Literal ... Not Liberal
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 11:12PM I have a tendency to be literal. As a kid, I was terrified by those tags that came on pillows. You know ... the ones that say you're breaking the law if you remove them. I used to stare and stare at the tag, all scared, wanting so badly to rip it off the pillow. I just knew that if I did, within moments I would hear sirens. That would be the police, coming to get me and haul me off to jail for breaking the law!
I also thought that when we listened to the radio, all of the singers and musicians were there in the radio station, lined up, waiting their turn. When the announcer said "Here's Bobby Vinton with Blue Velvet," for example, I imagined Bobby (who I envisioned as quite handsome indeed), with all the musicians crowded around behind him at the microphone, singing Blue Velvet as best he could. As I got older I had a niggling suspicion this could not be the case, so I asked my mother about it. (I believed my mother literally knew everything.) She clued me in to the concept of phonograph records and how they were used at radio stations. After that, whenever the announcer gave the name of the next song, in my mind's eye I literally "saw" him plopping a big black record on a turntable and placing the needle carefully at the edge to play the song. It was a great feeling to be so "up" on how the world worked! I was in the know.
Growing up, I literally thought war was a never-ending fact of life ... as commonplace as homework or thunderstorms or riding my bike. Every night when Mama or Daddy turned on the evening news, there on our old dinosaur of a set would be the Huntley Brinkley Report. I remember only two things from the news: the gray, grainy images of soldiers running through the jungles of Vietnam, and the second movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which I will forever associate with Huntley and Brinkley. I didn't give war much thought because although it was always there, I didn't understand it, and it did not directly affect me. But if I had thought of it, I know I would have considered war a constant. As the "funny" music (I asked my mom what kind of music it was, because it was as different from what I usually listened to as chalk is from cheese. My music was Petula Clark belting out Downtown or Sonny & Cher crooning I've Got You Babe. This music was strange; I was intrigued. "Classical," my mother informed me. Again I was in the know.) poured from the TV set while the Huntley Brinkley Report credits rolled, I literally believed that at any time, anywhere in my life, I would be able to turn on the TV and see the furry gray and white soldiers with leaves stuck into the webbing on their helmets, running through the jungle.
As a youngster I was not taken to church, but somewhere along the way I acquired a small New Testament that I used to thumb through from time to time. I think I had a very literal idea of prayer as being something along the lines of, look up at the sky and put in a request and if God likes you or is in a good mood that day, whatever you asked for will fall down onto the ground right in front of you. I must have tried this a time or two and it didn't work, so when I read a certain verse in the gospel according to Matthew, I was encouraged. Here was some insider information. It said: But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. So, of course, I went directly to the closet of the little room I shared with my sister. I sat down on top of all our shoes and closed the door (even though I was afraid of the dark) and offered my version of a prayer.
Our stepfather taught my sister and me that the Communists were literally poised, 24-7, to press a red button located somewhere in the Soviet Union and blow us all from the face of the earth. Being somewhat flighty I did not give over a great deal of my time to wondering what I would do when and if this happened, but it was always in the back of my mind. To all of us who became (however dimly) aware of world events during the height of the Cold War, the threat of sudden nuclear destruction provided an ominous undercurrent to all of life. My stepfather was a criminal -- literally -- but in that distinctly dichotomous way unique to human beings, he was one of the most pro-establishment people I have ever known. He was an arch-conservative, a law-and-order type who nevertheless was always looking for creative ways to break the law and get away with it. A paragon of vice who preached a somewhat skewed kind of virtue. Don't ask me to explain that; you'll just have to trust me that when I tell you these things, you may safely take me literally.
Funny how childhood's literal lessons are etched on the heart. I don't listen to music on the radio anymore, but if I did I would still "see" the announcer gingerly placing the needle onto the edge of the big black phonograph record. I've torn a few tags from pillows but still listened for sirens. More than ever I realize that some things are worth fighting -- and even dying -- for. I'm glad I now know that God answers prayer every day ... even prayers not prayed from closets. I need faith in God and literal belief in eternal truths to guide me not only through the gloom of night, but through the blazing light of day. My stepfather was a misguided soul in many ways, but he was prescient in that he foresaw an America stripped of its common sense, and what was worse, its conscience. His impassioned ranting against the evils of communism, socialism, secular humanism, and especially liberalism, were right on target and I'm thankful for them. I'm grateful that I learned that much from him. If I hadn't, today I might be a liberal ... and in my opinion that would be a tragedy. Literally.
Reader Comments (2)
When I was a small child in Catholic school the priests and nuns took a very literal view of the world and our faith. 'The fear of God' was put into each and every one of us; bad behavious would be met with the condemnation of the Lord and every sin was a step nearer to hell. I decided to test this black and white view of life and God and one day deliberately told my mother a lie (as opposed to the usual ones a child tells to avoid being in trouble). Nothing happened. The world kept on turning, I wasn't stricken down in flames when I entered the Church on Sunday and life continued.
I asked one of the Nuns about it and she explained the actual meaning of literal to me. I would, apparently, pay for my sins on Judgement Day where an account would be made and if found wanting, I would descend to hell. 'So if I've done something bad, I could still live a happy life but pay for it later?' I asked. 'Oh yes, but you will pay - you will literally go to Hell' she replied.
Well, I decided to literally not believe her. I couldn't be doing with a God that would condemn a 7-year old to Hell for testing a theory so I thanked her for her time, and chose to believe that God loved everyone no matter what and that Hell was just a place invented by Priests and Nuns to keep children like me in their place.
We learn our attitudes from some very strange places, don't we? And sometimes the paragon of vice talks more sense than the ambassador of the Lord.
The nun was wrong ... but then you already know that. God would not condemn a 7-year-old to Hell for "testing a theory." God does not condemn anyone to Hell. The one and only reason anyone ever goes to Hell (which is a real, literal place, just like Heaven) is for rejecting Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross. He has already paid for our sins, which is a good thing because we could never pay for them ourselves. The truth is actually very wonderful -- literally.