Tag / atheism

by Brian E. Holbrook

The Cat’s in the Cradle

My son (who is no longer on Facebook and thus can’t be embarrassed by this anecdote) is not overly-affectionate. As a child, he was a hugger, but by adolescence, a side-armed squeeze of the shoulder was the most I could expect as the Christmas party or hospital visit wound down.

I make this observation not as a criticism, but rather as an acknowledgement that people process emotion differently. Did I miss the little boy who would climb into my lap and wrap his arms around my neck, holding me in his embrace until my heart had re-filled with love? Yes, of course. But I wouldn’t trade him for the insatiably curious, determined, good-hearted young man he has grown into.

That said, about six months ago, after my last serious hospitalization, his hugs began gripping tighter and lasting longer.
Today he came to see me for his final visit before returning to college.

We’re both determined to see one another when he returns for Christmas break at the end of this year–but planned this visit ‘just-in-case.’

He sat down next to me on the bed and wrapped his arm somewhat uneasily around my shoulder. I was so stunned by the unusual gesture that I didn’t know what to do. For a moment, two decades dropped away, and I was certain that–were I to turn and look at him–I would see the churubic face he wore as a toddler instead of the guarded but angularly handsome face that is his now.

His arm on my shoulder made me feel so warm and complete and full of love and I’d just begun to move my hand upward to grasp his when, overcome with the weirdness of it all, he withdrew his arm as I stared at my shoes, too stunned by unfamiliarity to react in a meaningful way.

We talked for a couple hours afterward. It was a good visit. He’s a good man and a good person.

But the whole time I couldn’t help but wonder what it might have been like had I managed to reach up and clasp his hand in time.

You have to act in the moments. They’re all we have.

by Brian E. Holbrook

Divine Indifference

When I was a kid, I could be assured of several sources or reading material in my parent’s bathroom: The Reader’s Digest, The National Enquirer, several catalogs, and –later– a volume of essays and short stories by Mark Twain. He was a hero in my home state of Missouri, and I recall vividly when my family made a pilgrimage to his boyhood home in Hannibal.

The book showed up sometime after I was ten and stayed until I was in high school. I don’t know why the book stayed there so long –my dad (the least religious person in the house back then), hated it. He called it sacrilegious and blasphemous. But it sat there just the same, calling to me.

I would crack it open and feel a rush of guilt as intense (if less salacious) as that I’d feel when perusing the lingerie section of the Montgomery Ward catalog.

I loved his unapologetic, withering critiques of religion and religiosity; his courageous and unbending attacks on social and religious norms. The things that horrified my dad thrilled me and made me question my surroundings and upbringing.

Some people love Mark Twain because they know him for Tow Sawyer and schmaltzy Americana.

I love Mark Twain because he was the first atheist I ever read, and he lit a fire in me. Some people’s Mark Twain is an inoffensive tale-teller, spinning yarns about jumping frogs and painting fences and pirate treasure and river rafts.

My Mark Twain? He’s punk rock. He said “It’s all bullshit, and we should tear it down.”

If there was ever a man who endorsed a wall of separation between Church and State, it was him.

“So much blood has been shed by the Church because of an omission from the Gospel: ‘Ye shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor’s religion is.’ Not merely tolerant of it, but indifferent to it. Divinity is claimed for many religions; but no religion is great enough or divine enough to add that new law to its code.”
-Mark Twain