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May Spirit bless us all, now, and forever. Amen.
January 9, 2022
The most bizarre and totally amazing and totally incredible thing happened the other day. I was talking to my niece, who is staying with us over winter break. I was telling her about my faith deconstruction journey. I was telling her I patently reject the concept of eternal conscious damnation, otherwise known in evangelical Christian theology as “hell”.
My mother, who is deaf, was looking at me. She was pleading with her eyes and her body, as she does whenever I’m in conversation with someone and she’s in the room, to catch her up — to tell her what we’re discussing. It is in my nature to turn toward her and assist, to bring her up to speed. For my entire life, I very much want her to be included in conversation. I want her to know what I am talking about, what I think, what the others in conversation are saying. I have no desire to leave her out. I have always felt it’s out and out cruel to continue in conversation without recognizing and acknowledging her need to know. And yet, that is what most people do, even members of our own family. She has a right to know, and I have an obligation to be her ears. Well, that’s a whole other story, why I feel compelled to be her ears in a hearing world… But I do. I always have.
