is nothing to talk about. I’ve never heard my dad say anything introspective. I don’t think he permits that kind of thought.

Whatever. Regardless of what happens to the people around me because of their bad choices, I don’t want their poison to contaminate me.

Pat Conroy’s parents had 7 children, and 5 attempted suicide. One succeeded. His dad, the bully, wasn’t suicidal. What he did to his family must not have bothered him much. He died from cancer. He must have succeeded in pushing his poison into his kids permanently.

I will continue listening to God and trying to get correction, and as for my dad, I look forward to the day he accepts salvation. There is nothing else of value he is capable of accomplishing in this life.