The Old Testament (Leviticus)

 

Title: The Holy Bible (King James Version), Book 3: Leviticus
Author(s): Anonymous
Length: 18,852 words
Publisher: None
Rating: 5/5

Short-and-Stupid Synopsis: This is Moses's first attempt at the horror genre. He talks about: violently murdering animals, closing lepers up in caves, how you shouldn't touch a dead ferret, and if you choose not to follow God, he'll send coyotes to eat your children, then force you to cannibalize their leftover scraps.

Favorite line: 26:21 "And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins."

So far, this is my favorite book in the Bible, mostly because it's pretty fucking terrifying. If I was a non-believer, knew absolutely NOTHING about Christianity, and had only been reading the first three books of the Bible, I would have turned away and never looked back. No wonder modern Christians encourage so much New Testament reading!

This book reminded me of the first time I ever did something really stupid at church when I was younger. You know, besides attending it in the first place.

I had only been a part of my new-found youth group for a month or two when our leader, a gangly woman that looked like Carol Burnett but wasn't even close to being so pleasant, decided we should watch a Veggie Tales film. As a sixth grader, I was at the age where I was striking out and thinking a bit for myself, but not too much, because it was kind of scary when mom and dad weren't around. I remember sitting and watching the small screen, thinking to myself: This has to be the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen.

So, instead, I decided to ignore the programming and doodle on the back of an old church flyer. I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking, but I definitely decided it would be a really awesome idea to draw a whole bunch of huge tits and vaginas.

Now, please keep in mind that, as a young boy, I was not obsessed with drawing genitalia. In fact, I can't think of a time in my youth aside from this exact moment I drew anything remotely pornographic. Maybe it was a surreal talking vegetables. Maybe it was the terrible animation. Maybe it was the atrocious use of puns. For whatever reason, watching Veggie Tales filled my pre-pubescent mind with sin. Like, a ton of fucking sin.

Several minutes into my visual escapades, I noticed that a few girls in the group were gesturing towards me from a foot or two away. It's not like I was really even trying to cover my drawing up. I still, to this day, have no idea what possessed me to be so blatantly obvious, but it didn't take long before I looked up from sketching this gloriously hairy snatch and saw my youth leader giving me a long, cold stare. She took my doodles and pen away from me and pointed to the television.

I was mortified.

I couldn't believe I'd been caught. Really, I thought I was invincible and that I could just go on plastering that slip of green paper with sexual organs 'til the cows came home.

I immediately stood up, walked out of the room, down the hallway, out of the church, and nearly a half-mile home. I didn't come back for about a month, until this gnawing sense of loneliness sprang up, along with a desire to rekindle my relationship with God (or maybe it was the guilt and I didn't want to burn eternally in a dark pit of fire).

To my surprise, the youth leader acted as if nothing ever happened. I was never reprimanded, I was never questioned. I was just accepted. I continued attending without any other issue, until I moved on to the "teen" youth group at the Baptist church a year later.

Image courtesy of MyFerretPet.com.

The Old Testament (Exodus)

Title: The Holy Bible (King James Version), Book 2: Exodus
Author(s): Anonymous
Length: 25,957 words
Publisher: None
Rating: 5/5

Short-and-Stupid synopsis: Moses talks to burning-bush-God and hires his brother Aaron to help him convince the current Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go, as they are currently enslaved. Moses does some neat magic tricks: snake-staff, flies, frogs, blood rivers, locusts, plagues, burning hail -- that sort of thing. Each time, Pharaoh is totally like, "Okay, you guys can go." But then God makes him change his mind and Pharaoh is like, "No, they totally still have to be my slaves." God helps Moses kill a bunch of babies and shit, then Moses sneaks the Hebrews out of Egypt. Pharaoh gets understandably pissed and hunts them down. Moses parts the sea, Pharaoh goes after them, and gets swallowed up as the sea comes back together. Moses then wanders around with his people for a bit. His people are all like, "Yeah, we're kind of upset and hungry. You need to perform miracles." Moses makes it rain bread or something. The people are okay for a while and stop at a mountain. Moses decides he needs some laws to lay down to keep his new gang under control, so he hermits up in the mountain for over a month and talks to God. Meanwhile, the people get bored and make a cow statue. God talks to Moses about interior decorating and fashion, then is all like, "Hey, I'm going to murder your people I just helped saved because of that cow statue." And Moses is all like, "Cow statue? Dude. Don't murder people, God. That's evil." And God has chill. Moses comes down from the mountain with his tablets that he's been working on for a month, sees his people having a good time all naked and stuff, and he throws a bitch-fit and breaks his tablets. He orders a small group of guys to murder 3,000 of his own gang, just because he needs to keep them in line. Moses destroys the statue, then goes back up on the mountain for another month to redo his tablets. God is totally into telling Moses about his interior decorating ideas and is all like, "Yo, pimp my Ark. Give Aaron some sweet threads." Moses comes back down and is all like, "Hey, these are the words of God. Don't do this shit." Moses then follow's God's interior decorating and fashion ideas.

Favorite quote: 2:22 "... I have been a stranger in a strange land."

My parents weren't opposed to me going to the Christian youth group, but they weren't necessarily pleased about it. My mother was the most vocal in her displeasure.

"You know I don't like those people, Derek," she said. "They're just so... judge-y. You remember the arcade protest. You remember about the little pink church."

My mother grew up in extreme poverty in the middle-of-nowhere Arizona desert. Her and her family had tried to go to church for the first time, but were, more or less, cast out due to their ragged clothing and uncouth appearance. Mom had sworn off organized religion forever, choosing to "follow God" or whatever she wanted to call it in her own manner. The little pink church still exists and I have seen it alongside the road in my scant few visits to Arizona several times. My father, coming from somewhat of a similar background, had been a door-to-door Bible salesman in his youth and had once been devout; though time, depression, and the drudgery of every day living had pulled him out of The Faith. He was a reserved skeptic, but quiet, as usual, on the subject. Talking about it made him uncomfortable.

I was in my 6th grade year at the time and nearly friendless. My friends I had made at the arcade were gone and in college, though several stayed behind and hunkered down into the slow pace of small town Iowa living for the long run. I had met a boy who shared several of my classes, who had an interest in zoology, Star Wars, and other nerdy things. I had met someone who was, for the most part, a lone and awkward comrade-in-arms. His family was Baptist and, after some prodding, had convinced me to join in his weekly youth group meetings. There, I found other outcast kids, had snacks, talked about faith and morality, and played games.

In short, I felt like, for the first time, I truly belonged somewhere with people my own age.

It was a refreshing feeling and the irony was not wholly lost upon me. I recognized I had, to some degree, sided with the enemy, as the adult members of the group were some of the picketers from that fateful day at the arcade. Maybe they were right. Maybe I was full of evil and I needed to do something about it.

So, I turned to God and all His majesty. I became very critical and sensitive to everything.

"I can't even say the word 'retarded'?" my mom once asked, after I chided her. "Or 'fuck'? Who are you becoming? Why are you judging me?"

It took me three years to realize I didn't like who I was becoming. Would I have been any happier if I'd decided to become fully vested in my religious exploration?

Image courtesy of Panels.net.

The Old Testament (Genesis)

Title: The Holy Bible (King James Version), Book 1: Genesis
Author(s): Anonymous
Length: 32,042 words
Publisher: None
Rating: 4/5

Short-and-Stupid synopsis: God makes the Earth, Adam, and Eve. They fuck up and get kicked out of paradise. They raise two boys, one kills the other. Then there are a ton of boring names. Noah makes an ark, corrals some animals, and a flood happens. More names. Abram becomes Abraham and has a kid when he's kind of old. Abraham tells everyone to chop off their wiener skins and then nearly murders his only son, because God told him to do it, but God was totally just kidding. Then there's Isaac and Jacob. Then there's some more names. Joseph rolls around, gets sold into slavery by his brothers, later tells a prophecy to the Pharaoh, and totally becomes the Pharaoh's vice-president. Joseph helps prevent a famine, meets up with his brothers, and eventually forgives them. Then, everybody dies eventually, after a hundred-bazillion years.

Favorite Quote: 1:3 "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."

As I looked at the List, I knew this was going to be a challenge to overcome, not so much because of the size of the Bible, but because I have had many more negative reactions with respect to religion -- specifically Christianity -- than positive ones. I've decided that, rather than write a blog post about the entirety of the Old Testament, I would rather chunk each book up and write a post about it, assuming I can connect with it or remember a story from my own past. I mean, I've only lived twenty-eight years at the time of this post, so I don't know how many stories I'll be able to recall or moments I can capture to tie into my own upbringing, but I'll certainly try.

 Maybe these are the cards I've been dealt for a reason. Maybe I'm supposed to suffer or something for God's pleasure and make amends at some point in my life through a vision or by sleeping with one of my relatives (everybody's boning everyone in Genesis, really). I don't know.

My first experience with Christianity that I can solidly remember -- that is IN THE BEGINNING -- was a solidly negative experience that, actually, ended up being pretty awesome. I guess it's sort of like how Joseph was sold into slavery and ended up, you know, being really fucking cool and becoming wealthy and not dying of starvation. I mean, maybe it's not that extreme, but I can relate to the idea of victory in the face of defeat.

I was young, early in my second grade year. My parents owned two businesses at the time that were housed in the same building on my town's main street: a pharmacy and, in the basement, a diner-slash-arcade, where my mom cooked up Chicago-style hot dogs for kids, while they hung out playing a half-dozen arcade machines and shooting the shit. My hometown consisted of nearly 3,000 people -- large for a town in Iowa in the 90's -- and there weren't many things to do in the way of entertainment, save for driving around endlessly on "The Loop". The diner, Underdogs Arcade (which, at the time was named so because it was "under" the pharmacy and we sold hot dogs, but later became more metaphorical as a safe place for disparaged youth), was a solid business, mostly aimed at middle school and high school kids who were just looking for something to do after school and not have to deal with the drudgery of daily living. I was certainly one of the youngest regulars at the time and I became, in essence, a mascot for the ragtag crowd of nerds, geeks, outcasts, populars, jocks, and every other combination of clique one might have at that time.

It was there that a group of juniors and seniors welcomed me into their exclusive pack of gamers, specifically players of a new, exciting card game called "Magic: The Gathering". I was hooked from my first few games. The idea of endlessly crafting powerful spell books, fighting other wizards with angels and monsters and demons, hurling incantations at one another was extremely appealing to a bored nine year-old who couldn't necessarily connect with his peers. The game opened up a new world to me in the form of literature: the game drew heavily on fantasy tropes, mythology, and cultural history. I became excited every game, wholly intent on describing to my teacher what I discovered: "Do you know what a Pegasus or a minotaur is? Did you know they come from Greek stories? What's an efreet? Is a bayou or a scrubland a real thing? How do you make brass? What's a golem?" I'm sure the innumerable questions I asked her probably drove her batty, but I was enamored with the worlds the card game was opening.

Aside from the cultural awakening I was experiencing, I was also making new friends who were much older than me. I was finally able to communicate with people who understood me as a person and wasn't bothered by my intellectual quirks. Kids my age wanted to play soccer or with dolls, but I couldn't really understand the joy in such activities. Mostly I wanted to read and learn, finding activities such as physical education and even recess to be irritating. Why take time out of my day when I could be exploring the world outside of Iowa through math and science and literature? I was finally able to find people who shared my same passions and not only treated me fairly, but encouraged me to ask questions. I had, in short, a plethora of role models, even if most of these role models were ostracized or looked down upon in their own environments.

One day, my parents decided that, since Magic: The Gathering had become such a huge part of their business's success (after deciding to sell cards of different games alongside hot dogs and arcade machines), they decided to hold a friendly tournament on a day when the arcade was normally closed: a Sunday.

It was a fateful decision.

Next door to the pharmacy and arcade was a small building that not too many people bothered to enter: a Christian bookstore. How the thing had managed to survive downtown for so many years, I could only guess. It must have had customers, but I rarely saw any enter or exit. The bookstore was owned by one of the most dreadful people I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. I had never met this woman before, primarily because she was not a customer of my father's.

On the Saturday before the tournament, an anonymous young man entered the bookstore and stated that he was looking to purchase a necklace bearing the cross in order to "protect him from the demons" he was "summoning" from his "deck of spells" used at the tournament next door. The owner was appalled, naturally, and, seeing danger out of what was likely a harmless practical joke, escalated the situation and brought it to the attention of a group of radical Christians who commonly met weekly for an in-home Bible study in addition to their typical Sunday worship. Needless to say, they decided to picket my father's business and draw as much attention to the situation as possible. The local paper came across the street to investigate and paint a fun picture for the residents of the quiet town.

It was at this picketing, as I was sitting inside the pharmacy, reading a hilarious Weekly World News issue and waiting for my parents to close shop, that I encountered a practitioner of The Faith. Curious, I put down my magazine and walked outside to see what was going on. There, in the heat of the moment, a woman (the owner of the bookstore next door) pointed at me and claimed that I was "the son of the Devil". A few others chimed in and proceeded to yell at me about how I was bringing evil to the town and that it was my fault that "the youth" were "causing mischief" in the town and that I should "look to God" for answers.

As a nine year-old male with few developed coping skills, I couldn't handle the tone of these adults or understand the accusations that were brought upon my personage. It was a mortal betrayal and the first time I'd ever realized that adults could be irrational like children my age and that I couldn't rely on them to protect me. I think, at that point, I have come to internalize and manifest those words throughout my entire life. It's hard for me to not utterly loathe myself and I think that moment in my life was partly to blame for my ever-persistent lack of self-esteem and self-worth. It certainly wasn't the only reason -- there were many moments this idea was hammered into me by others and myself -- but it was certainly the beginning of a downward trend for the next decade.

Thankfully, the situation didn't end in complete misery. My father kowtowed to the mob and disbanded the tournament at the arcade, instead, cunningly, holding it in his own home. In our basement, approximately twenty teenagers came to my home and we played games to our heart's content. This, eventually, manifest into a weekly activity, and I grew up alongside several individuals who still remain very close friends, my best of friends, to this day. If it wasn't for the hatred espoused, I probably never would have grown up with Dungeons and Dragons, video games, television shows, or other activities that encouraged my imagination and brought joy into my heart by escaping the mundanity of small town Iowa.

So, in the beginning, all was not good, but it wasn't all that bad.

 Image courtesy of Melissa Danisi.

"The Shipwrecked Sailor", "The Tale of Sinuhe", and "The Eloquent Peasant"

Titles: "The Shipwrecked Sailor"; "The Tale of Sinuhe"; "The Eloquent Peasant"
Author(s): Anonymous
Lengths: 1,600 words; 4,500 words; 5,000 words
Publisher: None
Ratings: 3/5; 2/5; 4/5

Short-and-Stupid synopses:

1.) A random guy tells the Pharaoh's right-hand-man a cool story about a magic island and a dragon. 2.)A random guy has adventures around Egypt.
3.) A peasant is just living the life and some dick tries to take advantage over him and steal stuff. The peasant provides strong reasoning why the dick is a dick.

Favorite Quote: "Then said this Dehuti-necht, when he saw the asses of this peasant which appealed to his covetousness: "Oh that some good god would help me to rob this peasant of his goods!""

These three Egyptian short stories were relatively enjoyable; nothing amazing, compared to 'Gilgamesh', but fun and light. I think it was "The Eloquent Peasant" that I was most drawn to and that seemed to be the most relatable.

It was my second year of college and I was in a tight bind. My car had decided to fail on me on a hot day. I was coming back to my apartment after a weekend at my parent's and, as I approached a stoplight just blocks away from my home, the engine stopped and smoke began to roil out from under the hood. Panicking (I was on a busy stretch of highway that was under construction and cars were honking their horns incessantly behind me), I rolled down the window and waved cars by. I quickly dialed 911 and informed them my car was on fire in the middle of the highway (it wasn't, but I wasn't thinking at that point; fear controlled every ounce of my consciousness). A gentleman kindly helped me put my car into neutral and we rolled it off the highway together, into the parking lot of, ironically, an automobile repair shop.

Thankfully, my parents stepped in to assist me and decided to let me use their blue station wagon in the meantime, so that I was able to get to school without too much hassle.

One night, after a fun date with my wife, we pulled the station wagon into a city parking lot near several municipal buildings. I had parked in this lot dozens of times before and had occasionally received a ticket for parking much longer than I should have been. I knew that it was illegal to leave my car overnight, but it was the only lot I could rely on that was next to my apartment building. I'd tried leaving my car in a gravel lot near a street of bars, but had had a poor experience when a drunk slammed into the passenger side door of my car, leaving a sizeable dent. I wasn't about to risk my mother's beloved blue station wagon (lovingly nicknamed 'The Blue Whale') to some idiot with a desire to receive a DUI. So, that evening, a Sunday, I parked the station wagon in the lot and we went up to my apartment. I had to drive my wife back home in a few hours, so I didn't think leaving my car in the lot for two or three hours would be a big deal. I also didn't think it would be a big deal to leave two large mesh bags full of all my clean laundry in the car, along with my backpack containing my textbooks. I didn't want to walk up three flights of stairs with all that laundry just yet.

I make mistakes and am sometimes naïve about the goodness of the world.

When I returned with my wife a few hours later, we discovered my car was not there. Where did it go? My only thought -- and I am completely serious -- was: "Oh. It must have been towed, because I'm not supposed to park here." Never mind the fact that it was Sunday. So, I did what every intelligent person in this situation would do -- leave the problem and solve it the next day. Everything would be all right.

I woke up the following day and decided to walk a few blocks down to the mall where my wife worked as a cashier at a Hallmark. I stepped out of my apartment building, crossed the road, and I happened to notice that my station wagon was sitting in the gravel lot.

That's funny. I didn't park there, I thought to myself. And then it hit me and a wave of anxiety completely washed over me. I darted across the road, ignoring the traffic, and gazed inside. The car was a complete mess: my textbooks and papers were scattered everywhere, the panel under the steering wheel had been ripped off and wires were dangling as if the dashboard had been gutted, the sound system had been torn out, and my laundry -- every article of clothing except for what I was wearing at the time -- was gone. I raced the few blocks to the Hallmark in complete terror. When I saw my wife I began sobbing uncontrollably. As I leaned my head against her, sitting in the break room of the store, my nose began to gush blood and it smeared all over her clean white shirt.

I was the victim of almost grand theft auto. My parents were going to disown me and everything was terrible. Nothing made sense and oh man that's a lot of blood.

In the end, my parents were completely fine and, in all honesty, everyone around me sort of thought it was funny. Who would honestly steal the clothing of a six-and-a-half foot tall, 300 lb. man? I secretly hoped that the thieves were obese criminals who needed a new wardrobe. I was able to shrug off that experience and laugh about it, given a few weeks.

Today, I wondered about the crippling anxiety I experience whenever I have to do normal adult life things, like get gas or go grocery shopping. Getting dressed and going out in public is as nearly as panic-inducing as I felt in those moments of seeing my mother's station wagon in that gravel lot. How did I come to this?

Image courtesy of Experience Ancient Egypt.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Title: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Author: Anonymous

Length: 128 pages

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Rating: 4/5

Short-and-Stupid Synopsis: Gilgamesh is a total bastard until he meets his brother-from-another-mother, Enkidu. They have a bromance and kill a giant. Enkidu dies and Gilgamesh gets angry. Gilgamesh learns that the afterlife is totally fucking scary. He wanders around, meets  totally-not-Charon and totally-not-Noah who tells a Biblical flood story. Gilgamesh dies, people grieve.

Favorite Quote: "She answered, 'Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.'"

Well, this is as good a place to start as any.

I first read "The Epic of Gilgamesh" in 2007 during my first year of college. It was assigned to us in my World Literature class of which I was completely enamored -- I had an instructor that was incredibly intelligent and witty and a class that was both engaged and thoughtful. I remember being enthralled with this work at the time. It was two in the morning on a weekday early in the winter. I was sprawled out on my hideaway-bed-slash-loveseat that I'd purchased for sixty dollars from the consignment shop just across the street from my apartment. The loveseat was mustard yellow with a nauseating floral pattern, but the mattress in the pullout looked as though it had never been used. The whole thing weighed several hundred pounds and it took the help of several people to haul it up three floors in my apartment building. It was the first piece of furniture I ever purchased and I was extremely fond of it, even if it did smell a bit mildew-y.

My apartment was comfortable, but chilly, mostly because I didn't understand how to correctly use the thermostat. It was my first year out on my own and I was, one might say, extremely naïve to the complexities of life away from the comforts of parents who would attend to one's every need. Dinner for that evening was the usual: a five dollar pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut that had been sitting in the refrigerator for far too long (I was frequently ill and never attributed this to spoiled food; I would purchase twenty-some dollars in pizza at a time and live on that for two weeks, thinking I was being thrifty).

As I turned the pages with thirsty eyes, I couldn't help but wonder what the next day would bring. Turning page after page was effortless, I could keep reading, reading to eternity. I was excited to return to my instructor's class and fill my mind, heart, and soul with knowledge.

Today, I rubbed my glazed eyes and struggled to stay awake at 5:30 p.m. I wrapped my body in layers of blankets, wedged into the corner of my large three-piece leather sectional. I was trying to multitask, alternating between looking at my phone, reading posts on social media and other peoples' happy lives and attempting to fully grasp what I was reading. A book that should have only taken two hours to read ended up taking nearly six, because I couldn't detach from the subtle pull of the Internet and technology and likes and pokes and emoticons and funny videos and political vomit and he said she said drama drama another wedding another baby another vacation waves beaches sublime bliss.

Sometimes I ask myself: what happened to that passion? What happened to that drive to read and live with reckless abandon? Where am I hurrying to?

Image courtesy of Amazon

So What Is This Exactly?

In January of 2016, I was thoroughly enjoying Natsumi Sosuke's classic, 'Kokoro', when I came across a particular quote that shook me to my core:

"... you don't really become a finer person just by reading lots of books."

After examining my Goodreads account, I'd realized that I'd read over thirty works without much thought or examination. I began to question the purpose of chugging through so many books at once. What was I gaining? What was the point?

Shortly after finishing 'Kokoro' I was trying to figure out what I wanted to really read next when I came across Editor Eric's "Greatest Literature of All Time" list. It made me wonder: could I read through the greatest works of the human race and grow as a man?

The list was absolutely daunting. One thousand works, at least, to read and think about.

It occurred to me that this list would be challenging in many ways. Arbitrary calculations showed that it could take me anywhere from ten to sixteen years to complete such a list, if I read at a steady clip. But then I had my depression to worry about. Depression, that great anchor, would oftentimes drop weight with me attached several times a year, eradicating every modicum of joy or interest in everyday living for weeks at a time. It was nearing the end of the month and I could all ready sense the weight tugging on my ankles.

While wallowing in silence on my couch, I decided that I would write about my life and tie that in to what I was reading, all through the lens of depression, in good times or bad. I hope to read through this list and share with you some of my stories, thoughts, trials and tribulations. I hope to grow as a person, as a writer, and as a husband. Here's to hoping I can keep it up, because hope is really all I have.