A Story About Crucifixion

In order to get my MFA, I had to write a book. It’s filed and forgotten in the MFA library of the University of New Mexico (which is a state, they promise.) I had reason to revisit it last night, talking to other initiates about some of the things I’ve written over the years. The topics are nonfiction and poetry, which may explain the occasional flowery turn in this prose.

The (nonfiction) center of the book is my relationship to a brother and sister pair who had to take up drug dealing and hooking at the tender age of 8 or 9 (for her) and 11 (for him). Their mother used to kick them out to bring men home, and happened to bring home a fundamentalist Christian, who insisted that they attend his fire and damnation church. It was the siblings’ first exposure to the ornate madness of Christianity and, in their misery, they thought they heard a way out of the situation they were in.

The sermon was on the crucifixion. It was the older brother’s idea, and together they scavenged two pieces of wood, a few nails, and a hammer. Being a literal minded sort of boy, he figured the story was instructions. In the time I knew him, he was always quite literal and looking for instructions, some clearly written way to finally fix his life. Unfortunately, he did not appear to find those instructions before he died in prison.

After constructing the cross in the backyard, facilitated by the fact that the religious man was fucking their mother (keeping them both busy), the brother had the sister lay on the cross and tried to crucify her by nailing her hands to the wood.

The sound of her screaming drew the religious man out of their mother, pulling his pants on as he went. He beat the brother and screamed at him, and both adults took the sister away, leaving the brother with a cross and an incomplete sacrifice. He concluded that he had picked the wrong person and he felt terribly guilty about his sister, so he nailed his own hand to the cross to apologize—still thinking that if a crucifixion occurred, his sister could go to heaven.

My interpretation in the book, a decade and a half ago, was that there was something noble in the urge to sacrifice, to save his sister. Whatever it might look like, I can assure you that he loved his sister and wanted to save her.

Now that I’ve left Christianity behind, I have a different interpretation. In vodou, we cannot save anyone. There is a weird idea that saving someone means removing the things that cause them pain, the things that trouble them or cause suffering. Trouble, trial, pain: these are lucky. They are opportunities to refine the spirit, which is the purpose of incarnation. We’re here to learn, to get the lessons we need to develop divinity in us.

The brother was not passively sitting around waiting for someone to save them both. The instant he heard something that sounded like relief, he was all about doing it. No delay, no whining, no waiting. He was never a coward, a whiner, or a passive victim. In his next life, that is a lesson he will not have to learn.

If I am guiding you, know that I will cheer you on, encourage you, and smooth some edges for you, but I will NOT remove your suffering. Instead, I will rejoice in the gift you are being given. In my heart, I will weep with joy for you because I know you will not have to learn the lesson again.

There’s no need to cling to your pain. There’s also no need to avoid it.