IT’S TIME TO GROW A PAIR!

Do you know what I discovered last night following the second debate?  I can’t stop vomiting, and I am at a loss for words. The “hate theater,” a term coined by Margaret Sullivan for the parade of women from Bill Clinton’s past whom Donald Trump sprang on the Presidential debate, made me sick to my stomach.  (Apparently, Trump and team had planned to put the women in the VIP box so that Bill Clinton would have to bump into them to get to his VIP seat, and so that they would be directly in Hillary’s sightline so as to unnerve her and cause her to lose the debate.  The dastardly deed was discovered, and the plan was thwarted.)  It was wrong and it was a new low in our Presidential politics.  Besides, it was Trump’s way of trying to cover up his own egregious sins.  Normally, I would try to come up with something humorous or pithy about the week, but children, I’ve got nothing because I think I just watched our republic die Sunday night, aided and abetted by the Religious Right—especially the men over fifty years old.**

CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com

That’s right, my Delightful Readers, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 71 percent of white evangelical voters said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today even though he’s a racist, a xenophobe, a mocker of the disabled, a tax evader, and an adulterer, and now he seems to think its cool TO ASSAULT WOMEN.  We’ve all heard the infamous open-mic chatter of Donald Trump’s workplace vulgarity (he claims it was locker room humor, but he was at work, getting ready to tape a show), but it bears repeating for the sake of removing the scales of deception from the eyes of those who refuse to see:

ACCESS HOLLYWOOD’S TAPE OF TRUMP’S “HONORING. RESPECTFUL WORDS” ABOUT WOMEN MADE RIGHT ABOUT THE TIME HE MARRIED HIS THIRD WIFE (POOR MELANIA, SHE MUST FEEL SO GREAT ABOUT HER MARRIAGE RIGHT ABOUT NOW)

“I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it,”

“I did try and fuck her. She was married,” Trump says.

“And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

(AS TRUMP AND SIDE KICK, BILLY BUSH [CAN YOU BELIEVE HE IS A BUSH RELATIVE?] APPROACH AN UNSUSPECTING WOMAN GREETER, THE MAN WHO WISHES TO BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT CONTINUES…)

“I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her.  You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

“Grab them by the pussy,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

 

CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: Bob Englehart, CagleCartoons.com

***

PAT ROBERTSON (head of The Christian Broadcasting Network) to Donald Trump:  “You inspire us all.”

  JERRY, FALWELL, JR. (President of the nation’s largest Christian university and one of the first Christian leaders to support Donald Trump):  “In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment.”

JAMES DOBSON (Christian psychologist and founder of Focus on the Family) about Donald Trump: “I am endorsing Donald J. … I am also very enthusiastic by the selection of Gov. Mike Pence as Mr. Trump’s running mate. Together, I believe they will make America great again.”

RALPH REED (Head of Faith & Freedom Coalition) regarding Donald Trump’s “pussy grab”: “People of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defund Planned Parenthood, defend religious liberty and oppose the Iran nuclear deal.  A ten-year-old tape of a private conversation with a talk show host ranks low on their hierarchy of concerns.”

CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: John Cole, The Scranton Times Tribune

WAIT, WHAT?  THIS JUST IN?  HOT OFF THE PRESSES! Christian women, especially those who have survived sexual abuse and women under forty years old, are beginning to peel away from The Donald, led by none other than the female American evangelist, Beth Moore (author and founder of Living Proof Ministries):

“I’m one among many women sexually abused, misused, stared down, heckled, talked naughty to. Like we liked it. We didn’t. We’re tired of it,” Moore said. She also had a word about evangelical leaders still supporting Trump: “Try to absorb how acceptable the disesteem and objectifying of women has been when some Christian leaders don’t think it’s that big a deal.”—Joshua Dubois/The Daily Beast (see full article listed under references—it is worth the read)*

All righty, now!  Okay, Christian men who are voting for Trump and are supporting him, no matter what.  You men who have wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers:  where are your fucking balls?  You better find them, because if the Donald has his way, he’s coming for their “pussies,” unless they aren’t a “10” in his eyes, then he’ll just insult them by calling them “slobs, dogs, and ugly, fat pigs.”  Rise up, oh men of God, and do the right thing!

CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune Missouri

***

ELEANOR’S “SELAH” (AHA MOMENT)

I am discovering “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” but when a person truly repents of their sins, which one of us who live in glass houses has a right to throw past sins in the face of the x-sinner’s spouse just to score political points or to try and win a debate?  I’ll let you decide, Dear Reader, which one of these men is someone who might be the better person in spite of his egregious past choices. 

BILL CLINTON’S PUBLIC REPENTENCE 18 YEARS AGO:  “I don’t think there’s a fancy way to say that I have sinned. It is important to me that everyone who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine — first and most important, my family, my friends, my staff, my cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.

“To be forgiven, more than sorrow is required, at least two more things.  First, genuine repentance, a determination to change and to repair breaches of my own making. I have repented.

“Second, what my Bible calls a broken spirit, an understanding that I must have God’s help to be the person that I want to be, a willingness to give the very forgiveness I seek, a renunciation of the pride and the anger which cloud judgment, lead people to excuse and compare and to blame and complain.”

DONALD TRUMP’S IDEA OF REPENTENCE TODAY: “Why do I have to repent, why do I have to ask for forgiveness if [I’m] not making mistakes?” [And since The Donald never admits he’s wrong, he never has to ask forgiveness.]

CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: Taylor Jones, Politicalcartoons.com

***

THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUOTES

“Character is what you do when nobody’s looking. And this video captures Trump in the middle of day, sober, a few months after being married, talking with a man he barely knows, bragging about sexual assault, while wearing a microphone.   This is, apparently, the real Donald Trump …”—John Avlon/Daily Beast

 “Trump-loving evangelical leaders should either apologize to Bill Clinton or admit, after all these years, that they, too, have a character issue.”—Jonathan Merritt

“Donald Trump knows he won’t be president. He’s now in full carnival-barking, network-launching, party-nuking mode — a scowling, pouting menace who threatened during a nationally televised debate to throw Hillary Clinton in jail and called her husband the most sexually abusive man in political history.”—REVIEW OF THE SECOND DEBATE/Ron Fournier, writer for The Atlantic

WINNER OF DEBATE:  CNN POLL=57% (Hillary)-34% (The Donald)

CARTOON USED BY PERMISSION: Marian Kemensky, Slovakia

***

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out www.eleanortomczyk.com

WANT TO READ THE AUTHOR’S LATEST BOOKS?  Monsters’ Throwdown and Fleeing Oz are both on sale at Amazon (Paperback and Kindle).

***

REFERENCES

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/10/beth-moore-the-christian-women-speaking-out-about-trump-s-bad-news.html  *

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/08/this-is-the-last-spastic-breath-from-the-religious-right-before-its-overdue-death/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_1_na **

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/second-presidential-debate-takes-the-low-road-as-attacks-and-slurs-dominate/2016/10/10/e350484a-8e9f-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-banner-main_campaign-banner%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/evangelical-christians-trump-bill-clinton-apology/495224/

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

APPARENTLY, AMERICA LOVES A BULLY

Do you know what I discovered today, Sunday, February 21, 2016?  It is a day after the Republican Primary in South Carolina where Trump had a resounding victory over the rest of the Republican candidates, and I can’t find a soul who witnessed this debacle to return my call.  I’m specifically trying to connect with the White “Evangelical Christians” who gave Trump such a huge win (no self-respecting Black person would ever vote for this clown), but no one will allow me to interview them.  It’s like they did their dastardly deed and then went into hiding.

Cartoon used by permission: Randall Enos, Cagle Cartoons

I finally caught up with my alter ego, The Dalai Mama, who sent us the report from New Hampshire last week, but she seemed to be in a state of shock.  (DM looks like me but takes no prisoners, and she has no filter.  She says the things I wish I could say on any given day).  As I connected with her on her cell phone, I immediately noticed how disheartened and exhausted she sounded.

ME:        Hey, DM . . . I’m been trying to reach you since the polls closed last night in South Carolina.  Where have you been?  I need some intel about the SC Primary so that I can write my blog.  I hear that Trump won every single congressional district.  How in the hell did that happen?  Wasn’t there at least one hold out? Tell me it isn’t so.

DM:       Oh, you bet yo’ chubby-little-ol’-ass, it’s so.

ME:        But what happened?

DM:       Best I can tell, the White Christians down here done gone crazy.  They put him over the top.  Nasty-ass Ted Cruz is in a state of shock ‘cause he just knew he had the White Christian vote.  Only thing good about Trump winnin’ is that he beat Cruz’s ass.  You ain’t gonna hear this on “Mornin’ Joe,” Baby, but South Carolina White Christians done lost they ever-lovin’ minds!  Jesus is weepin’ this mornin’, chil’—sobbin’ in his communion cups.  Now you know I ain’t no racist, but I has to emphasize what race done this, ‘cause no self-respectin’ Black folk would ever put this man in office.

ME:        Well, you don’t know that it was all White people who voted for Trump.  I’m sure there were some Black folks who voted for this maniac—we are not a monolithic group.

DM:       Um, um . . . I was there.  Didn’t see nary a Black person.  These White folks think Trump sit at the right hand of Jesus, and that he is the Great White Christian Hope.  Besides, they finally get to participate in what Larry Wilmore calls the “unblackening of the White House.”  No Black folk in they right mind would join in on that—we know a bigot when we sees one, even if he is a billionaire.  He just a rich bigot.  Lawd, have mercy!  Jesus is banging his head against his throne today—I just know he is.

ME:        Did you ask the people—especially the White Christians—why they voted for Trump?

DM:       Sho’ I did.  They say it ‘cause he tell it like it is.  Say he most like them of all the candidates, and he gonna make America great again.  I’m still tryin’ to figure out what that means.   I didn’t see none of them with any private planes or a super model wife.  I asked a couple of them if they had mansions, maids, and chauffeurs, but not one of them could say they did.  You know what I think it is—they been holdin’ they breath about the Black man in the White House for eight years, and now they gots themselves a leader that say, it’s okay to hate him and to throw in the Mexicans and the Muslims in the pot since they now stirrin’ up themselves some hate stew.

ME:        I’m still flummoxed over the fact that so many Christians voted for this Neanderthal.  These are my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Did they not hear what the Pope said about him?  Basically, saying that if the dude was a Christian we would know it by his actions.

DM:       Oh that just made the Trumpets more riled up.  It was like feedin’ steak to a bunch of hungry pit bulls.  “How dare the Pope question our savior Trump’s Christianity?  Who does he think he is—God?”  (Of course, they love it when Trump questions President Obama’s standin’ in Christ, ‘cause they just know the Prez is a Muslim who they hate.)  As to the Pope, suddenly that ol’ hatred for Catholics just bubbled right up to the Southern Baptist surface.  I thought that was long gone—haven’t seen that since John F. Kennedy was President. The Popey better be glad he made his visit to America befo’ Trump become president, because if he had come afterwards, I’d be worrin’ ‘bout the Pope’s safety.  If this Trump character gets into the Oval Office, all races, creeds, and colors—except white Protestant males—will be fair game for ridicule, shame, and bullyin’.

Cartoon used by permission: Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

ME:        Oh, Dalai.  What are we going to do?  I feel as if we’re being yanked back in time to a nightmare that will never end.

DM:       Can you say, “help me, Jesus—help, help me, Jesus?”  ‘Cause that divine power mixed with every eligible voter who ain’t lost their minds better get out and vote like they lives depend on it come November.  That’s where I’m off to next.  I’m startin’ the “anti-Trump” campaign coupled with the “anti-Cruz” campaign as I go from state to state (might as well bring down the devil’s spawn along with the devil).  I’m gonna shout the truth from the rooftops:  “Wake up you silly-ass Americans—especially you Christians.  This is not what our Lawd Jesus would do!  We done been had!   This clown ain’t like you—he ain’t like Jesus, and you ain’t gonna get no riches, no three wives, no billions, no mansions, no airplanes!  Also, get over yo’selves cause Mexicans, Muslims, Gays, and Black folks are here to stay!”

Cartoon used by permission: David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star

***

ELEANOR’S “SELAH” (AHA) MOMENT ABOUT CHRISTIANS AND TRUMP

I am discovering that the Christianity I hold so dear has been sold to the highest bidder, and we’ve seen this movie before.  When Hitler rose to power, he did so on the votes of the Lutheran and Catholic churches.  There were a remnant who fought against his election (there will always be a remnant of courageous people who speak out against madness), but for the most part people chanted:  “Hitler, Hitler, he’s our man—if he can’t save us, no one can.”  We have people who call themselves Christians who are pretty pissed that they have been losing what they consider the cultural wars since the 60s (women’s rights, racial equality, and globalization), and they are willing to sacrifice their beliefs in order to get back the world that they have been mourning ever since the 50s.  Not only do I agree with the Pope and question Trump’s character as a so-called “Christian,” but I question the Christian character of the people who overwhelmingly delivered South Carolina into Trump’s hands.  The only thing good about his win is that he beat nasty-ass Cruz who is so mean and heartless that he makes Trump look like Jesus’ sidekick.

Before I turned off the news to post this blog, I heard this quote from Trump:

“We’re going to win so much, you’re going to get tired of winning . . . You’re going to say, ‘Please, Mr. President. I have a headache. Please, don’t win so much. This is getting terrible.’ And I’m going to say, ‘No, we have to make America great again.’ ”

On that note, I screamed bloody murder and asked my husband if he had the heart to pick up and move again so that we could retire to a land where Trump was not the nightmare President I know he will become if given half the chance.   My husband asked me if I had any prospects in mind, and I told him I had just seen an ad on the Internet from a travel bureau in Canada. . . can you say, “Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, here we come!”

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

***

QUOTES:  WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A “TRUE” CHRISTIAN

“A Christian reveals true humility by showing the gentleness of Christ, by being always ready to help others, by speaking kind words and performing unselfish acts, which elevate and ennoble the most sacred message that has come to our world.”—Ellen G. White

“I feel like if I live the Christian life, then the people should be able to see it in my everyday actions.”—Quinton Aaron

“The point is that there is tremendous hypocrisy among the Christian right. And I think that Christian voters should start looking at global warming and extreme poverty as a religious issue that speaks to the culture of life.”—Al Franken

“I’m working at trying to be a Christian, and that’s serious business. It’s like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy – it’s serious business.”—Maya Angelou

“A Muslim fanatic and a Christian fanatic, a Jewish fanatic, a secular fanatic, an atheist fanatic, a communist fanatic – all of them are the same. The thinking that, ‘If you don’t think like me, that if you are not with me, then you are against me;’ this is something to condemn.”—Marjane Satrapi

 “I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don’t think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.”—Jimmy Carter

ALL QUOTES FROM http://www.brainyquotes.com

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out www.eleanortomczyk.com

WANT TO READ THE AUTHOR’S LATEST BOOKS?  Monsters’ Throwdown and Fleeing Oz are both on sale at Amazon (hardcopy and Kindle).

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

GOD SAID WHAT?

Do you know what I discovered about God and Donald Trump this week?  They are supposedly like this (imagine image of two fingers intertwined).  And apparently, God has signed onto The Donald’s campaign and has personally endorsed him as the 2016 primo GOP presidential nominee.  According to Charisma Magazine (the Christian gossip People Magazine) God has been talking directly to one of his very closest peeps who hails from Lakeland, Florida (one Prophet Jeremiah Johnson—the 27-year-old White one from Lakeland, Florida, not the forty-something Black one from Dallas, Texas) about Donald, the blowhard.  God told Prophet Jeremiah that Donald Trump was sent to be his “trumpet to the American people for he [The Donald] possesses qualities that are even hard to find in my people these days [Born-Again Christians, he’s talking about us—oh, snap!].”  My loyal readers—this prophet story is true, all true—you can’t make this shit up!

Cartoon used by permission: John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune

At first I thought it was a spoof—a page right out of the Onion, but the link to the prophecy in Charisma was posted on the dude’s website.  Here’s Prophet Jeremiah’s word “direct from God” in its entirety:

 “I was in a time of prayer several weeks ago when God began to speak to me concerning the destiny of Donald Trump in America. The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, ‘Trump shall become My trumpet to the American people, for he possesses qualities that are even hard to find in My people these days. Trump does not fear man nor will he allow deception and lies to go unnoticed. I am going to use him to expose darkness and perversion in America like never before, but you must understand that he is like a bull in a china closet. Many will want to throw him away because he will disturb their sense of peace and tranquility, but you must listen through the bantering to discover the truth that I will speak through him. I will use the wealth that I have given him to expose and launch investigations searching for the truth. Just as I raised up Cyrus to fulfill My purposes and plans, so have I raised up Trump to fulfill my purposes and plans prior to the 2016 election. You must listen to the trumpet very closely for he will sound the alarm and many will be blessed because of his compassion and mercy. Though many see the outward pride and arrogance, I have given him the tender heart of a father that wants to lend a helping hand to the poor and the needy, to the foreigner and the stranger.’“

HELLO!  Either God’s done lost his ever lovin’ mind, or the right-wing Christian movement has set out to humiliate itself—yet again.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a recovering right-wing Christian, once read Charisma Magazine like it was my life’s blood, and after too much communion wine even “prophesied” that Justice Clarence Thomas was a righteous, caring, teddy-bear, sweetheart of a man sent to the Supreme Court by God “for such a troubled time as this,” who was being “tormented and lied about by that hussy Anita Hill.”  Oy vez mir!   (I plan to be in therapy till Jesus comes back over my stint as “that kind of Christian,” and I wrote my latest book, Fleeing Oz, to document my humorous escape from such babbling insanity.)

I was so agitated and embarrassed after reading that prophecy that when I went to sleep that night I had fitful, vivid dreams of trying to get in touch with God—demanding that He show himself and put a stop to people using His name in vain to promote their crazy-ass political agendas.  I mean, after all, the Dude has got a major rep to maintain, and we—His peeps—are not protecting His brand very well.

Cartoon used by permission: Pat Bagley Salt Lake Tribune/Cagle Cartoons

In my dream, I entered (more or less floated into) a waiting room with no walls, no ceiling, and no floors.  The only way I could tell it was a waiting room was that the space contained an ample-bosomed, slightly chunky, black-bottomed secretary seated behind a suspended desk that featured a plaque that read:  Dalai Mama, Sr. EA. to God Almighty.  I couldn’t shake the sense that I knew her.  In fact, she looked like my twin—just a bit more bedazzled with a lot more attitude and sporting a flowing multi-colored kaftan.  The bespectacled secretary never acknowledged my presence but kept right on reading some type of report that said “Earthly News.”  I stood in front of her desk for what seemed like eons, but she never looked up from her reading—even though I knew she knew I was there.  Finally she spoke without moving her eyes from the report.

DM:       Lawd have mercy, humans are a mess.  Y’all never cease to amaze me.  You better be glad I’m not the Almighty, or I’d wipe you all out and start all over again.

MOI:      Well, it is a pleasure to meet you to.  Sheesh!  I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I need to speak with God. I’ve traveled a long way at quite some risk to my well-being to get an audience with His Majesty.

DM:       You don’t say.  You got an appointment?  Cause y’all ain’t gettin’ in here to see the Lawd without makin’ an appointment.  He brought me on to be the gatekeeper to protect him from folks like you who feel you can just barge in any-ol-time you feel like it.   What’s yo’ problem, anyhow?  You look kinda bougie to me.  Yo’ spa appointment got canceled?  Yo’ books ain’t hit the New York Times bestseller list yet?

MOI:      Oh good grief!  When did snark become a part of Heaven?  I’m here on behalf of God’s reputation.  He doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to it, so somebody has to.  One of his peeps has hijacked it again, and given the times that we live in, God needs to do something about it.  Has He read this so-called prophecy by Jeremiah Johnson that His Majesty is backing Donald Trump for the 2016 presidential race?  Not only is this ersatz prophet putting words in God’s mouth, but he’s making Christians out to be laughing stocks—yet again—because they are believing him!

DM:       Read it?  What you talkin’ ‘bout, Girl?  God knew ‘bout it before the words ever popped out of that poser’s mouth.   You actin’ like this the first time God had to deal with American politicians who think they sit at His right hand.  Remember Palin, Bachmann, Cain, Jindal, Perry, and Santorum all said God told them to run.  Even the governor from Ohio didn’t throw his hat in the ring until he said God had told him to do so, just recently.  And what happened to them?  Is anyone of them yo’ President or even yo’ Vice-president?  So chill out, Baby-girl.  I been watchin’ you, and you too old to get so messed up over these crazies.  God’s got this.

Cartoon used by permission: Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch/Cagle Cartoons

MOI:      What do you mean, God’s got this?  The Donald’s leading in the polls, he’s taking center position on the debate stage Thursday night, and according to the latest poll, Evangelical Christians are some of his strongest supporters.  What the fuck?

DM:       Watch yo’ mouth, Baby-girl.  You not too old for me to smack you upside yo’ head.  This is a holy place, and you best respect it.

MOI:      All I’m saying is that if Evangelical Christians are supporting The Donald because he’s “most like them” (that’s what the polls are saying—ain’t that a hoot?), and they throw their vote behind him, they will decimate the Republican Party.  Plus some “holy man” comes along and says that you have “raised up Trump to fulfill my purposes and plans prior to the 2016 election,” then, poof! that’s all the Conservative Evangelicals will need for rationale—and here comes Frankenstein to the Oval Office in 2016.  “The prophet” goes on to say that we (Christians) “must listen to the trumpet [I wonder if God meant that pun?] very closely for he will sound the alarm and many will be blessed because of his compassion and mercy.”  Compassion and mercy?  What a joke!   A blind man can see that Trump is many things—but compassionate and merciful are not the two words that come to mind.  Try blowhard, arrogant, and a bully.  You know what this is about don’t you?  Conservatives are so freakin’ afraid of the culture changes that have happened and the occupancy of the Black man for eight years in the White House that they are grasping at any monster that attacks those things they fear.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t think The Donald will make it into the White House, but I do think “his spirit” will—that racist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, homophobic, and greed-inspired monster will.  What’s God going to do about this?

DM:       Probably nothing.  God gave y’all brains and hearts for a reason.  Use ‘em.  He ain’t gonna stomp all over your freewill.  Anyhoo, I have my own theory.  Did you ever think that maybe—just maybe—He did tell those people to run (and spoke to the “prophets”), but it was His way of winnowing out the craziness that you nasty-ass humans created in your lust for power and control?  The candidates said God said that they were supposed to “run” for president; they didn’t say God said they were supposed to win.  Maybe yo’ God has a fabulous sense of humor. And maybe that humor is the best ass-whoppin’ and pride-buster in this realm and the next. (Remember that preacher-man who prophesied the end of the world three or four times not to long ago—flingin’ hell, fire, and damnation like monkey poo?  Well, y’all still here causin’ all kinds of chaos, and little preacher man had a stroke and died!  It was the end of the world all right—his world!) Now go on home, Chil’—God can take care of himself, and I’ve got work to do.

Cartoon used by permission: John Darkow, Columbia Daily, Tribune Missouri/Cagle Cartoon

***

MY “SELAH” (AS IN “AHA”) MOMENT REGARDING “HAS GOD SAID” AND POLITICIANS

I am discovering that all sorts of people from every kind of religion say they hear God tell them all sorts of things.  Ask any member of ISIS why they are trying to kill you, and they will probably say:  “Because God told me to.”  (Somehow the fact that “God told him” doesn’t make me feel any better about the fact that I am going to lose my head at that moment.) The problem with people saying “God told me” is that there is no rebuttal one can give to that.  What are we going to say:  “Oh, no He deeen’t!”  Can I tell you a secret?  I have discovered from living in this part of Christianity for forty years—where people say “Thus Saith the Lord” as matter-of-factly as brushing their teeth—that saying God told me to say “this or that” is usually meant to dominate others.  It is meant to control the situation, elevate the speaker, and shut down any discussion that points to the fact that the speaker is probably wrong as Hell.  Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, Herman Cain, Huckabee, et al said that God told them to run for the presidency at one time, but they all went down in a blaze of ignominy.   Well, guess what, some silly-ass “prophet” may be announcing that God told him Donald Trump walks on water, but God speaks to me too, and He’s saying:  “If you believe this dude or The Donald, your sorry-ass is crazier than the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland!”

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

“When we talk to God, we’re praying. When God talks to us, we’re schizophrenic.”—Jane Wagner

“When all else fails there’s always delusion.”—Conan O’Brien

“There’s always an element of self-delusion among people who believe they ought to be President. There’s an underestimation of your opponent and an overestimation of your own abilities. This is compatible with being rich and powerful, the idea that we were blessed by God because we deserve to be blessed.”—Jimmy Carter

ALL INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES COURTESY OF www.brainyquotes.com

 

“HAS GOD SAID?” MY FAVORITE CARTOON FROM 2011

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out www.eleanortomczyk.com

WANT TO READ THE AUTHOR’S LATEST BOOKS (Monsters’ Throwdown and Fleeing Oz)?  THEY ARE ON SALE NOW AT AMAZON!

http://www.amazon.com/Fleeing-Oz-Eleanor-L-Tomczyk/dp/1511695048/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438808934&sr=8-1&keywords=fleeing+oz

REFERENCES

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/charisma-news-donald-trump-is-the-new-word-of-god/?ref_widget=related&ref_blog=formerlyfundie&ref_post=killing-cecil-the-lion-does-god-care-how-we-treat-animals

http://www.charismamag.com/blogs/prophetic-insight/23916-prophecy-donald-trump-shall-become-the-trumpet#comment-2163756669

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/22/gods_plan_these_gop_candidates_claim_the_almighty_wants_them_to_run/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/06/god_caught_backing_multiple_go.html

http://beholdthemanministries.com/articles/

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/ohio-john-kasich-awaits-god-2016-presidential-bid-117120.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/modern-melting-pot/201202/who-did-god-tell-run-president-in-2012

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

HYPOCRISY, THY NAME IS “THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT”

Do you know what I discovered this week? The same thing you all discovered: The uber-Christian Josh Duggar from “19 Kids and Counting” fame has become a verb—as in “to duggar you”—and Christianity got another black eye. (Remember he worked [operative word is “worked”—past tense] for the Family Research Council that advocated opposing LGBT non-discrimination laws, birth control, and divorce?) Pretty soon my religion is going to go blind from all of the explosions in the face it keeps getting from the hypocrites whose lying lives keep backfiring who claim to represent Christ on Earth.

Cartoon Courtesy of Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It turns out the Duggar parents had been covering up their oldest son’s “duggaring” while they tried to present themselves as holier than thou to the rest of the world for years. I KNEW IT! I called this hypocrisy cover-up quite a few years ago. When fellow Christians contacted me about their adoration for this family when Mama Duggar won the “Mother of the Year” award in 2004, I took one look at them and decided to distance myself from their media hype, sound the warning bell to any who would listen, and pray that the underbelly of the Duggars would be exposed sooner than later. The more the Duggars tried to hurt and condemn those who did not adhere to their rigid form of Christianity, the more I smelled something rotten in Denmark because I have seen this Christian legalism up-close-and-personal and knew that the outcome always seemed to produce something wicked. I wrote about it in my latest book: Fleeing Oz.

“Show me a place where women are not allowed to be in leadership along with men; show me a religious setting where women are not allowed to voice their opinions without being labelled ‘rebellious,’ and I will show you a place where the abuse of children is not very far beneath the surface of all its piety.” Eleanor Tomczyk, Fleeing Oz

I was going to do an entire exposé on the Duggars and their hypocrisy (tormenting the LGBT community, interfering with women’s reproductive rights, shoving a perverted way of life down our throats as something God was down with), but you can read it for yourselves in the references. The articles are chilling—especially the one by the young woman who could have been a Duggar wife.* In the meantime, Mrs. Duggar—who boasts of having a clown car as a vagina—probably needs to re-examine what it is she’s been doing for the last 20 years “in Jesus’ name.” Mr. Duggar might want to take another look at his sexual philosophy of screwing his wife every other day but Sunday while controlling every single aspect of his wife and girls’ lives (hair must be permed and worn long, dresses must be long and shapeless to keep men from stumbling, hugs and kisses with opposite sex are verboten unless married, and birth control is of the devil). Just maybe Jim Bob’s actions (both controlling and out-of-control) drove his son, Josh, to do what he did (four of the victims being his sisters). The first time I saw a picture of the Duggars (when they were just 14 kids and counting), I didn’t see God’s liberating grace and joy, I saw a woman abused by a “wannabe stud-muffin” who should be ashamed of himself for passing off his “lie of family sexuality” as God’s perfect plan for the Earth. I didn’t see freedom for the female members in his family—I saw abuse—and I wept.

Duggars: 14 Kids and Counting

Anyway, going from the disgusting to the mundane, I have got to start packing. We sold our house, we bought another one, and now I have to get moving here. In a week or two, I will take a break from blogging, but I’ll let you know before I go. I am sure I’ll have a lot of blog fodder from moving—the concept of me moving my entire house to an entirely different city is fraught with comedic peril. Just know that this week, I am glad I still loves me some Jesus but no longer hang out in Oz because I am pretty disgusted with a lot of my fellow Christian peeps.

 

Public Domain Photos (“Moving Day”)

WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK:

I am discovering that hypocrisy is one of man’s worst failures. It colors everything we say and do, and no human is safe from its tentacles. Beware of people who claim to speak for God’s laws, and whose interpretation of His ways are rigid, unkind, loveless, graceless, controlling, and lacking in mercy. Even with Josh Duggar committing such vile acts against five little girls, I pray for God to have mercy on him and that his victims will be healed. Maybe through the public admittance of his “Duggarisms,” the women in Josh Duggar’s family (his sisters and his wife) might be set free now that the mirror of hypocrisy has shattered his life. May it start with the son and proceed through the father, who I ultimately hold responsible for imprisoning his family, and who is trying to do so to anyone foolish enough to follow this man’s example. Make it so, Lord Jesus—please make it so—or you’re not going to have much of a church left to bear witness to your character. Instead of Christ’s church, it will be Christ’s hypocrites.

***

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES ON HYPOCRISY

(unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from http://www.brainyquote.com)

HYPOCRISY /həˈpäkrəsē/: “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.”—Google Online Dictionary

“For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I’m outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it’s hardest to see.”—Robin Williams

“There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.”—Frederick William Robertson

“Kids have what I call a built-in hypocrisy antenna that comes up and blocks out what you’re saying when you’re being a hypocrite.”—Benjamin Carson

“Dr. Carson—dear ‘Christian brother,’ I’ve been wondering why I can’t hear you. . .”—Eleanor Tomczyk

***

CHECK OUT THE AUTHOR’S LATEST BOOK ON EXPOSING HYPOCRISY IN CHRISTIANITY AND HER ESCAPE TO SANITY! AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR? VISIT HER WEBSITE AT www.eleanortomczyk.com

Cartoon courtesy of Dan Piraro www.bizarro.com

REFERENCES

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/28/how-and-why-a-journalist-tricked-news-outlets-into-thinking-chocolate-makes-you-thin/?hpid=z6

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/28/what_tlcs_duggar_decision_will_tell_us_whos_winning_the_culture_war_between_social_justice_and_christian_grace/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/28/the-duggar-effect-the-end-of-hicksploitation-tv.html

*http://www.salon.com/2015/05/28/i_couldve_been_a_duggar_wife_i_grew_up_in_the_same_church_and_the_abuse_scandal_doesnt_shock_me/

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/05/27/the-duggar-name-becomes-new-word-for-hypocrisy-and-child-molestation/

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/larry-wilmore-destroys-dangerous-hypocrite-josh-duggar-i-hate-pedophiles-but-i-love-irony/

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/26/how_the_duggar_familys_over_the_top_beliefs_created_an_environment_that_fostered_child_sex_abuse/

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/05/28/ex-trooper-says-he-was-not-told-the-truth-in-duggar-molestation-case/

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

A Different Set of Rules

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   If I spent every day visiting all the places that I couldn’t enter before the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (I was born in 1948), except through the back door as a maid or a slave, I’d probably never die—at least not anytime soon.  That is why I engage in a project surrounding Martin Luther King Holiday weekend that brings me great joy.

Not only do I sashay my black ass (dripping with bling) through the front door of a former slave-owning or white’s only establishment at least once a year, but I stay in the best room they have to offer, order room service for breakfast, and get an 80-minute massage if they offer it.  Since MLK weekend coincides with my husband’s (WW—“White and Wonderful”) birthday, I walk through the front door of those former plantations with my arm wrapped around my white husband’s arm, a big smile on my face, and give a silent middle finger to the racists ghosts who surely must roam the halls of said establishments.  Because there is no way any god worth his salt would ever allow those unrepentant slave owners entrance into Heaven (are you hearing me Thomas Jefferson?), I am convinced their Hell must be tailor-made to watch an African-American making herself at home with sheer abandonment in their “whites only” environment.

I call this bitch slap to the haunted the FYRS-LWITBR Project, which stands for “FUCK YOU RACIST SPECTERS—LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE!”  My “in your face” rebel cry has nothing to do with the current owners (I do not visit the sins of their ancestors upon them so long as they treat me with dignity and respect), but I do take on the racist ghosts of their lineage.

***

In the interest of full disclosure, my children think I’m crazy.  That’s because I’ve raised them to be color blind, and to my knowledge they have never suffered at the hands of racists, which makes me very happy.   Their friends are color blind (black, white, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Straight, Gay), as well, and have formed little urban families around each other to unite against the hardships and vagaries of life.   I am very proud of them, and I consider them all “my children.”

But my children and their friends have not seen what I’ve seen or experienced the hatred I’ve embodied.  They have never heard of The Negro Motorist Green Book which was in full swing the year I was born and lasted until after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and they have never had to plan their travel around such a book just to keep from having their asses kicked (or killed) by men in white robes and pointy hats carrying burning crosses.

The Green Book was started by Victor Hugo Green (a Harlem mail carrier) in the 1930s and it would eventually cover lodging, eateries, and stores in every state in the USA as well as Bermuda, Mexico, and Canada that would do business with Negroes.    If there were no hotels that would cater to African-Americans (often the case), the book would list “tourist homes” that would rent the traveler a room or two for their journey.  The Green Book spoke volumes by “omission,” as the writer Justin Hyde has noted.   In 1949, no restaurant was listed in Alabama that would serve black people.  Justin Hyde in his article on The Green Book in Jalopnik underscored the fact that “Black motorists in those eras frequently kept extra fuel, food and portable toilets on hand to avoid stopping in unfriendly locations. Even outside the South, roadside motels and diners often wouldn’t serve black customers.”  In 1963 (one year before The Green Book was taken out of circulation), I was kicked out of a New Jersey hotel in the middle of the night along with a family (a lawyer and school teacher and their two young children) that I was the babysitter for, and we were forced to drive through the night to our approved “Negro cabin” in Maine.

***

INTRODUCTION PAGE OF THE NEGRO TOURIST GUIDE:   “There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year.”

The fact that President Obama’s 2^nd inauguration (talk about “living well is the best revenge!”) fell on the same day as the MLK holiday weekend and coincided with my husband’s b-day gave me the perfect excuse to engage in my “project” (not at the plantation above used only as an example, but at another glorious location in the South and situated on the Gulf of Mexico).

***

As I stretched out on the beautiful “sugar sand” of a site where there once stood a private mansion that I could have only entered the back door of to make the beds and empty the slop pans, I meditated for hours on how far we had come as a Nation since the publication of The Green Book.   I watched the inauguration of our  magnificent 44^th president from my waterfront suite as I lifted a glass of champagne to the triumph of a man that we are lucky to have as a leader.  As I contemplated my own American journey, I joined President Obama in spirit to pray for the further emancipation of our Hispanic brothers and sisters, our Gay and Lesbian brothers and sisters, and the disenfranchised jobless families in our midst who need a helping hand.

***

I am discovering, however, that even though we are in more “tolerant times,” one must be ever vigilant against the spirit of bigotry—especially amongst the religious—or we will be doomed to repeat our history.  Martin Luther King often preached about the complacency of white Christians toward the suffering of those who did not fit their cultural narrow-minded viewpoint (specifically the Southern Baptists).    I have read many of the multitudinous sermons preached by well-intentioned pastors in favor of slavery in the 1800s and then again against desegregation in the 60s and their arrogance and cold-heartedness grip my heart with horror.  Where would we be as a country if righteousness had not won the day?

Today it boggles my mind that Christians who say they love Jesus are part of the Tea Party, but they don’t speak out against the racism that is so visible on their websites and from the mouths of their leaders.  I know that not all Tea Party members are racist but their silence is killing me.  The language of the Tea Partier is slightly different from the overt racist (normally doesn’t include the “n” word), but it is deceiving to the perpetrator because they see themselves as righteous:  “I respect the office of the presidency but I don’t respect this president because he is a Socialist, a Muslim, a spawn of Satan or Hitler (I’m searching for his hidden horns and drawing on his Hitler mustache even as we speak)” or “I don’t have a racist bone in my body, I just worship Sarah Palin, Fox News, and the Drudge Report who do”—said with such vehemence and so many times that it prompts the person of color to scream to the heavens:  “me thinks thou doth protest too much, Tea-bagger!”

Racist Tea Party Cartoon|image from politiskink.com

DEAR TEA PARTY:
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than
sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Even though we’ve come a long way, whenever I do a Google search with our President’s name, I almost vomit from the visceral racial hatred and disrespect that lashes out at me from the Internet because it seems that some of us are playing by a different set of rules, requiring others of us to reinstate “The Green Book” in order to survive.  This causes me great despair until I read the blogs of people like Frank Angle who wrote “On MLK 2013” (http://afrankangle.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/on-mlk-2013/ ) about the repentance of Elwin Wilson in 2009, a former Klansman, who attacked and beat a black college student in 1961 when he was one of the Freedom Riders trying to win the ability for African-Americans to travel across country via Greyhound and Trailway buses.  The black freedom rider grew up to be Congressman Joe Lewis.   Frank Angle included a YouTube video in his blog post of Wilson and Lewis’ exchange of repentance and forgiveness after 50 years, and it makes the viewer understand that there is a God, and one day we will all overcome our bigotry, our stupidity, our short-sightedness, our lack of grace, and our arrogance!

***

For years, Elwin, an admitted former member of the Ku Klux Klan, says he prayed that he would meet the man he attacked at the bus station. –Oprah.com

***

QUOTES BY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

 “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

      “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.” – Martin Luther King, Jr

 

What If God Was One of Us?

Do you know what I’ve discovered?  I’m not doing that well this week—how you doin?  I feel like pond scum to tell you the truth.  I rarely feel this way because, by nature, I am an eternal optimist, and to know me is to be part of an instant party of laughter and joy, if I do say so myself.   I should be on top of the world:  My husband, WW, and I are meeting a daughter’s serious boyfriend for the first time (THIS COULD BE THE ONE, FOLKS!) this weekend, and my blog just topped off 50,500 views!  Who knew when I started this storytelling malarkey just over a year ago, anybody outside my family and friends would even bother to tap my space, let alone 50,000 and counting? So why am I so blue?  The whole world is going to Hell in a hand basket, that’s why! I’m in mourning over what has happened in Libya and the rest of the Middle East, just when it seemed as if liberty, justice, and freedom had come to visit during the Arab Spring and were unpacking their bags.  But now it seems that various factors of the religious entities of the world (Muslims, Christians, Jews, and including the Mormon running for President and the Republicans who claim to be “the moral guardians of God”) have forgotten that we all bleed red and have the same tenet running through our religious ideologies:  “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”   As I mourn for Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and his staff, I can hardly breathe; let alone write a blog about how we “need to love each other and all get along.”  What’s the point?

www.coxandforkum.com

I’ve got so many questions but they all boil down to one observation:  none of us (not one) has seen our particular God face to face, so we all need to chill and remember we all could be wrong about an entire host of things regarding our individual religions.  And maybe that is the point, which is why I’m going to spend the rest of the week meditating on the old Indian parable about the blind men and the elephant as I contemplate what it means to live in a world where we all see the meaning of life through a foggy glass and deem it fine and dandy to demean, disparage, bear false witness, blaspheme, and kill innocent people “in the name of our particular god” over some perceived slight that was the creation and promotion of a couple of demented cretins.

You remember that old 19^th Century poem by John Godfrey Saxe don’t you (and I loosely paraphrase) where six or seven blind men from Indostan approach an elephant for the first time, which the poet dutifully labels as our “theological wars.”  As each man touches a different part of the elephant, their description of what they believe an elephant is like is completely different from the other blind men, yet they are all right and they are all wrong.  The poem ends as such:

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong! 

So, oft in theologic wars

 The disputants, I ween,

 Rail on in utter ignorance

 Of what each other mean,

 And prate about an elephant

 Not one of them has seen!

I am discovering that until we pass beyond the reality of this life into the next, we only have theories about life:  how it began, who began it, and how it will all end.  Until Mother Theresa (the Saint), Christopher Hitchens (the Atheist), Martin Luther King, Jr (The Liberator), and Adolf Hitler (The Asshole Murderer who, if he isn’t in Hell, would make me seriously doubt the validity of God) to name a few, come back and tell us what they’ve seen, we’d all better chill.  Until they tell us that God is or isn’t real and Heaven and Hell do or do not exist, we better figure out that we all bleed red and we’ve only got one planet and one life to live (sorry my Hindu friends, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about this—yet again, I could be wrong!), so we better learn how to honor the one theme that flows through all our religions regardless of the gods we serve:  Do unto others as we would have others do unto us!  (Yeah, that’s the point!)

Image from funnychill.com

******

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image, when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”—Anne Lamott

“Scapegoating will go on forever. We need someone to blame – illegal immigrants, single moms, people in prison. We need someone to victimize.”—Winona Ryder

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.

“If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to his face

If you were faced with him in all his glory

What would you ask if you had just one question . . .?”

What if God was one of us?

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Trying to make his way home.”

 “What If God Was One of Us?” by Eric Brazilian (as sung by Joan Osborne)

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Disney, I Can See the Cracks

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   I’m probably one of the few people in the world who can’t fully relax and give myself to the spell of the Disney magic.   Las Vegas has the same effect on me, as do many religious organizations, and most politicians.  At this stage of my life, they all make me feel “played” because I know that what I’m seeing on the surface is not all there is to see—it is not the “authentic” them, and that gives me the willies.

When I didn’t get “raptured” on Oct. 21^st as was promised by that false prophet (see blog post, “Don’t Quote Me — But I Think Jesus Is Pissed”), I decided that I’d do the next best thing and go to Disney World.  Growing up with real rats the size of cats, I’ve never been that keen on Mickey Mouse (I know he’s technically a “mouse,” but I don’t do rodents, no matter how cute Disney tries to make Mickey and Minnie seem).   But between the rapture disappointment and the premature snow that ruined Halloween, when the opportunity presented itself (“Hey babe” said my husband of 32 years: “Do you want to go to a conference with me in Orlando and have a romantic weekend since you didn’t get to go to Heaven?”), I thought I’d get the hell out of Dodge and get some sun and some much needed R&R.

I am fascinated by this virtual “Heaven on Earth” that we parents have allowed our children to be “sucked” into while it, in turn, kidnaps the minds of our three-year-olds on up and makes them life-long consumers with a vengeance.  After wandering around the various parks watching numerous children dissolve into multitudinous hissy fits due to over-stimulation, too many sugary treats, and missed nap times in their Cinderella costumes and Mickey Mouse ears, while they beat the crap out of their siblings with their Luke Skywalker light sabers, I am convinced one needs to approach Disney World with a strong measure of caution if one wants to get through life having not turned over half their life’s savings to a mouse with a fat belly and a high voice.  But the major question is how did most Americans fall prey to such inauthenticity?   Why are we so prone to embrace the hype and not look behind the curtain, or in Disney’s case, underneath the Magic Kingdom?

Everything above the surface (the “stage”) at Disney World, which is twice the size of Manhattan, is pristine, uber-colorful, fanciful, instantly likable, beguiling, immaculate, convenient, efficient, and all yours if you just cough up a small fortune.  To enhance the magic, nothing that constitutes “real” life is allowed on “stage.” Below the surface of the Magic Kingdom is another kingdom where everything that pertains to real life is hidden.  The workers (Disney calls them “cast members”) traverse miles of tunnels to do everything from potty breaks to banking while over a hundred schedulers underneath Cinderella’s castle orchestrate who appears here and there and in what costume or cleaning garb for our entertaining pleasure.  (There is nothing like a Haitian maid in a Capt’n Andy/Showboat outfit that makes me feel right at home as she scrubs my toilet.) Most clean-up and repairs are done between midnight and 5 a.m. when we’re asleep, and no “cast member” is allowed to be seen not smiling and fully engaged with the public.  Projected bakery smells and Disney tunes are pumped into the pathways to lull us into believing we’re actually in Italy or on the Boardwalk of the early 1900’s, but in these places there are no Mussolinis, no bootlegged liquor, and no Boardwalk prostitutes.

But as cynical as I was when I arrived at Disney World, within 24 hours, it had worked its magic on me, and as I sang a mash up of “Someday My Prince Will Come,” “It’s a Small World” and “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” as I power-walked around the pristine fake lake along the Boardwalk’s fake seaside, I knew right then and there, I could live in Disney World forever.  I no longer had allergies because there was no cigarette smoke, and I could breathe. Everyone was smiling at me with that inviting look that said, “Welcome, Chocolate Person, we don’t care what color you are, just so long as your money is the color of green”!   And just as I rounded a corner, a perfect (real!) bunny rabbit crossed my path, stopped, smiled, and winked at me before disappearing into the underbrush in which fake cricket sounds were being piped out over the  strains of the tune “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” reminding me that I was having a “my-oh-my-what-a-wonderful day”!  It was a perfect sunshiny 80 degrees with a sub-tropical breeze washing over me like God’s breath that no promised “rapture” could ever duplicate.  As I slowed down to watch as a newly married couple climbed into their Cinderella carriage to be whisked away and live happily ever after, I knew I had died and gone to Heaven.

I pulled out my iPhone 4S and commanded Siri to:  “Send a note to WW (my own White and Wonderful Prince Charming), and tell him to do research on retiring to new master-planned community Disney is building (Golden Oak), because ‘I BELIEVE, goddamnit—I do believe!’”  But before the walk would come to an end, a lizard would run over my foot, which would direct my gaze to a “cast member” sneaking an illegal smoke as she squatted behind a trash can (a Disney no-no), and the craziest son of a bitch I’ve seen in a long time would knock on my hotel room door, scaring me shitless and underscoring what I’ve learned to be true:  reality will always bleed through inauthenticity no matter what one does to try to keep it at bay.

As I was finishing up my breakfast, contemplating if we had enough in our savings to move to Disney World (‘cause I sure do love me some uber-cleanliness, super efficiency, eternal happiness, a crime-free world, and a white-washed existence where a ghetto never existed), I heard a knock at my hotel room door.  When I opened it, there stood a tiny slip of a skeletal man in a 1900’s waiter’s costume.  He had come to remove my breakfast dishes and decided that I was the person he was going to unload his political conspiracies upon.  (You know the kind of people who spend most of their waking hours listening to Rush Limbaugh, or worse, so that when they run into someone who doesn’t fit their ideology (a.k.a moi), they seem to come slowly unglued at the seams when you simply say, “hello”?)  You could tell by the guy’s unsolicited rhetoric that if I didn’t get him out of my room in the next two seconds, I was going to have to hit him over the head with the Mickey Mouse lamp and drag him out by his feet before he offended the royal hell out of me.  (Walt Disney must have been turning over in his grave because this sucker was so “off brand.”)  When I couldn’t get him to stop “slamming my peeps” and the unfair quota system he thought we’d been afforded in everything from the White House to the TSA, I ushered him toward the door as fast as I could and shoved his Rush Limbaugh ass out the room with one hand and slammed and bolted my hotel door with the other.  As I moved one of the chairs underneath the door knob, I looked out my window at the pristine waterfront and said:  “Well, Walt, ‘The Truman Show’ is over; I am fully awake now, and your ‘perfect’ world has a crack in it.”

Savvy eight-year-old kid’s remark to her mother who was in front of me while disembarking the Star Tours ride:  “Why is it that every time we get off one of these rides there is a store we have to walk through just to get out of the place?  What’s up with that Mom?”

******

“I’ll never forget when we were all fighting for a twenty-five cent raise; it came over the papers that Eisner made a $43 million bonus. And we were fighting for a quarter.” — Unidentified Disney employee, quoted in Inside the Mouse: Work and Play at Disney World by Susan Willis

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“Only thing I remember was me and Pluto (with the head taken off) sharing a cigarette by the dumpster during our break. We were both so miserable that we smoked our sorrows away.”
(Anonymous Disney employee from Anaheim, CA) Working at Disney—Review by Employees/Jobitorial

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Associated Press Headline:  Disney town of Celebration records second violent death in a week — Police investigate gunman’s death in Florida town of Celebration just days after its first ever murder.

In the midst of my musings about resisting being “played” by something that is not authentic but is orchestrated to appear so, I got my first hate mail on Facebook about my blog post “Don’t Quote Me — But I Think Jesus Is Pissed.”  The hater was insinuating that I was an inauthentic Christian because she despised my blog post confronting some of my Christian peeps who speak in the “name of Jesus” but act as if they are Satan’s little helpers (embracing bigotry, hatred, mayhem and lies, and lusting after the Benjamins, shielding pedophiles, or selling their birthrights to neo-Conservative politicians).  I affectionately dubbed her the HSRCHL woman (humorless, self-righteous, Conservative, hater-lady).  At the time of her FB assault, I didn’t have a clue who she was (isn’t it funny how people assume they mean more to you than they do and that this gives them the right to get all in your business?), which means, she obviously didn’t know me well, if at all, and had never been a friend of mine.

The FB conversation went  something like this:

• HSRCHL:  “I have come to you on behalf of the reputation of Jesus, and I’ve got a bone to pick with you.  When I knew you 26 years ago you were really something.  You were beautiful, uber-religious, a role-model to me, and a real credit to Jesus’ name.  What happened to you?  Do you still love Jesus, the precious one?  The Eleanor I knew would never lower herself to foul language or make coarse jokes.  And to make matters worse:  you’re not even funny!”  You were my idol and I had you on a pedestal.  Well, I’ve certainly kicked you off that pedestal, that’s for sure!  What happened to your life?  You probably won’t respond to my criticism, but maybe you’ll learn something by reading what I have to say.”

• The Hated One:  “Excuse me, who the fuck are you?   I didn’t “go anywhere.”   If you had been in contact with me “at least once” over the past 26 years, you would know I am more in love with Jesus than I have ever been, and that I’m a lot more mature today about the subject of who God is than I was when we apparently knew each other.  I have simply grown in unconditional love and grace for those who can’t see God because of Christians whose self-righteousness and cruelty have caused them great harm.  I have to be authentically me, and I’ve shed everything that doesn’t support that authenticity!  I appreciate your concern regarding my humor.  But since Jesus is the boss of me, I can only do what I feel he has given me freedom to do.  I realize that this does not fit into what you thought you knew about me.  I haven’t changed.  I would suggest that you only knew what I allowed you to know about me because I couldn’t trust you with the “entirety” of who I am in the setting where you met me. (I daresay your response then probably wouldn’t have been any more accepting then it is now.)  I wish you all the best, HSRCHL.  Please, please don’t follow my blog because it reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly of who I am, and in the words of Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!”  It would simply blow your mind, HSRCHL, Baby!

I am discovering that to be authentic one has to show what lives above the surface and what resides below.  It is okay for Disney to create a world that is just fantasy above the surface, just so long as we never forget that it is only fantasy and never mistake it for real life.  But it is downright sinful for us to demand that our fellowman be other than authentic.  Authenticity is what makes us human—this is what makes us real.  It doesn’t mean we have the right to become entrenched where we are, but it does mean that if we are to grow and be grace and mercy to those who are hurting or struggling on this planet, we can’t strut around with rods up our asses.  We can’t be holier than thou, self-righteous, or duplicitous in our presentation of ourselves.  I’m also discovering that others (mostly people who don’t really know us) will try to define us by their own limitations and cultural and spiritual biases.  We must fight this with all of our might and look for the grace that counteracts those lies about us.

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As is always the case with “grace,” it snuck in from a place I least expected it.  I received a lovely note from a blogger in Australia by the name of Karyn within two hours of the HSRCHL’s FB note.  She is a successful freelance writer, copy writer, and blogger, and a person whose blog I’ve come to really enjoy.  She cited me for a “Flamingo Award” for “building community with your comments.”  But it was her sweet one-line tribute to me that really brought tears to my eyes:  I nominate “Eleanor, from How The Hell Did I End Up Here?—The kind of woman I hope to be when I’m a little older. Fun, energetic, full of fascinating stories and gorgeous!”  Attach this to the 99% of responders who wrote to tell me that they were touched and moved by the authenticity of my blog and me, and I was able to pick myself up, flush the self-righteous biotch’s words down the toilet, and sing “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-yeh; my-oh-my-what-a-wonderful-day. . .” as I skipped through the rest of my Disney vacation.

The Author:  I am who I am

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”  ―May Sarton

“Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.” ―Mother Theresa

This above all:

To thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

~ Hamlet, Shakespeare

All text and photos by Eleanor and John Tomczyk copyrighted © 2011 except where otherwise noted

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Don’t Quote Me—But I Think Jesus Is Pissed!

(This story is a continuation of C-‘48’s Odyssey from blog post: “It’s Sure Gonna Suck for You.”)

Do you know what I’ve discovered?  My sorry-ass was supposed to be “out of here” last week—Oct. 21^st (a.k.a. the Rapture).  I haven’t always believed in the Rapture, but I figured why not give it a try.  Earth was becoming a place that was really beginning to suck for a various number of reasons (wars upon wars and rumors of wars, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, uptick in racism, child abuse, murders, mayhem, and rape—just to name a few nightmares).  I was looking forward to the great escape and going to a place where there would be no more tears, and I could eat great food without gaining weight.  I could stand to trade in all the stress from the chaos and mayhem, and just “hang ten” with Jesus (in heaven I’m going to have a killer surfer bod and be able to surf like a female Kelly Slater).  I’d gotten all my affairs in order, paid all my bills, called in sick to work, kissed WW and the kids good-bye, and prepared myself for a long trip “up.”  But nothing happened!

I’m typing this blog post several days AFTER I was supposed to take flight with my wig and clothes left behind on the seat in front of the steering wheel of my car while my chubby naked ass floated heavenward.  My vehicle would have barreled on down the highway without a driver, terrorizing the “left behind drivers” and the “po-po,” which made me sad at first, but it was just the way the cookie had to crumble if I was going to be part of the “big snatch.”  But. . . I’m still here!   What the fuck?

Google Image/Rapture Billboard

Actually, according to that old dude (Harold Camping) who prophesied the big snatch for Oct. 21st, he promised that I was supposed to be originally raptured on May 21^st.

Well, Rev. Camping, you’ve sure got some explaining to do.  It’s like you cried “fire” in a dark theater twice in one year, causing tons of people to panic, but there was no fire.  I’m still here on this planet that I never wanted to come to in the first place (see “It’s Sure Gonna Suck for You”), and your second “snatch day” has come and gone.

So, I’ve had it, Campy baby, and I’m not taking this lying down.  I’d open up a can of whup-ass on you if I could find you (apparently, you’re in hiding), but since I can’t find you, I’m going to do what every little kid on the playground knows to do when they are pissed at one of the other kids:  I’m tellin’ on your ass.

I’m going straight to the person who you claim to be “your boss” and I’m going to tell him how you’re messin’ with people’s minds, causing all sorts of chaos, and making a mockery of your boss’ life and death.  You see, I have discovered the Jesus you talk about is a real stand-up guy, and I’m registering a letter of complaint to him against you.  And while I’m at it, I’m telling on all the other ne’er-do-wells that are saying “God told me this or God told me that” just for their own political or financial gain!  YOUR ASS IS GRASS, MOFO!

COPY OF LETTER TO JESUS

Dear Jesus:

Hope all is well with you and the universe(s) and the hundreds of billions of galaxies you traverse.  I am one of your peeps and I’ve tried to follow you with all my heart for over forty years.  Let me say, first and foremost:  I love you because you first loved me and I remain secure in that love.  However, in the interest of full disclosure, I no longer attend church, but I’m sure you knew that.   I left about a year before the writer Anne Rice left and for the same reasons:  so many of your peeps have lost their ever lovin’, freakin’ minds, and they have become part of the problem and not the solution down here on your third rock from the sun.  They’ve become Fox News worshipers, Glenn Beck idolizers, and Palin-Bachmann sympathizers, as if you, personally, had come down from heaven and knighted these people with a special dispensation from on high.

Which is why I’m writing:  I would like to register a complaint against your Church.  I’m not registering the complaint against all of your Church, just  the crazy parts.  I know that there has always been a remnant of Christians who have been sane and have done the  right thing by your Earth and the people in it, but right now, the crazies are  over-shadowing your “normal” peeps who are just trying to model your example of integrity, love, and grace.

So I’m writing to ask:  what is up with these people and would you please put a stop to them?  You’re such an intelligent God and so outrageously loving and great—with a fabulous sense of humor, I might add—but it’s hard to see that because of what people, who “claim” to be your peeps, are saying and doing in your name.  In case you haven’t been able to catch the news lately, here are a few examples of the freak show:

Google Image/Rev. Harold Camping (False Prophet)

Rev. Camping’s Predictions

“Thus, we must realize that October 21, 2011 will be the final day of this earth’s existence.”

“And now, we have no option. We can’t say ‘maybe’ ‘it’s possible’ ‘it
looks very probable…’ No way! We have to say this is what the Bible teaches!
This is fact! May 21, 2011 is the
day of the Rapture, it is the day that Judgment Day begins…”

“When September 6, 1994,
arrives, no one else can become saved. The end has come.”

Really, Jesus?  I’ve read that in the 90’s, Rev. Camping had approximately eight false Rapture predictions.  And yet I hear today he’s worth 7 million dollars, while the people who took him seriously sold all their worldly goods to help him “spread the word.”  Obviously, he didn’t think he was going very far if he held onto his own millions.  Last time I checked, our money was no good in Heaven.  But here’s the real kick in the balls:  Rev. Camping refused to reimburse the people who sold their homes, crisscrossed the country screaming “the end is near,” and used all their life savings to advertise Rev. Campings false predictions (some foolish guy invested $144,000 of his retirement—all he had).

Google Image/Anita Perry (Wife of Rick Perry)

“God was already speaking to me,” she [Anita Perry] said, “but he [Rick] didn’t want to hear it” (on hearing the distinct voice of God tell her that her husband should run for president and “take back our nation”). . . .  “We’ve been brutalized. Beaten up, chewed up in the press … We’ve been brutalized by our opponents and our own party. So much that is I think they look at him [Rick] because of his faith.”

Jesus, what Anita is saying, just isn’t true.  Ricky is being chewed up in the press because he’s saying idiotic and “anti-you” things but claiming to be called by you to be our next president.  On one hand, he’s presenting himself as a “good, upstanding Christian” (your knight in shining armor), and on the other hand, he’s pathetically defending the existence of a damn rock that bore the name “Niggerhead” at a hunting camp he and his family owned for years in a place that was once considered a “sundown town.”  (Translation:  “Don’t let the sun go down, Nigger, while you are still in our town.”)   Ricky says he painted over that rock in 1983, but at least seven other hunters claim to have seen the sign “unpainted” as late as 2008, and others have said that even with the sign currently painted, discernable letters are still visible.

Google Image/Throckmorton (Rick Perry’s Hunting Camp)

So, Jesus, here is the $64,000 question:  If this man loves you and is called by you to govern people of all races and colors, why didn’t that sign break his heart?  I know plenty of righteous white folks (some of them live in Texas, too) who wouldn’t have slept until that rock was ground into dust, scattered to the four corners of the Earth, and an exorcist brought into the camp to cleanse it of its racist past.

Now your “man of God,” is resurfacing the insulting Birther lie about our president.  When asked why, this “good Christian man” is doing such a mean-spirited thing, he said:  “It’s fun to poke at him (Obama) a little bit and say, ‘Hey, how about it.  Let’s see your grades and your birth certificate’” (keeping alive the lie the Tea Party spread that our President may have lied about his schooling).  Seriously, Jesus?  Does Rick Perry really want to “go there” having graduated as a cheerleader from Texas A&M with mediocre to failing grades in his core subjects?  Does he really want to bear the shame of the world comparing his grades against Barack Obama’s who was the president of the Harvard Law Review?   Rick Perry held a prayer meeting in your name to kick off his presidential campaign, so why is he “poking” fun at his president and mine?  Is Rick jealous or just flat out mean?  Somehow the “love your brother as yourself” just isn’t cutting it with him, and it’s making that prayer meeting of his seem like a total sham.

Google Image/AFP||Getty Image

Westboro Baptist Church “Screaming hatred in the name of Jesus”

Now about that sick Westboro Baptist Church:  This picture speaks a thousand words.  Are these people really going to Heaven?  I seriously might have to reconsider your offer about heaven if I have the slightest potential of living with these racist, homophobic, misanthropic people for an eternity.  Please, say it isn’t so!

You see what I’m sayin’, Jesus; it’s all so perverse!   To Hell with this creepy Rapture stuff!  I know it’s a lie made up by some dude named John Darby in the 1800’s, but you’d be stunned to know how many people actually believe in it and “sell it” like their lives depended on it while their actions are the antithesis of you and what you stand for.

•  “You’ll be riding along in an automobile. You’ll be the driver perhaps. You’re a Christian. There’ll be several people in the automobile with you, maybe someone who is not a Christian. When the trumpet sounds you and the other born-again believers in that automobile will be instantly caught away — you will disappear, leaving behind only your clothes and physical things that cannot inherit eternal life. That unsaved person or persons in the automobile will suddenly be startled to find the car suddenly somewhere crashes…. Other cars on the highway driven by believers will suddenly be out of control and stark pandemonium will occur on … every highway in the world where Christians are caught away from the driver’s wheel.” Jerry Falwell’s pamphlet:  Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Christ

Remember Jerry Falwell’s multitudinous hurtful and racist statements committed in your name when he was alive?  So, if Jerry was correct about the Rapture, that would make you the God of Chaos!  Sheesh!  (Important reminder, Lord Jesus:  Jerry Falwell also died very rich and politically powerful while preaching we all needed to prepare to be “snatched up” and leave everything behind.)

No disrespect, my Lord, but why do you let these jokers get away with this?  Why don’t you say something or, better yet, do something?

Unless…unless you have already raptured everyone a long time ago, and I’ve been left behind with the likes of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Herman Cain, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Perry, and the Westboro Baptist Church, just to name a few of the wingnuts!  Oh, my God, what if Fox News is the official news channel for Hell?  I never thought of that!  Oy vez mir. 

Please, please return soon.

Trying to be one of your servants, C-‘48

Google Image of Jesus (not really—just his human skin-casing)

COPY OF RESPONSE FROM JESUS

Dear Cleve-’48:

I am Jesus’ executive assistant and I wanted to get back to you as soon as possible with a letter that he specifically dictated to you.  He sends his apologies that he couldn’t personally speak to you himself (he does far less of that than people claim), but he is dealing with all the mayhem throughout the world that is being caused by the choices of humans who refuse to do right by each other and the Earth. 

Jesus asked me to let you know that he feels your pain.  He also wants to assure you that he never said anything crazy people have maintained he said throughout the centuries—from the murderous crusaders to Rick Perry’s wife saying God told her, “Rick should run for president and take our country back.”  Jesus’ exact response to all of this, to put it in a nutshell, is:  “They are ‘mashugana’”!

As to the Westboro Baptist Church, Jesus has nothing to say about them because he doesn’t know them—you might try Satan’s website for those who have signed up for early registration to Hell.

My boss said to remind you that what he did say to those people, who claim to be acting on his behalf, is a matter of public record:

•  “Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. . . .Knowing the correct password — saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance — isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. . . I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat.  All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’” (Matt. 7:21-23 The Message Bible—bold and underline emphasis = mine)

Jesus also asked me to tell you that as to this blatant worship of capitalism that is running amok through so many Christians who think he’s an American and a Republican, and who are so against social justice, he’s just “not down” with that.  It is a “cancer” enhanced by the discipleship to people like Glenn Beck (not a spokesman of his, by the way) to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism which she laid out so poorly in Atlas Shrugged. My boss is still puzzled that Christians can read the ninety pages of John Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged which is a manifesto to greed, hubris, self-centeredness, disdain and contempt for the poor, and cold-heartedness to the disenfranchised, and his peeps don’t walk away feeling sick to their stomach when they measure it against his Sermon on the Mount.  Finally, what he actually said to all of them, and they are purposely ignoring, is still a matter of public record:

•  “Then he (Jesus) will turn to the ‘goats’ (heartless, self-centered, mean-spirited, self-righteous Christians) the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats!  You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
  • I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
  • I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
  • I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
  • I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
  • Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’

“Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’ He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’” Matt: 25:41-43 (The Message Bible – parentheses, bold, and underlining emphasis = mine)

One last point, C-‘48:  Jesus asked me to tell you not to believe everything you hear.  I believe he said:  “If it walks like a fool, and talks like a fool, then it is a fool and has nothing to do with me or what I am about.”

Hope this helps and brings you peace.  Keep on believin’, keep on representin’, and keep on lovin’ regardless of the haters!

All the Best.

Jesus’ EA, Heavenly Dimension, Inc.

I am a Christian, BUT not one of those Christians!

“I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mahatma Gandhi

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All text and photos by Eleanor and John Tomczyk copyrighted © 2011 except where otherwise noted

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit
is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.