About that "putting Christ back into Christmas" thing ...

 

'Tis the season for that old canard about "putting Christ back into Christmas." 

Not a completely unreasonable request, but I am often tempted to respond with the thought that we really ought to "put Christ back into Christianity." Put Christ back into the churches. Put Christ back into the pulpits. Put Christ-like behavior front and center. 

But these are slogans and soundbites, bits of shorthand that hint at something deeper and more pressing. A more straightforward approach would be this:

When was the last time you turned the other cheek when someone struck you?

When was the last time you forgave someone who injured you?

When was the last time you saw someone on the side of the road, in distress, and you stopped and helped, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan?

When was the last time you welcomed a stranger?

When was the last time you healed someone?

When was the last time you gave a cup of water to someone who was thirsty, or food to someone who was hungry? 

When was the last time you asked your Father God to give you your daily bread?

When was the last time you went to a garden and spent the night in prayer? 

When was the last time someone asked you for your coat and you gave him your cloak too? 

When was the last time you sold what you had and gave the money to the poor? 

When was the last time you hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors and other social undesirables?

When was the last time you laid your hands on someone who was ill? 

When was the last time you wept?

When was the last time you put aside your own will and did God's will instead? 

When was the last time you prayed for your enemies?

When was the last time you did good to those who hurt you? 

When was the last time you decided not to judge someone? 

I'll admit it: I'm not big on theology. In the Middle Ages, they had fierce debates on how many angels could fit on the head of a pin, but that's really not my thing. Doesn't interest me in the slightest. 

I'm not sure Jesus was big on theology either. He didn't offer of anything on that score. He didn't go around making theological statements. Wasn't his cup of tea. Instead, he talked incessantly about people -- and about how we treat each other. He even went so far as to say that the "whole of the law" could be summed up in two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

This horrible year, this year of grace and sorrow

Growing up, I read with horrified fascination accounts of the Nazis and the Holocaust, and I used to wonder: How would I have responded to those events? Whose side would I have been on? Would I have tried, like so many courageous souls, to help the Jewish people being persecuted? Would I have gone along with the Nazis?

I read about life behind the Iron Curtain, life in the Gulag Archipelago, life under the murderous Stalin and crushing totalitarianism. I read about courageous Catholics and others who risked their lives to practice their faith. Would I have been one of them? What sort of person would I have been? What would my values have been?

I read about Jim Crow laws in the deep South, about "whites only" drinking fountains and swimming pools, about lynchings and cross burnings and the KKK, about "separate but equal." Whose side would I have been on? What would I have done, as a white man, had I known my white neighbor was a member of the Klan?

I read about the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, about the Black Death sweeping through Europe and leaving millions of dead bodies in its wake, about Catholics and Protestants fighting and killing each other, about heated, angry, deadly religious disputes over doctrine and practice. How would I have navigated such circumstances?

I read about the Salem Witch Trials, the treatment of Native Americans, the practice of slavery, world wars, the Civil Rights era, the assassination of Martin Luther King and so many others ...

I suppose I wasn't the only child to wonder what it would have been like to live through perilous, difficult times, times of war, times of strife, times of sorrow, pain and despair.

And now, this year: this annus horribilis, this year of horrors, this year of sorrow, of unrest, of anger, of disease, of fear -- how am I responding to this horrible year of 2020?

A pandemic rages from sea to shining sea in this country and 130,000 souls have perished with countless others getting sick and fighting for their lives.

Economic ruin lurks in the shadows with millions having lost their jobs and many businesses closing their doors.

Racial tensions are high, provoked by far too many instances of police brutality and an addiction to racism that we can't seem to shake.

Leadership is chaotic, at best, and downright deadly, at worst. We have come to the realization that we are on our own and those we have elected to guide us through such crises are missing in action.

As a country, we've taken one body blow after the next this year.

What is my response?

How do I help, rather than get in the way?

Who are the vulnerable people in my life, and have I reached out to them?

If I walk into a store or a gas station, and no one else is wearing a mask, should I still wear my mask? Should I do the right thing even when no one does?

When I know my black brothers and sisters are hurting, do I stand with them? Do I march with them? Do I challenge the racism that is so ingrained in American life?

This has been a year of sorrow, but also a year of grace. I've been presented with opportunities to answer some of these questions that have always haunted me.

Adversity shows us who we really are. Einstein said "Adversity introduces a man to himself."

This year sucks, yes. But it has also provided -- and will continue to provide -- endless opportunities for growth and grace.

If ever there was a time to pray for the world we live in, this is that time.

If ever there was a time to reach out to neighbors and friends, to those who are vulnerable, those who might need an errand run or someone to drive them to a doctor visit, this is that time.

If ever there was a time to put self aside, and think of others, and the needs of others, and the well being of others, this is that time.

This is a year for the history books, a year we will be talking about for a long, long time.

What will they say about my response?

What will they say about yours?

If It Bleeds

“Your story on the homeless man down by the railroad tracks has our numbers up,” granddad said as he lit his pipe with one of his many gold lighters and smiled at me. “Nice to know that fancy education of yours is paying off! Of course, in my day you didn’t need no education to be a reporter, but I guess things is different now.”

Charles Moorehead, aging editor and owner of the weekly Port Moss Post, sucked on his pipe and blew out a satisfied cloud of smoke. “Our numbers are good,” he added, “but they’d be better if we had a really good story.”

He gave me a searching look.

“You’re the third generation of this family to work at the Post,” he went on. “It’s a family business. People rely on us, you know. Not much has been happening lately, but sometimes you just have to make things happen. Don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” he announced, getting to his feet.

I picked up my reporter’s notebook.

“You won’t be needing that,” he said with a smile.

We drove to the railroad yard.

Joe Floyd was the homeless man we had featured in the newspaper. I had spent a lot of time talking to him. Now that the piece had been written, I’d had a feeling my grandfather would want to “see” him.

Among other things, my grandfather was predictable.

“You realize everything we have depends on the newspaper, don’t you?” he asked. “That’s where your father messed up. He forgot that. But the newspaper pays the bills. It paid for your education. It gives us standing in the community - it’s our bread and butter. And the more papers we sell, the more bread and butter we get to put in our pockets. And it’s a bit of a strain, trying to pay your salary and pay mine too, things being the way they are these days. It’s not exactly rich pickings in these parts. And you know if we can’t get the numbers up, I may have to move you to part time.”

“I know,” I said dutifully.

“And we don’t want that,” he said.

No, we most certainly did not.

What we wanted -- well, what I wanted -- was for granddad to retire, and for me to move to the big office with the big desk and the big title. After all, granddad was getting sloppy in his old age and what the newspaper needed most was fresh blood and new ideas. Not to mention an editor who had a basic grasp of grammar.

We found Joe sitting in a camp chair and minding his own business. Granddad went up behind him, pulled a wire out of his coat pocket, and before I could say anything, he had strung it around Joe’s neck and choked him to death while the poor man jiggered about like a fish on a hook.

I had expected something with more finesse.

I sighed.

I had one of granddad’s gold lighters in a plastic bag. While he waited for Joe to stop jerking about, I removed this bag from my jacket pocket and let the lighter fall onto the ground. I had been very careful not to get any of my prints on it.

When granddad was finished, he turned back to me, panting from the exertion. “When you’ve got a dead body on the front page … it’ll be good for a month or two of headlines. And the editorials will write themselves. You’ll see.”

He wiped his hands on his pants as if trying to get rid of the feel of death.

“Now you call the chief and tell him you came to see Joe so you could show him the newspaper,” he ordered. “You tell him you found him like this. And don’t be getting squeamish like your dad. Look what that got him! This poor homeless sucker’s gonna help us pay the bills, and that’s how the world works. You understanding me, boy?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “It’s just that Joe was a nice guy.”

“Nice?” Granddad spat on the ground. “What does nice get you? Does it pay the bills? Nice! A crock of crap, you ask me. Sometimes, you want something, you take it. That’s what I know.”

Granddad left on foot -- his house was only a mile or so away through the woods. But of course he knew that, which was doubtless one of the reasons he told me to interview Joe in the first place.

I fished out my cell phone and called Hoyt Hood, the Port Moss chief of police.

“Chief?” I said when he answered, “It’s Henry Moorehead from the newspaper. I’m out on the railroad yard. I came out here to visit Joe -- I wanted to show him the newspaper with that story we did on him. But … well, I think you’d better get out here. He’s dead.”

The chief made me promise I would remain with the body until he could get there.

I said I would.

We didn’t put a picture of Joe’s dead body on the front page in the following week’s edition of the newspaper, but we did use photographs of the scene: the chair in which he was strangled; the campfire at which he had sat; his various belongings in sad plastic bags. In light of his violent end, there was a poignant quality to these still life scenes. We wrote about an unknown killer stalking homeless people in small towns. We talked about how defenceless they were, at the mercy of the elements. We wrung our hands about how Joe might have been targeted because of our own profile piece. We encouraged the public to come forward with information they might have about this sad, terrible business.

The papers flew off the shelves.

New subscriptions poured in.

Granddad was pleased -- until Chief Hood showed up at the newspaper office with two of his deputies and an arrest warrant.

My grandfather had a thing about gold lighters. If you wanted to get in good with the old man, offering him a personally inscribed gold-plated lighter was the way to go. Over the years, he had collected about a dozen in his role as editor of the local newspaper.

It took the chief a while, but I knew he would eventually put two and two together and start to wonder why one of granddad’s lighters had been dropped close to Joe’s dead body.

The chief had also received an anonymous call placing granddad at the train yard early on the morning of the murder. I had placed the call myself. Chief Hood didn’t have a whole lot of butter on his biscuits, if you know what I mean, and I wanted to make sure he got the point.

He did.

“He was dead when we got there!” granddad thundered in a self-righteous fury as the chief and his deputies put him under arrest. “Henry saw him -- he was there too! Tell him, Henry!”

Granddad looked to me for reassurance.

“Granddad, you know I was alone when I found him,” I said. “I didn’t see you till later when I got to the office to write up the story. You remember how I called and told you about it and you told me to get my butt to the office?”

Granddad’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something.

There was a desperate look in his eyes.

“Of course, we went out there later so we could take some more pictures,” I added, giving him an out, “but that was late in the afternoon and they had already taken Joe away.”

“We found the lighter that morning,” Chief Hood pointed out. “He didn’t drop it there later.”

“I was with Henry the whole day,” Granddad argued. “Tell them, Henry!”

“Granddad, I know you’re forgetful sometimes,” I said. “You’re getting things confused.”

A look of murderous hate filled the old man’s eyes.

The silence brought about his departure was deep and welcome. I picked up the photo of my father from my desk and walked into granddad’s office.

My office, I thought.

I put daddy’s photo on the desk and sat down in the expensive leather chair and picked up the phone. I called Parchman and asked to speak my father, who was incarcerated there.

“You were right,” I said.

“About what?” daddy asked.

“About doing my homework. You told me always to do my homework around granddad or he would get the best of me, like he did you. So I took your advice. And it took me a while, but I got him back.”

“Good,” daddy said.

He did not need me to explain.

“I guess you’re the editor now,” he added with pride.

I smiled.

(C) 2019 by Nick Wilgus

The Snakes That Ate Our Public Discourse

The Smithsonian Magazine recently ran a fascinating story called "The Snakes That Ate Florida" about the Burmese pythons that have been released into the Everglades and are wreaking havoc there. With no natural predators to keep their numbers down, the pythons are gobbling up most of the mammals (rabbits and such) and are now moving on to bigger prey -- deer and crocodiles. They will fundamentally change the Everglades and they pose a problem for which there is no real solution.

It began with some folks wanting exotic pets and getting bored of those pets and not wanting to dispose of them properly - so they dumped them in the Everglades.

Being the political junkie that I am, I could not help thinking about the rise of right wing hate media, and the very similar effect it has had on the media in general. It began with voices with like Rush Limbaugh and has spread like a wildfire through the nation's media outlets, which had little defense against the onslaught. We were used to media outlets telling the truth. We expected journalistic integrity. We assumed these voices were being fair and balanced. What we've discovered is a hotbed of conspiracy theories and a whole lot of what mama used to call "stinking thinking." Given recent technological breakthroughs, literally anyone can plop themselves down in front of a microphone or camera and start broadcasting their views to the world -- and it shows.

In the Everglades, folks began to notice the rabbits had disappeared. And birds. And other small animals. There was a stillness to the Everglades - but beneath the surface of the waters, a genuine menace lurked.

In the world of media, we have reached a similar situation. Many voices have gone silent. Newspapers have, by and large, become cheerleaders for business interests; few bother with the hard-nosed investigative journalism that was once expected and considered the norm. Giant corporations have gobbled up most of the little newspapers and television stations and radio stations. There are few independent voices.

Our public space -- where we discuss issues and ideas and politics and policies -- is very much like the Everglades. Broad, expansive, with plenty of room. On the surface, it looks pretty good. But beneath the surface lurk predators against which we have little defense. We have pundits, politicians, and now even a president, who tell the most outrageous lies and promote and foster the most ridiculous conspiracy theories, and we are continually caught flatfooted and unable to respond. We seem to have reached a "post-truth" moment where the truth seems to be whatever we want it to be and we are literally bamboozled on all sides by a bewildering array of "talking points" and "spin," to such an extent that it's doubtful if anyone at all knows what the actual truth of any particular subject is. We are learning hard lessons about the power of propaganda. We have pastors and priests who seem to have nothing to say, or who say far too much -- indeed our most prominent pastors and priests are right there in the thick of it, spewing the most extreme views (and like all the other extremists, raking in endless piles of cash for their efforts).

Like the Everglades with its python problem, there's no way of knowing where it's all heading. What we do know, in  both situations, is that nothing will be the way it used to be -- and the casualties are piling up.

One interesting fact researchers have learned about pythons: They can swim. For very long distances. One researcher told the story about fishermen who came across a python in the ocean -- 15 miles from the shore. Imagine being out on that ocean, thinking you are safely by yourself and far from the madding crowd -- and there, in the stillness and blessed quiet of your own thoughts, surrounded by miles of emptiness -- there, swimming alongside your boat, is a giant predator ready to tango.

Food for thought.

We're Queer. We're Spiritual. Get Used To It.

I'm one of those queers who goes to church.

I get looks. Of course I do. And I get questions, the main question being, Why?

My response is always, Why not? Why shouldn't I go to church? Am I not allowed? Don't I also have a soul, or is spirituality the exclusive realm of the heterosexual?

Some of my queer friends are so over church. Proudly, militantly atheist, they look down their noses at little church mice like me. From their superior, lofty perches, they can't fathom why any queer person would set foot inside a church. Bless their hearts.

It took me a rather long time to realize that just because a lot of God's fans hate me, God himself doesn't necessarily hate me. And just because the priest or pastor says bad things about my kind from the pulpit, it doesn't necessarily mean God is speaking through them.

In fact, it could be that God is saying something through me as I sit there in the pews -- something rather more powerful than another long-winded, torturous traipse through Leviticus. Perhaps God is bigger than we want to believe. Perhaps there is more to both heaven and earth than what we understand. Perhaps God made me just the way I am -- and likes me that way and would not have me any other way. Perhaps it's not my calling to hide my light under a basket, but to let it shine.

Don't let me be the one to spill the beans, but a lot of queer folks do church. Growing up Catholic, I can safely say that most every priest and religious brother I knew was gay although not one would admit it.

I became a religious brother myself, and the reason why I'm no longer a religious brother is because my superiors asked me one day if I was gay, and I was honest. The  next day I was asked to leave. The others lied and got to stay.

If telling a lie (and therefore sinning) was the price of being a religious brother, well, obviously it was not the life meant for me. And what does that say about the many priests and religious types who tell that lie every day because they're afraid of being kicked out? Some of those folks are very prominent people in Catholic circles. How do they live with themselves? Who are they fooling?

The condemnation of homosexuality goes way back. Fair enough -- but that doesn't make it legitimate. That doesn't mean our understanding can't evolve and grow into something more compassionate and honest.

We are often told morality cannot and does not change, but that's not quite true. Today, owning a slave would be abhorrently offensive. But not so long ago, owning another human being was the status quo. In fact, on this front, the Catholic Church didn't get around to condemning slavery until the 1800s. Are we to believe that slavery was morally acceptable for all those centuries before that, or did the Church finally realize that slavery was moral reprehensible and evil?

Divorce used to be absolutely forbidden. And in fairness, one must point out that while Jesus said nothing about homosexuality, and very little about human sexuality, he did go out of his way to say things about divorce -- and modern churches and the people in their pews seem to have no trouble whatsoever completely ignoring what he said on that score.

If our understanding of marriage can change (and it probably needed to), perhaps our understanding of homosexuality can also change.

It's not that morality "changes." We mature. We learn new information. We gain new insights. We get better.

So ... I go to church. Make of it what you will, but don't ask me to explain myself because I don't have to, no more than anyone else who goes to church. I go because I want to. 

I have my own "religious beliefs" when it comes to sexuality and relationships; they are vastly different than those of my fundamentalist neighbor, but that's the beauty of having freedom of religion. I'm allowed to come to my own conclusions. I am not required to follow his. I can decide for myself -- and I do.

I have the feeling that the "kingdom of heaven" is filled with tax collectors and whores and other disreputable sorts and misfits. The "least of these." And perhaps, indeed, the last shall be first.

Time will tell.

All I Want for Christmas Is Nothing

Once upon a time there was a little boy who watched Little House on the Prairie. Sometimes, when it was over, he hurried to his bedroom so he could cry and not be seen. He wondered why the mother and father on the TV show were so nice to each other and their kids. He wondered why the kids on the show always treated each other respectfully, even when they disagreed. He wondered why he didn't have a father like Charles Ingalls who respected him, who loved him, who sacrificed for him. He wondered why he didn't have a mother who was interested in her children, why she was sad, distant, far away, who seemed to think her children were a cross to bear, a nuisance to be endured, not little humans to be cherished and treasured but little monsters who ate too much, fought too much and caused her too much suffering. 

He had a sense, watching that show, that something in his family was not right, but he didn't know what and didn't have the vocabulary to put this feeling, this vague unease, into words. What he learned was that some families are nice to each other, and love each other, and care about each other. And some families don't. So sometimes, when there were touching scenes on the show, he could not help but hurry away to a place of privacy so he could cry. He didn't know why he was crying, only that some emotion had gripped him, some sadness, some grief he couldn't understand.

This little boy began searching for family. He found it with a Catholic family who lived on the other side of the woods. He played happily with their children. He felt included, respected, wanted, even though he overstayed his welcome a great deal-indeed, he often spent the night with this family as if he were one of their own.

But then something happened. The little boy grew into a young teenager who realized he was gay. And this religious family, this Catholic family that treated him so nicely, had a thing about homosexuality. They didn't like it. Soon, although he tried hard to gain their approval, he found himself not welcomed by this foster family, who eventually moved away. No matter what he did, he could not make them love him again.

He was not sure what his own family would say if he told them about being gay, so he said nothing, but the gayness, the homosexuality, was a deeply bruising, shameful thing he carried with him and could not escape no matter how he tried, how fervent his prayers, who desperate his desire to be normal.

This young teenager grew into a young man who proved himself to be a damaged, unstable individual with emotional problems. He'd always been a sensitive boy, and the terrors of his childhood haunted him-his violent, drunken father, the sexual abuse he experienced, the death of his friend Tommy when he was eight, the death of his father when he was ten, the religious violence he experienced as a convert to a crazy Catholic cult, the harsh feelings of self-loathing and hatred over his homosexuality-oh, it was a toxic brew.

He was quite alone with these terrors. No one in his family seemed to understand him, to understand what was happening, what was wrong. He knew he was an unwanted burden, and when he chanced upon a risky way to escape, he took it. This involved accepting a plane ticket from a gay man in Las Vegas. He'd corresponded with the man, having found his address in the back of a gay magazine. How he found that magazine, he does not remember now. What he remembers is writing to some of the addresses in the personals column, and receiving offers of plane tickets from older gay men who said they would be happy to "help" him. So he accepted the plane ticket and made his escape. He arrived at the airport in Las Vegas feeling very satisfied with himself, that he was now on his own, that he was an adult, was going to survive and not be a burden on anyone anymore.

The man who met him at the airport seemed nice enough, but when they arrived at the man's house and he began to unpack his small suitcase, the man came into his bedroom, forced him to disrobe and proceeded to rape him.

Not knowing what else to do, he wrote to some of the other men he had been corresponding with. Eventually he found himself moving to LA with one of those men, where the scenes repeated themselves. And then one day he found himself thrown out onto the street.

He thought of calling his family and asking for help, but he knew two things: They would not understand. And they would not help. And he knew it was pointless to ask. So he began to walk the streets, looking for someone to help him. Various tribulations awaited him that he does not care to discuss now.

Eventually he met a young traditional Catholic man who promised to help him. He went to live with this young man and his Italian family in Kansas City. They helped him get a job and make a start in life. They loved him like he was one of their own, but he knew he must not divulge his secret. Should they learn of his homosexuality, they would ask him to leave, so he remained silent.

The Italian family tried very hard to love this young man, but he was shy, awkward, terrified of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. He wanted their love so much he could hardly breathe, and he lived in fear he would disappoint them or that they would discover his terrible secret and they would ask him to leave.

He especially loved his Italian mother. Yet he couldn't think what to say to her, what to talk about, how to express his feelings. And soon, because he was so awkward, so quiet, so nervous, so afraid, she concluded that he did not like her and she grew distant.

He then met another family who took him in. An Hispanic family. Because they were traditional Catholics, he tried very hard to be a traditional Catholic to please them even though he no longer believed in it. One day, when he could hold it in no longer, he told them he was gay. Very quickly their friendship ended and he found himself living alone.

In his quest for family, for people who would love him, he took in roommates. They were all young gay men like himself. They made a sort of family. They loved each other as best they could. But since they were all estranged from their own families and full of hurt and shame and confusion about themselves, they did not live happily ever after. They were all lost souls, wounded souls, hurting, prone to addictions and violence.

The years continued on and, in this quest for family, in his late twenties, he married a woman in the belief this would "cure" him of his shameful condition. It did not, and proved to be a terrible mistake. It was very unfair to the woman he married and the child they eventually had.

Knowing he had to divorce her, that she would better with her own family and people and country, he sold everything and moved to that country far, far away. He continued to live there until his child was eighteen.

A much older man now, he returned to his own country and settled down in a small town close to where one of his brothers lived. They were friendly. They did not argue. Yet there was distance between them. They were completely different now and seemed to no longer have any common ground.

His mother lived at some distance away and he finally decided to visit her. The years had cooled his anger, his disappointments, his hurts. He wanted her to know he was okay, he had survived, that he did not cling to the past. They made small talk over lunch. They did not speak about the past. They were basically strangers.

Having spent his life searching for a family of his own, for people who would love him, for people he could love in return, he finally understood this was not meant to be. It was not in the cards. Fate had decided otherwise. Or perhaps it had been homophobia and shame that had decided otherwise, that had kept him at a safe distance, excluded, apart from the normal course of affairs. Or perhaps the family he came from was broken, was composed of broken souls who could never be a proper family no matter how hard they tried. Perhaps they had never learned to love each other. Perhaps they had never learned to forgive, to talk, to work out problems. Perhaps no one had ever told them how important family was. Perhaps they were all disappointed in each other, for their own reasons, in their own ways, and wanted nothing more to do with it. Or perhaps he himself was to blame: perhaps he was still emotionally unstable, unwell, had unrealistic expectations. Perhaps he was not a very nice person. Perhaps he was an embarrassment who didn't know he was an embarrassment. Perhaps he was not the sort of person one enjoyed spending time with.

Recently, as the holidays once more approached, he began to wonder if he would receive an invitation from his brother to spend Thanksgiving dinner with him and his family. In the past, he had invited himself on such occasions, but felt uncomfortable doing this. One year he tried cooking Thanksgiving dinner himself. He invited his brother, but his brother did not come.

Christmas was likewise problematic. He did not want to invite himself to houses where, he suspected, he was not really wanted. Yet previous experience had shown him Christmas would come and go and no invitation would be forthcoming.

Pondering these things, he decided to do nothing. He had learned, the hard way, that you could not force people to love you. It would either happen or it wouldn't. No amount of wishing and hoping would change that fact of life.

He knew also that people who love each other found ways to show it. There were phone calls, visits, cards, letters, Christmas presents, text messages. He looked back on the few calls and letters he had received from his family and realized that perhaps they had other priorities, other interests, that he should not fault them for this, but rather ... do nothing.

So this boy, who once cried while watching sentimental TV shows about nice families, who tried to force other families to adopt him and love him and heal him and include him, who ran far, far away from home looking for love, looking for someone who cared, who could help him make sense of his life—this boy, this unhappy child, this confused adult, this man whose life was marred by devastating self-doubts and self-loathing, this man who tried many times to kill himself because he could not stand the pain of being who he was, the pain of being so alone in the world—this man finally decided to let it go. And to do … nothing.

But before embarking on that path, he wanted to find a way to let people know why he no longer called, no longer visited, no longer seemed to care. He wanted them to know it wasn't their fault, that he realized he was broken in ways no one could fix and that he no longer blamed them for that.

Most of all, he wanted them to know he kept his distance because it was too painful to do otherwise. This, too, he had learned the hard way. There were some people in the world who were toxic poison. No matter how much he loved and cared for them, it was best to stay away if only for his own peace of mind. He had spent far too much time dealing with such people to believe that anything good could come from it. Just the opposite had shown itself to be true. Let sleeping dogs lie. Let the dead bury the dead. He had learned those painful lessons very well.

With the holidays once again fast approaching, he resolved to address the matter once and for all. He sat down and wrote a short story. He addressed envelopes, mailed out copies. He hoped his story would be a way of saying what couldn't be said. He hoped the format of a story would convey more than ordinary words were capable of.

Mostly, he hoped the point of the story would be clear: There are things in the world that, once broken, can never be fixed. Things like children, men, women, yes, but also families and institutions and even foundational relationships like parent-child and brother-brother. Some things, once shattered, can never be put back together, can never again serve their original purpose. They can never again be what they were.

He hoped this understanding, this insight, would eventually comfort them as it had comforted him.

• Nick Wilgus is the bestselling author of MINDFULNESS AND MURDER and many other novels and screenplays. 

A Letter to a Parish Priest: Obviously, You Don't Get It

Dear Father,

We need to talk.

You don't know me, and there's a reason for that: As a 50+ older gentleman who grew up in the Church, I learned long ago to steer clear of you. And I do. I don't attend the pot luck dinners. I don't hang around for coffee and donuts. I don't volunteer. I don't even shake your hand at the end of the infrequent masses I attend. I steer clear. In fact, I usually attend a different church denomination entirely.

I don't want to know you, and I don't want you to know me. Had you any clue what happened to me at the hands of people like you so many years ago when I was a child, you would understand.

I told my story once. I was dismissed as a liar. I was told that "men of God" could not possibly do the sorts of things that were done to me. I was told it would be gravely sinful to embarrass the Church by talking about what happened, that I should keep such things to myself "for the good of the Church." I was told to get over it, that I had brought it on myself. that it was a sin to besmirch the "good" reputations of priests and religious brothers, and that my pain was such a trivial matter I should be embarrassed to even mention it. I was laughed at, ridiculed, shunned.

So I will not repeat my story here. First of all, you've heard it before. A hundred times. A thousand times. Secondly, it has become increasingly obvious to me that you do not understand. That you - and your bishop and your cardinals and even the pope himself - have no clue what has happened to so many of us, your children. Perhaps you have an intellectual understanding of what sexual abuse does to a child. Perhaps you've counseled a lot of victims. Perhaps you have a heart of gold and really, really want to help. But .... you don't understand what's been done.

As the recently-released massive report on predator priests in Pennsylvania has made clear to me, the only people who actually DO understand are those of us who got hurt. In this report, I have read story after story of the difficulties victims face later in life, how the wounds don't heal, how the hurt goes on and on, how the shame endures, and how difficult the healing process is.

When victims talk about how their lives were destroyed, I get it. When they talk about how much it would mean to just get an apology or any sort of acknowledgement, I get it. When they talk about how they can't believe that something like this could happen to them at the hands of a priest they trusted and loved, I get it. When they talk about years of fractured relationships, addictions, a general failure to thrive, how their lives have been diminished, the deep shame they feel, the rage, the hurt, the inability to trust, the problems with authority figures, the sheer incomprehensibility of the whole thing -- I get it.

Years wasted. Years gone. Years spent in counseling. Relationships that failed. How they can't pray. How they can't believe God loves them. How they can't even believe God exists. I get it.

Do you?

The Church has inflicted a demonic horror on so many of its most vulnerable members. It has introduced a darkness into our lives, a sorrow in our souls, a cancer that rots in our bones. The price we've paid to be your victims has been tremendous. We carried your shame. We bore the weight of your sins. We paid the price for your iniquities. The most you have to worry about is being embarrassed while trying to figure out a way to keep your fellow priests from raping little kids. What we worry about is how to get through the day and how to have a relationship with a God who let this horror loose in our lives.

One of the things that most infuriates me about this report is the care and solicitude -- for the offending priests! How they continued to receive their medical insurance, their dental insurance, their vision insurance, their car insurance, their living stipends, how they spent months on end at "treatment centers," and never once had to worry about where their next meal would come from.

What did their victims get? In a few cases, there were settlements and some had their counseling paid for, but for the vast majority of us, we got the shaft. We were left to deal with the aftermath on our own.

This report has ripped open gaping wounds -- and perhaps that's a good thing. And perhaps we need to keep ripping open these wounds until you get it. Until you understand. That this must not be allowed to continue. That no church should ever be allowed to destroy so many lives.

Perhaps someday you will see me in the back of your church. I think you know who I am. I think you can see it in my eyes. Perhaps someday you will come up to me and say you're sorry about what happened. Perhaps you will realize that abuse not only destroys lives and potential and happiness, it destroys our faith. Our ability to believe that God loves us.

I want to close this letter by saying that I don't hate you. I believed in you. I loved you. I did what I was supposed to do, but you repaid my love with an unimaginable horror. If I don't show up for mass, if I don't shake your hand, if I don't have much use for you -- I hope you will understand.

The ball is in your court, not mine. I didn't break this relationship. You did. And I think you -- and every parish priest in the world -- need to understand that. The ball is in your court. This is something you did. This is on all of you. And now you need to find a way to fix it.

• Nick Wilgus is the best-selling author of MINDFULNESS AND MURDER and several other novels.