The Story I Tell Myself

The story I tell myself is a little vain and self important, I know... but it gets me through today and tomorrow, and keeps my sanity. 

I was a child, who grew up in a good household with a loving mother and father. Things were pure, joyful, the angelfish bred, but did not fight. People were silent, but jubilant. I'd watch my Johnny Quest, I'd watch Seaburt and Scamper, I'd watch A-Team and MacGyver. I'd read my stories of George Washington cutting down the Cherry Tree, of Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan, of Jack and Jill, Humpty-Dumpty, Ring Around the Roses, and The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Then, I mixed with my peers. And such a vile feeling came over me, that these peers were not right. They influenced me, corrupted me--my heart was malleable and still is to some degree--and they taught me various bad habits.

Then, I sinned. And I sinned hard.

I can't help but blame my peers on the attitude they fostered, to help enable me to be the sinner I was. If they had told me the truth--and not manipulated me--I'd have been stayed from the great suffering I've endured. I'd have been saved from the various crimes I'd committed, because I had peers who told me what was right, instead of what was wrong. Rather than cheer me along for the various cruelties, they would reprimand me for them. And so, this I did not have. Rather, any kindness in me was a vulnerability, which was beaten, bullied and scoffed.

Thus, I developed an attitude where I must tell them right. I must tell them what is true, and give them an honest report of their behavior, which as of lately grown much worse. I sinned, so I can know it's wrong--for having tasted the highest highs with cruelty and lust--I can tell them such a thing is vanity.

Thus, I became a writer, who ought to be a writer, and I worked 20 years fruitlessly on my craft, because some power greater than me stops me. Be it God or Satan, I don't know... but I know I have faith in God's power, and know Him like I would my own. And I know, from listening to Jesus' parables--for His stories have always been my favorite of all time--and His teachings--for the Sermon on the Mount is my favorite thing ever said by any human being--and His Judgment---for the Old Testament is among the sweetest, that the cruelties I have witnessed will not go unpunished--and His forgiveness--for Pauline Epistles give me the sense, that though I've failed hard, I have something to attain in a next life--I have become a complete Master over the art of understanding man, in all his goodness and vices.

Yet, some vile force stops me from making my bread, and keeps me from enjoying the fruits of my success, and more and more, I realize it's the world I lived in all along hated what was good in me, and like a constrictor with a mouse, it squeezed me, until I had no more love.

So I fought back, and kept very much of my love. And so write you this story I tell myself, of why I am a Christian. And no other religion suffices.