Testimony

I followed a friend to her youth group one summer
and won two savings bonds for reciting passages,
submitting sermon notes, and writing Christian book reports.

I was invited to an evening service
and honored with first place in their competition.
The bulletin reminded the congregation
winning the contest doesn’t prove salvation.

I assumed they thought I was God’s child,
a Bible-believer, safe from Hell.
I didn’t know Pastor Dan already knew
I placed a baby for adoption.

I had lived the previous year in hiding.
My folks pulled me out of tenth grade,
put me in the laundry room when we had guests.
For months they told my grandparents
I was too sick to leave home.
They weren’t supposed to know. They knew.

But the bulletin was right.
Knowing Bible stuff doesn’t mean
I think a guy who created everything
died, woke up, and flew into the sky.

I know Reformed theology about a god less moral
than me, full of power who made us just for suffering.

Don’t worship evil that people call good.
Don’t be threatened by your own imagination.
The scripture you hear in your head is you.

---

Christian influencer, dead at 89

In the 80’s
his show played on Family Radio
in kitchens late afternoons
while mothers peeled potatoes.

His books lined shelves in dens,
and parents got together to study them.

Face your strong-willed child
and threaten him with destruction.
Hurt him so he feels your authority.

They learned to manage behavior with pain
and practiced hard on their firstborn.
It was a godly display to march a kid
out of the sanctuary to spank them
in the bathroom.

A generation of parents sought to show off
obedient kids who kept eyes on the pulpit,
who didn’t race each other under pews
after the service, but stood still though hungry
while adults talked exhaustively.

Younger siblings were easier in comparison.
After belting the oldest for each misstep,
parents ran out of energy.

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published by Kelsay Books. Find her socially in the Bluesky and watch/read more at http://www.caththegreat.blogspot.com