Sweet to Hear

I finished Stephen King’s Needful Things.  I’ll use as my starting point a passage on page 641: “Alan found himself remembering something else—-something his grandmother used to tell him when he was small: The devil’s voice is sweet to hear.”

That fits Leland Gaunt, the antagonist of the book.  He comes across as a warm, urbane, compassionate man, at least when he’s not pushing people to pay up!  Nettie ordinarily did not come out of her shell for people, but she really took to Leland Gaunt.  And, at least on the surface, Gaunt appears to be doing some good for people.  He sells Polly Chalmers an amulet that significantly lessens the pain of her arthritis.  He sells Miss Ratcliffe a piece of Noah’s ark (or so it appears), which brings her inner peace and religious joy whenever she touches it.

In some cases, even the good that Gaunt does is tainted.  Polly’s amulet makes her arthritic pain subside because it contains a spider that is feeding on her toxins and growing as a result.  Miss Ratcliffe feels better whenever she touches the relic from Noah’s ark, but she does not want to share the relic with her boyfriend, whom she thinks is not spiritually mature enough to appreciate it.  And so she’s both selfish and also spiritually snobbish.

What really makes Gaunt evil, however, is the deeds that he requires people to do to get their needful thing from his store.  These deeds turn people in the community against each other.  Often, Gaunt pretends to commiserate with people who have been hurt (usually, unknown to them, as a result to events that he himself set into motion), but this is only so he can encourage them to take revenge.  He sells them special guns, or he encourages Danforth Keeton to get dynamite in order to blow up the town.

In many cases, people who have been hurt are so focused on their anger and getting revenge that they neglect other things.  When Gaunt persuades Alan that Ace Merrill was the one who killed Alan’s wife and son, Alan (the sheriff) forgets that his town is in chaos, and he forgets the people whom he loves and who love him (such as Polly).  He is wearing blinders, and his entire focus is on his anger.  Sometimes, in cases such as this, there are voices that try to dissuade people from believing Gaunt’s lies, and they take the shape of people who have died.  They may be from ghosts, or perhaps people are simply thinking thoughts while using the voices of certain dead folks.  In Polly’s head is the voice of her late aunt, who was a source of practical wisdom to her, and this voice leads Polly to ask if the Alan she knows is really capable of doing what Gaunt has portrayed him as doing (namely, Gaunt manufactured a letter from a child welfare office saying that Alan was snooping around in Polly’s past).  In Alan’s head is the voice of Brian, Gaunt’s first customer in Castle Rock who committed suicide in sorrow over the part he played in setting disastrous events into motion, at Gaunt’s instigation.  The voice of Brian essentially tells Alan not to believe Gaunt’s lies.

Gaunt can be a fairly decent liar, but his lies are sometimes flawed.  Lies in general are flawed because they’re untrue, but what I’m saying is this:  A good liar can make a lie at least look real—-as something that has a degree of logic, inner consistency, and accordance with facts.  Gaunt is able to manufacture things that, on the surface, look real.  He’s able to manufacture a letter from a child welfare office saying that Alan is snooping around in Polly’s past.  He can manufacture photographs—-as he does when he makes a fake photo of Miss Ratcliffe’s boyfriend, Lester, cheating on her in a bar.  He can simulate events on a video, as when he shows Alan a video of Alan’s wife and son dying in a car accident due to Ace Merrill.

Gaunt has this talent, and he knows enough about people to realize what lies he can tell them that will really push their buttons.  But there are indications that Gaunt doesn’t always think things through.  For example, in the video that Alan saw, Alan’s wife is wearing her seatbelt, even though it was established after the accident that she was not wearing her seatbelt when the accident occurred.  When Gaunt has Hugh Priest kill Nettie’s dog and leave a note making it look like Wilma did the dastardly deed, Gaunt apparently does not consider that the authorities will be able to compare the handwriting on the note with Wilma’s handwriting and see that they differ, or that they’ll notice that Hugh’s bloody fingerprints on Nettie’s door do not match Wilma’s, or that they’ll take into consideration the timing of events.  Why didn’t Gaunt use his manufacturing talent in these cases?  He could have produced notes in Wilma’s handwriting, for example!  Gaunt either didn’t think things completely through, or certain things simply did not occur to him.  (I initially thought that Gaunt may be playing games with Alan and the other authorities, as if Gaunt wants for Alan to figure out that Gaunt is behind the events; but I don’t think that’s true, for Gaunt just wants Alan to get off his case.)

To return to what Alan’s grandmother said about the devil’s voice being pleasing, I don’t think that this has to mean that every pleasing voice is from the devil.  Some Christians seem to think that we should dismiss as Satanic any voice that differs from their depiction of God as an ogre, or that encourages us to feel good about ourselves.  I disagree with that approach.  But I think that it’s necessary to dismiss voices that encourage us to hate, or to seek revenge.  And it’s good to hear another perspective from people—-to shed light on issues we may not have considered, to encourage us to see even those whom we hate as human beings, or to focus our attention away from our hate and onto our role in facilitating the general well-being of humanity.

The Seventh-Day Adventists

For my write-up today on Stephen King’s Needful Things, I’ll use as my starting-point a statement on page 608:

“Babs and her husband were, after all, Seventh-Day Adventists, and as far as she was concerned, the Catholics and the Baptists deserved just what they got…”

The context of this passage is the feud between the Catholics and the Baptists over a Casino Night that the Catholic church is hosting, and yet I must note that the Baptist minister has other issues with Catholicism as well, such as Mariology (which many Catholics would say that he misunderstands).  Babs is doing a prank that will exasperate that conflict because that is part of her payment to Leland Gaunt for a “needful thing” that he is selling her.  And she does not care that she is exasperating the conflict, for she, as a Seventh-Day Adventist, does not like Baptists or Catholics.

I must emphasize that this is the character Babs’ particular Seventh-Day Adventist view, and it does not reflect how all or even most Seventh-Day Adventists see the world.  In my own experience of Seventh-Day Adventism, the general belief is that the Roman Catholic Church is the Antichrist, that Sunday-observance is the mark of the Beast, and that the evil second beast in Revelation 13 represents the United States imposing a National Sunday Law.  The upside to this view is that Seventh-Day Adventism opposes legal attempts to shove religion down people’s throats, plus it firmly supports freedom of religion.  The downside to the view is that it influences some Seventh-Day Adventists to look down on Catholics and Sunday-observing Protestants, as if they are some sort of threat.  I remember when I told a Catholic priest that I attend a Seventh-Day Adventist church, and he replied, “Oh, well, I’m surprised you’re even shaking my hand!”

Even here, however, I can’t speak in absolutes.  There are many Adventists who believe that they as Christians should love everybody, regardless of what they believe.  Ellen White acknowledged that there could be true Christians even in the Catholic church (which is rather condescending, but it’s a step up from saying no Catholic is saved).  And I’m not sure if every single Adventist takes Adventist eschatology seriously.  I went to places where that eschatology was taken seriously, but I wonder if that is the case with every Adventist church.

Company When Watching Stuff; the Cleansed Zealot

I have two items from yesterday’s reading of Stephen King’s Needful Things:

1.  Eleven-year-old Brian Rusk committed suicide because he felt guilty about setting into motion a chain of events that took two people’s lives, all to get a baseball card from Leland Gaunt.  Sheriff Alan Pangborn is questioning Brian’s little brother, Sean, at the hospital.  Sean tells Alan that he and Brian saw the movie Young Guns on the VCR, and they both enjoyed it.  Sean says they were both looking forward to seeing Young Guns II once it came out on video, but now Brian won’t be able to see it because he’s dead.  Sean says that he’ll now have to watch the movie by himself, and that won’t be any fun because he won’t be able to hear Brian’s “stupid jokes” (page 586).

Do I like to watch TV or movies by myself, or with other people?  It depends.  I have had rewarding experiences watching things with other people.  I like making stupid jokes with my brother while watching stuff.  It’s also a rewarding experience when I share something that I enjoy with my Mom and her husband, and they also end up enjoying it—-such as The West Wing, Dexter, and The Dead Zone.

But there are other times when I prefer to watch things alone because then I feel free to have my own reactions, rather than trying to fit in and becoming resentful when people don’t find funny or moving what I find funny or moving.  But when I’m in a place where I feel accepted, I don’t care as much if others have the same reactions that I do.  For example, I can laugh at certain scenes of Family Guy while others don’t, or others can laugh at things that I don’t.  It’s good when I’m in a group where I can be myself and have my own reactions, rather than worrying about whether or not I’m fitting in.

2.  In Needful Things, there is a feud between the local Baptist preacher, William Rose, and the Catholic priest, John Brigham.  One of their points of contention is a Casino Night that the Catholic church is holding, which Rose thinks is gambling.  I’ll share two passages about that.

Lester Pratt goes to Rose’s church, but he’s having a hard time thinking about Rose’s campaign against Casino Night because he has his own problems: he thinks that his girlfriend is cheating on him.  On page 473, we read that Lester initially was “more than ready to ring a few sets of Catholic chimes, but now the entire affair seemed distant and rather childish”, for “Who really cared if the Catholics gambled for play money and gave away a few new tires and kitchen appliances?”

On page 601, however, we read aspects of William Rose’s life-story that explain why he is so passionate in opposing Casino Night: “[Father Brigham] had known his Baptist counterpart would not like the idea of Casino Nite, but he did not understand how deeply the concept of church-supported gaming enraged and offended the Baptist preacher.  He did not know that Steamboat Willie’s father had been a compulsive gambler who had abandoned the family on many occasions when the gambling fever took him, or that the man had finally shot himself in the back room of a dance-hall after a losing night at craps.  And the unlovely truth about Father Brigham was this: it probably would not have made any difference to him even if he had known.”

The passage about Rose reminded me of several things.  I thought about the punctilious Inspector Javert in Les Meserables, who became a firm absolutist on law-and-order because of his own hard upbringing when he was a child.  I think of the passage in C.S. Lewis’ Reflections on the Psalms, in which Lewis says that becoming a Christian can be a double-edged sword, for it can lead a person to become loving, compassionate, and understanding, but it can also lead one to become a person who takes good and evil seriously and thus becomes an inquisitor!  I thought of a true story I heard about a woman who is in a hyper-fundamentalist cult-group, and she even frowns on little white lies (i.e., she doesn’t want people to tell others she’s not at home when she is).  But her life was morally loose before she entered the group, and now she has gone the other extreme of being morally punctilious in every detail, and of judging those who are not as conscientious as she.

Jesus says in Matthew 23:15 (in the King James Version): “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”  Religion can make people rather judgmental and unbearable.  I used to pray for non-Christians I know, that they might become saved.  Nowadays, while I do hope that they come to know that God loves them, I’m not sure if I’d be comfortable around them if they were evangelical Christians—-with a narrow, judgmental, cut-and-dry attitude on the world and how God works.

I can understand coming from a life where one feels dirty, and desiring to be clean.  But I have problems when that desire becomes judgmental towards others, or hyper-zealous, or in-your-face fanatical—-at least when I have to be around it.  I think it’s refreshing when people can become Christians and remain regular folks—-like Lester was when he saw how childish the crusade against Casino Night was.  There’s something to be said for recognizing and abhorring sin and its damaging effects, but there’s also something to be said for a live-and-let-live attitude.

Epistemology and Funerals

I read a lot of Stephen King’s Needful Things yesterday.  I have two items:

1.  There were a couple of passages on pages 405-406 that stood out to me, a wannabe academic.  Sheriff Alan Pangborn and Henry Payton of the Maine state police are comparing notes on the case of Nettie Cobb and Wilma Jerzyck.  On the surface, the case looks rather cut-and-dry: Wilma killed Nettie’s dog, Nettie then retaliated by trashing Wilma’s house with rocks, and the two then met in the street and killed each other.  We the readers know that this is not true, however, for we realize that Leland Gaunt, the owner of the new shop in town, had others do these dirty deeds in exchange for something that they wanted from Gaunt’s store.  Brian Rusk wanted a Sandy Koufax baseball card that Gaunt was selling, and part of Brian’s payment to Gaunt was trashing Wilma’s house.  Hugh Priest desired a fox-tail, and his payment to Gaunt was killing Nettie’s dog.  But Gaunt wants for Nettie and Wilma to blame each other, for he likes to instigate conflict and exasperate feuds for his own personal amusement.

At times, Alan and Henry seem to accept the standard narrative—-that Wilma killed Nettie’s dog and that Nettie trashed Wilma’s house—-but there is a small suspicion within them that something about the standard narrative is not quite right.  Things don’t add up—-such as the timing of events.  I won’t go into detail on that in this post, but I will say that it was interesting to read, even if I did not understand every detail of their reasoning.  What I want to highlight are a couple of passages that occur within the context of Alan and Henry hashing out ideas and scenarios.

On page 405, we read: “[Alan] was thinking of the Agatha Christie novels which [his late wife] Annie had read by the dozen.  In those, it seemed there was always some doddering village doctor who was more than willing to set the time of death between 4:30 p.m. and quarter past five.  After almost twenty years as a law-enforcement officer, Alan knew a more realistic response to the time-of-death question was ‘Sometime last week.  Maybe.’”

On page 406, Henry tells Alan that the bloody fingerprints in Nettie’s house of the one who killed her dog do not match Wilma’s fingerprints or correspond with Wilma’s small hands.  But Henry cannot use that information in court because the fingerprints in Nettie’s house are only partial.  Henry eloquently says: “…if I testified in court on something like that, the defense would chew me a new asshole.  But since we’re sitting at the bullshit table, so to speak—-they’re nothing alike.”

I liked these passages because they illustrate how hard it is to know things exactly, and yet it may be productive to throw out some ideas for consideration.  Even if those ideas do not exactly follow a high standard of logic and evidence, maybe they can lead somewhere, or generate new questions, or point out new angles, or highlight important issues.  As a wannabe academic in the humanities, there are plenty of things that I am reluctant to say that I know for certain.  But it’s good to read and hear different ideas.  Does that mean that I’m saying that everything is speculation and so people can pick whatever narrative they prefer?  Not really, for evidence is still important.  Even when Henry and Alan were speculating, they were appealing to some evidence, or they were raising questions about the standard narrative on the basis of facts.  But there are cases in which, even with evidence to work with, we cannot arrive at definitive answers, and so the best we can do is propose different scenarios or ideas.  I think of the scholarly attempts to define and to account for Paul’s view on the Torah.  I wouldn’t lay down my life on any of these scholarly constructions being true.  But they are interesting and plausible ways to emplot and account for the evidence (or, actually, some ways are more plausible than others), and so perhaps they can help me to have a conception of my own when it comes to Paul’s approach to the Torah.

2.  Wilma and Nettie had separate funerals.  Wilma’s funeral was at her Catholic church, and many cars were lining up outside of the church for that event, as people came for Wilma’s husband, Peter, “if not for his dead wife” (page 435).  But only five people attended Nettie’s funeral: her friend and employer Polly, Sheriff Alan Pangborn, Deputy Norris Ridgewick, Rosalie Drake, and old Lenny Partidge.  Lenny went to all funerals except for Catholic ones, but Polly and Alan went because they cared for Nettie.  The preacher at Nettie’s funeral was Tom Killingworth, a Methodist, and he knew Nettie when she was at Juniper Hill (an insane asylum), for he conducted services there.  On page 434, the narrator sums up the nature of Tom’s homily: “The homily was brief and warm, full of reference to the Nettie Cobb this man had known, a woman who had been slowly and bravely coming out of the shadows of insanity, a woman who had taken the courageous decision to try to treat once more with the world that had hurt her so badly.”

This funeral somewhat reminded me of the funeral for Paul in the second season of Dexter.  Paul was a heroine addict who abused his wife, and yet he was nice to his children, and they motivated him to try to change.  At his funeral, only four people showed up: Dexter, Paul’s ex-wife Rita, and Paul’s two children Cody and Astor.  But the pastor gave a beautiful homily about how Paul may have had his struggles with darkness, and yet his children brought out the good in him.  In my opinion, that’s how funerals should be: highlighting the good that people have done.  And it doesn’t matter if many people show up to the funeral or only a few.  Each life is valuable, whether or not anyone attends a person’s funeral.  And yet it’s good when people at least have one person who cares for them enough to show up.

Friendship, Mr. Gaunt’s Way, Christian Sub-Cultures, Fine Days

Yesterday, I got a lot of reading done of Stephen King’s Needful Things.  Here are four passages that stood out to me, along with my comments:

1. On page 302, we read the following about Alan:

“He reached the corner of Main and Laurel, signalled a left turn, then halted in the middle of the intersection and turned right instead.  To hell with going home.  That was a cold and empty place…There were too many closed doors and too many memories lurking behind them in that house.  On the other side of town there was a live woman who might need someone quite badly just now.  Almost as badly, perhaps, as this live man needed her.”

Alan is going to Polly’s place so that he can comfort her after the death of her friend, Nettie, and also because he doesn’t want to go back to his empty house, which has a lot of memories lurking there from his late wife and son.  That reminded me of a couple of things.  First of all, I remember when I was in college, and I wasn’t really in the mood to be pouring over every last detail of my homework.  I decided to go hang out with my friends, for that was fun.  In time, the opposite came to be true, for I preferred the solitude of reading and of academic accomplishments over being with people, some of whom ridiculed or insulted me.  But there was a time when I could prefer the company of others over being alone, which felt dark and joyless.  Second, I thought of Romans 1:11-12, where Paul states (according to the KJV): “For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”  Paul wanted to go to Rome to help the Roman Christians, but then he realized that such a visit would comfort and support him, as well.”

2.  On pages 393-394, Leland Gaunt says to drug-dealer Ace Merrill, whom he has hired (and who is also a villain in Stand by Me): “You’ll find that things go more smoothly for you, Ace, if you look at working for me the way you would look at serving in the Army.  There are three ways of doing things for you now—-the right way, the wrong way, and Mr. Gaunt’s way.  If you always opt for the third choice, trouble will never find you.”

That’s true in many cases throughout this book.  Nettie Cobb is posting citations in Danforth Keeton’s home, and Gaunt gives her telepathic instructions on how she can safely escape right before Danforth returns to his house.  Basically, she needs to leave the house calmly, in a manner that does not draw attention.  Brian Rusk threw stones at Wilma Jerzyck’s house, and he is afraid that the police will find out that he did that.  But Gaunt reassures him and offers him valid reasons that this will not happen.  Gaunt wants Ace to transport illegal guns from Boston to Castle Rock, and he assures Ace that the police will not stop him.  Sure enough, the trip goes smoothly for Ace, for the police do not even see the car that Ace is riding when it passes them.  Gaunt takes care of people and assuages their fears, but only so long as he needs them.  He has no moral compunctions about sacrificing people for his own amusement.  Nettie and Wilma kill each other, for instance, because Nettie thinks that Wilma killed Nettie’s dog, and Wilma thinks that Nettie trashed Wilma’s house, when actually somebody else did those things, under the instigation of Gaunt, who is looking for amusement.

But the passage stood out to me because I feel good when my worries are assuaged, especially since I am someone who can get stressed out by every conceivable loose-end that enters my mind.  I also like the promise that following a certain path will make my life less complicated, even though, of course, everybody has problems, including those who live right.

3.  Page 398: “Lester went along [with his friends to tent revivals] mostly to be friendly, and because he always liked to listen to some good preaching and do some singing after an exhilerating afternoon of head-knocking and body-blocking.  It was the best way of cooling down he knew.”

I never really fit into the “jock Christian” sub-culture.  But, come to think of it, I never fit into the intellectual Christian sub-culture, either.  In terms of which one I fit into more, I’m not sure.  The former tended to simplify issues, but at least (on some level) it respected me when I made objections.  The latter saw more nuance in issues but trivialized or pompously ridiculed my objections.  But I cannot absolutize or generalize, here.

4.  Page 399: “Every day was a fine day when you’d given your heart to Jesus, but some days were finer than others.”

Lester Pratt thinks this in the book.  I like the idea of believing in Jesus leading to joy, and, even when it does not totally, the worse days now being better than our best days before we became Christians (or entered recovery, or embraced some sort of golden path).  It would be nice if each day were fine, and some days were even finer.

Danforth, Myrtle, and Empathy

For my write-up today on Stephen King’s Needful Things, I’ll write some about Myrtle Keeton.

In my post here, I wrote about Danforth Keeton and how he is ordinarily verbally abusive to his wife, Myrtle, but he is nice to her when things are going his way—-since he now has a device that helps him to predict the outcome of horse races.  But things change for Danforth, for, when he comes home after a pleasant day with his wife, he sees posted around his house a bunch of obnoxious citations, which he believes were put there by a deputy.  Danforth’s mood changes.  He wants to be alone in his study.  When his wife tries to check on him, he replies, “Leave me alone!  Can’t you leave me alone, you stupid bitch?”  The “rage and unbridled hate in his voice” hurt Myrtle’s feelings.  Often, she talks to her dolls to feel better after her husband berates her, since she doesn’t really have a human being she can talk to.  But now her misery is filling her throat and blocking her breathing.  She sobs for herself, but she is also worried about her husband and his sudden change in mood, especially after such a pleasant day.

I can identify with Danforth and Myrtle.  Often, when I feel bad, I just want to be left alone.  I don’t want to be quizzed about how I am feeling.  I don’t want to be pressured to socialize.  I just want solitude.  But, like Myrtle, I also want for people to be pleasant around me.  I don’t like to be lashed out at, especially when I am trying to help.  And I try to cope, as Myrtle does, not so much by talking to a doll, but through prayer.  But Myrtle wants a human being to whom she could communicate her problems—-someone who would make her feel valued and less alone, especially after her husband is dissatisfied with her efforts to help and berates her as stupid.  I think that the lesson for me here is to try to see things from the other person’s perspective: When I feel like a Danforth, I should remember what it’s like to be a Myrtle, and I should communicate my desire to be alone in a tactful manner.  When I feel like a Myrtle, I should remember what it’s like to be a Danforth and give that person some space.

Cumulative Benefits, and Then Some Ramblings

On pages 282-283 of Stephen King’s Needful Things, Leland Gaunt tells Polly Chalmers the following about an azka on a necklace that he is selling to her in order to treat her arthritis:

“You shouldn’t take it off, not even in the shower…There’s no need to.  The ball is real silver, and won’t rust.  [T]he beneficial effect of the azka is cumulative.  The wearer is a little better today, a little better tomorrow, and so on…If the azka is removed, however, the wearer reverts to his or her former painful state not slowly but at once, and then has to wait for days or perhaps weeks to regain the lost ground once the azka is put back on.”

Leland Gaunt is evil, and his goal is most likely to get Polly addicted to the azka so that she will do whatever he wants in order to keep it.  But his presentation of the azka‘s healing effects as cumulative intrigues me because it makes me think about other issues.  For example, suppose there is an alcoholic who has been in recovery for years and he relapses.  Does that invalidate his learning and his growth prior to the relapse?  Many would say that the alcoholic may find himself picking up right where he left off, in terms of the quantity of his drinking.  That resembles what Leland Gaunt says happens when the azka comes off: a person goes right back to where he was before.  At the same time, many would also say that recovery has become such a part of the alcoholic, that he may not be able to escape its positive effects even when he relapses.  The things that he has learned in recovery will ruin his high, many have stated.  In this scenario, the alcoholic may not have applied the principles of recovery thoroughly or correctly, but the wisdom and growth that he accumulated in recovery are not lost to him once he resumes drinking: they’re still a part of him.  But, in order to continue to learn and to grow on the recovery path, he needs to get back into recovery.

Janet Oberholtzer talks about something similar in her post on Rachel Held Evans’ blog: Janet Oberholtzer: Pushing Through a Bad Run.  Janet is comparing running to her spiritual life.  Her running when she did not feel like running (because it was painful and tiring, and the weather was bad) prepared her for a later run that was good—-when she felt stronger and the day was beautiful.  But what would have happened had she quit when the going got tough?  Would she have had that later good run?  The benefits of physical exercise are cumulative: you need to keep exercising in order to experience its benefits and to progress, and the benefits do not last if you stop exercising.  Then, you have to regain lost ground, as Leland Gaunt said about the azka.  And there are other fields in which “Use it or lose it” is a principle.

In terms of Janet’s spiritual life, Janet says that she’s currently in a state in which she does not like to read her Bible, listen to sermons, or go to seminars.  She thinks that she’s in a bad spiritual run.  She says: “I realize that to give up on faith during this funk would not be wise. Though I still have bad running days, my running has been on a gradual incline over the past few years, which came about through practice and by educating myself through running books, blogs and seminars.  Shouldn’t I give my spirit the same treatment? Maybe I need to practice different spiritual techniques to find one that works best for me. Maybe finding new ways to use my slacking spiritual muscles would help me. Is there some type of beep that could signal between times to challenge and times to energize my spirit?”

In my case, I concluded that sticking with certain things was unhealthy for me, and, by “certain things”, I mean listening to abusive sermons and accepting whatever they say as if they’re “Thus saith the Lord”s.  I still listen to sermons and read my Bible, but I don’t feel compelled to accept them if I find that they are unhealthy for me—-if they make me feel like garbage about myself, or if they mandate that I do something that I feel unable or ill-equipped to do at this stage of my life.  I could have said to myself that I should stick with these things and then I would progress and life would get easier, and those things would come to help me—-as if the years of Bible study and listening to sermons would finally pay off.  But, in my opinion, there came a point where I had to ask: Where’s the evidence that these things are even helping me to progress in the first place?  Maybe they’re unhealthy, or the way that I’m interpreting or applying them is unhealthy.

But I’m reluctant to give up completely on sermons, Bible reading, etc., for there’s always the possibility that I will hear something that will encourage me and help me to make sense of things.  And perhaps God can even use some of the things that I’ve heard in the past, for I do not like to think that my past has been a waste.  But I am hopefully pursuing a road that is more healthy, rather than hoping that an unhealthy road will show itself to be healthy.

Longing for Home

For my write-up today on Stephen King’s Needful Things, I will talk about a passage on page 263:

“Home, that was the thing to think about.  Home and her beautiful carnival glass lampshade.  Home and the Sunday Super Movie.  Home and [her dog] Raider.  When she was at home with the door locked, the shades pulled, the TV on, and Raider sleeping at her feet, all of this would seem like a horrible dream…”

The context of this passage is that Nettie Cobb is at Danforth Keeton’s house while he is away, and she is putting up citations throughout his house to make it look as if a deputy is harassing him.  She is doing this because that is part of her payment to Leland Gaunt for a lampshade that she bought from him, and Gaunt’s goal is to divide the community.  But Danforth is about to return to his home, and Nettie does not want for him to see her there!

I identified somewhat with what Nettie was thinking about home—-as a place of refuge and escape.  Granted, I do not trespass into other people’s houses, but there have been situations that have made me long to go home—-to my comfort zone, where I can watch TV, or read, or pet pets.  Such situations have included social events, or school.  Looking forward to going home can make those situations more bearable.  But, sometimes, the situations can go so badly that they pollute my rest and peace at home.  In those cases, I need to pray after I get home, until my mind returns to a point of stability.

In Good Time, and Bad Times

In my reading last night of Stephen King’s Needful Things, Danforth Keeton is nice to his wife, for a change.  Ordinarily, he is verbally abusive towards her, as he harshly berates her whenever things don’t go his way.  But he’s happy right now because he got from Leland Gaunt a device that helps him to predict winners in horse-races.

It can be a challenge to be nice to people (especially family) when one is in a bad mood, or when things are not going one’s way.  But there are many people who manage to do it.  What is their secret?

Worth the Effort

On page 245 of Stephen King’s Needful Things, we read:

“He had discovered another large fact about possessions and the peculiar psychological state they induce: the more one has to go through because of something one owns, the more one wants to keep that thing.”

I’m not really in the mood right now to provide the context for this passage, but I’ll comment on the passage’s concept.  Some possessions may not be worth the effort, if keeping them entails a lot of effort.  But there are plenty of things that are worthwhile and do not come cheaply.  And I’m not just speaking monetarily.  Getting a job can be a difficult process, for God does not always drop a job opportunity into our laps.  Then there are other things worth fighting for, such as peace of mind.