A Tormented Man’s Declaration Of Faith

Sunday the Cowarts & company gathered for breakfast at Dave’s Diner.

There was Ginny and me and Becky and Rodney and Donald and Helen and Maggie and Sabrina and Lindsey and Eve and Mark and Ginny and me and Becky…

I don’t know who was there.

Lots of hugs and laughter, but they kept moving around the table in a dozen conversations, mostly about whether our family Christmas get-to-gather this year would fall on December 19^th, or 20^th, or 25^{th .}.. It all kept changing, and I can’t keep track.

Mark and Eve are celebrating Thanksgiving with gangster Al Capone. But they are not going to Michigan for Christmas because they have wolves up there and Eve fears being shoved off the sled into the snow so the horses and yankees can get away from the howling pack.

That breakfast was my highpoint for the past couple of days.

But even that early in the day I felt a fit of depression coming on.

I have no idea what triggers these things.

I just know the symptoms.

My mind begins to dredge up all my mistakes from childhood on. All my failures. All my sins. All my faux pas. Every embarrassing things I’ve ever done. All the stupid things I’ve said or thought or imagined.

This gets really rough.

No audible voices. I just hear mental tormentors who tell me what appears to be the whole truth at the time.

“John Cowart,” they say, “You are fat and ugly and toothless and lazy and stupid. You’re not worth the water it’d take to flush you down. You’ve wasted your life and screwed up the good life for your wife and your children and for a lot of other people. You fail again and again and again. You are such a disappointment. You’ve never amounted to anything. Such a loser. And you’re going to die. and leave Ginny with nothing but debts, regrets— and 260 pounds of rotting meat on her hands…”

And the relentless tormentors keep on and on and on.

It feels like being a batter in a baseball stadium where not just the pitcher throws the ball at me, but every one of the 73,000 fans in the stands throw balls at me at the same time!

By Sunday evening, after such a day of my being hagridden, certain physical problems showed up too. Among them was a trembling in my hands which made it impossible for me to keep food on my fork to eat dinner and I dribbled stuff down the front of my shirt.

And the gleeful tormentors said, “And you’re clumsy too. You eat like a slob and drool and…”

The clamor of the tormentors in my head grew unbearable because, according to my lights when in such a state, every word they said, every accusation, every name they called me—it’s all true.

That’s how I felt.

But I am a Christian; that’s not what I believe.

I mentally shouted at the tormentors, “Jesus loves me. Damn it! So fuck you in your left eye!’

My declaration of faith toned their volume down. The tormentors retreated to a dim corner of my mind to mutter among themselves.

You’re unlikely to find my statement of faith in the Shorter Catechism.

The closest biblical parallel I know was penned by the Apostle John in his First Letter. He said, “We… shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved,… then we have confidence toward God”!

I think that, in essence, the Apostle and I say the same thing.