Foundations

non-subject: ridicule
aww ~ 11/10/10
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Mid 1990s. It had to have been either Thanksgiving or Christmas because those were typically the only times us siblings and our parents would get together. Or at funerals and weddings.

My mom was one of thirteen children, though two of the children died in childhood. One of her brothers named Craig died; it seems he lived into elementary school age. The other sibling died shortly after being born. I don't know if it was a boy or a girl. My mother referred to it as "the infant."

Mom was 2nd to the youngest in her family.

I am the youngest of three children, so that puts me near the bottom of the cousin rung as far as age. Most of my however-many cousins I have are older than I. I think there are four younger than I.

With all those cousins there have been lots of weddings. And through the years there have been some funerals. Mom was the last of her siblings to die. I wrote a poem in her honor entitled "The Final Drum." That was her maiden name, Drum.

Thanksgiving. Christmas. Weddings. Funerals. Those have been our main family gatherings in my adult years, like so many in our transient culture.

Mid 1990s. Either Thanksgiving or Christmas. My brother and I stood on the porch of our parent's home. The porch of the house where we had grown up. My husband was standing with us. My brother was smoking a cigarette.

The porch. It wasn't a large porch, but neither was it as small as a stoop. The porch floor was a brick red and was some sort of stone tile, but not square tiles. Rather a medley of shapes with off white grout outlining each contour. In one corner of the porch was a beige-painted brick column with a beige-painted pole on it connecting to the roof. A beige-painted gutter ran down the front of the pole and column.

A green wooden bench with a slat back, and big enough for two people, sat in front of the downstairs bedroom window against the beige-painted outside brick wall. An old-timey milk can painted black stood beside the bench. That's where mom hid the key, under the milk can. A ramp covered with green outdoor carpet made its way from the sidewalk, up the one-step porch and to the front door. Mom had the ramp installed after Dad's wreck.

My brother and I stood over by the brick column, the top of which we used for a table for our beverage glasses or cans or whatever we happened to be drinking.

My bother was a liberal. I considered myself a conservative, though I didn't keep up too much with politics. I usually just asked my husband who I should vote for. He too was conservative.

I don't know how the subject of homosexuality came up, probably because of some political conversation.

"Homosexuality is wrong," I confidently stated.

"So you think someone would choose that lifestyle knowing the prejudice they would face?" My brother responded.

"God didn't make a man's penis to go into another man's rectum. It's not natural. God made man for woman and woman for man. Queers choose to be queers. Sure there might be something in their upbringing that caused them to be that way. But it is a disorder. It is wrong. Bottom line is it is devil spirit possession."

My voice was forceful. I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I was right. My brother didn't have spiritual eyes to see. I didn't know if he was born again or not. We didn't discuss spiritual matters. Well, once we did, over a decade before, after he'd had enough to drink.

My husband made a gesture to try to calm me down. But I wasn't going to back down. I was going to stand for the truth whether or not my husband spoke up. Do I really believe the Word or don't I? If I do, then I speak. That's what Paul stated in Corinthians: "I believed, therefore have a spoken." I was typically bolder than my husband anyway, when it came to this kind of stuff.

"Can someone who is gay go to Heaven?" My brother asked, not so much for an answer, but to try to trap me in my words.

"Yes," I responded. "Works don't matter as far as getting into Heaven. A person can get born again and never walk the Word and they'll still get into Heaven. But if the queer doesn't confess Jesus as Lord and believe God raised him from the dead, he won't go to heaven."

"Can a murderer go to Heaven?" he asked.

"Yes." I answered. "The same way the queer can go. It's not based on works but on whether they accept Jesus Christ as Lord and believe God raised him from the dead."

"So," he responded. "A murderer can go to Heaven even if he tortures and murders, as long as he accepts Christ. And a person can live a good life and be benevolent, but because he has consensual sex with someone of the same sex, if he doesn't accept Christ, he will burn in Hell?"

"I didn't say they'd burn in Hell. I said they won't go to Heaven. There is no such thing as an eternal burning Hell. I don't know all the ends and outs of how God will judge good works but God is just and all love. He'll figure it out."

I was still heated, more so at my husband for not saying anything. Didn't my husband really believe this stuff!? Why didn't he speak up?!

"I rest my case," my brother responded.

We probably then went inside for fruit cake.

Or pecan pie.