Honor your father and mother,” when it becomes a law takes all abused children’s rights away. You’re being hit, you’re being insulted, you’re being sexually assaulted by your parent? Doesn’t matter because now, by law, you need to honor your father and mother, so you can’t speak out when they hurt you and the government can’t save you.
DEAR LILITH HELSTROM: It is 10:23 PM PDT here in Los Angeles, CA as I write to share that I have survived both my parents, my father was my incest perpetrator at the age of three and as to corporal punishment and psychological abuse ( that continued courtesy of my father’s “BFF”, the man who baptized me on the day we eulogized and buried my father’s remains. He was Chairman Emeritus of the deacon board at our predominantly Black Baptist Church (American Baptist Convention, National Baptist Convention, and Progressive National Baptist Convention affiliated). So when i say, you are 1 bazillion percent correct in raising the alarm about what has happened in Louisiana. Furthermore, the conversation needs to include all the diversity that is the United States of America, the only home I have ever known.
Exodus 20:12
The fifth commandment, which says, "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you"
Ephesians 6:2-3
Which says, "Honor your father and mother" and is considered the first commandment with a promise, "so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth”
All that being said, my mother, who loved me unconditionally, and by older and younger brothers who played with me and (we fought with each other when home alone), leaving marks but always protected me at school, I knew I would not have had if I had ever acted out in school, brought home less than A’s in everything except PE ( the only sport I ever liked was walking) — or told anyone what our home life was like. I also want you to know that I clung furiously and at great sacrifice to the ‘promise’ of the second part of the verse your quoted “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth”.The day we buried our mother 3.26.2016, was the last time I ever saw either of my brothers. Did I mention I am also the gay, left-handed, middle child?
In 2024, knowing what most people in the USA know would have happened if I, a black child in the 1959- 2024 USA— family ripped apart, father jailed, and hopefully a life in a single female headed household and or foster care, I am glad I made what is commonly known as a “decision for Christ” at the age of thirteen in the auditorium of John F. Kennedy Memorial High School. I occurred to me then, in the midst of all of our great nation’s diversity, that I needed a personal intimate friend not visible to the naked eye. My other big realization was that my mother and my brothers would not always be around when I really needed protection/ a shoulder to lean on/cry on, and just as importantly, yell and cuss out!
To quote the spiritual. I’ve been ‘baked and I’ve been scorned”; I’ve been talked about, sure as you born” If all my circumstances were the same and i had it all to do over again, I hope i would make the same choices. Why? because the human systems supposedly designed to help me are just as broken in 2024 as they have been for the past 65 years. I know this because I began my work life as a private tutor of a 60 year old woman who wanted to earn her GED. Her success inspired me to succeed in multiple careers: Industrial and Systems Engineering, parallel careers in Special Education (ages 4 through age 24), College teaching, social work, and my current attempt to re-launch an educational consultancy I founded in 1997. Again, the music sustained me—“Through hard trials, tribulations, persecutions, I am determined. I am determined to walk with Jesus, yes(!) I am. I want to walk (the call) walk (the response) with, with, Je-e-e-e-sus. Though none go with me, still I will follow. Fear not, for i have redeemed you, I have called you by my name, you are mine… [ WHEN I SAY THE MUSIC SAVED MY LIFE, I MEAN all 5 of the unique-to-USA musical genres, and classical. I find all of Stevie Wonder, Michael Mc Donald, Oleta Adams and Mariah Carey’s music to be deeply moving and centering, among so many others].
I can also attest to the truly dangerous and abusive nature of so-called reparative therapies, even though that experience and my earning an expensive seminary degree likely kept me from murdering my abuser/my father and or from digging up his remains and grinding whatever is left of his bones into dust and polluting the environment by tossing them to the four winds. I am grateful I forgave my father who did not ever reconcile with me, but like the elephants, I will never forget what happened, lest history repeat itself in some horrendous way. In case your were wondering, I totally agree that Christianity and all the existing organized religions as they have come to exist in 2024 are overdue to be deconstructed. Homo sapiens can do better, if we can embrace the reality that we are stronger together.
Ms.(?) Lilith Helstrom, thank you for your writing that inspired this response.
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