What’s the Deal with the Holy Trinity

“Do you know why I let you run around in all these families?”

Between his fencing swords and our Medieval shield, I felt the perversion driving this question. It was the same energy with which he woke me up “night after night” to fetch my mother at the police station at four years old.

“Because I pity you,” he said.

When he said that to me — I had a name for this strange energy like a repellant. Ah ha, pity is a killer like shame. He only pitied himself. It was the reason we couldn’t have a relationship. I used the phrase “that’s psychologically damaging,” not knowing where I got that, at twelve years old.

After leaving me at someone’s house for four years, the extremity of my mother’s character cast this man in a bizarre light. He wasn’t acting as if my mother had a huge shift in personality overnight. My pre-four situation was also suspect, though I was too young to understand that. My early childhood was a dark time.

I asked him seriously speaking with my scrawny arms crossed on Overland Blvd coming home from third/fourth grade, “what did you like about her?”

“What do you mean?”

He asked.

She was fun.

Fun?

Did I hear that right?

He knew not one thing about my mother, not one.

Given the themes involved in my mother’s life — Jesus Christ, his religion my ammunition against him — she had come from a cruel world. You never met someone lighter; lighter than air, Dr. J.

I was an assistant teacher in Sunday School by the time I was eleven. I asked, it wasn’t that impressive. I had launched an undercover investigation into the Catholic Church. I made that decision very seriously.

Looking at a graph in my theology book named “Who’s Closer to God…” the Catholics, of course. I was getting infuriated, offended, and concerned for my psychology by some of the things I had been uncovering. By this point, I became an altar server just to observe the congregation; I needed to meditate on this from all angles.

On what grounds could someone teach this?

I flew into the Cutlass — my father’s car — fast and furious.

I asked him — what’s the deal with the holy trinity?

He said the same thing my teacher did, shrugging.

“It’s three persons in one God…”

“What does that mean…”

I gave him a sharp shrug, curious.

“To you…”

The conversation escalated quickly.

It was the argument presented to us as to why the Catholic faith believed that they were the closest to God. We love everybody, yeah yeah. I’m gazing at these rings radiating further away from the center; God. This was not God.

Totally nice people; these people in the outer rings.

“We believe we are the one true religion because we believe,” she put up three fingers like she had thought about it. She wrapped her other hand around her three fingers, “in one God.”

In the Cutlass, I had to give my father a Neapolitan platter of a hand.

“What do you believe in a God with three heads in the sky or what…?”

He snapped. I kept going.

He wasn’t able to give me a meaning. I understood — sassily — what the image was. I said that to him, snapping, this is an image!

Three persons in one God, but what does that mean?

I demanded that give me a meaning, though I knew he wouldn’t have one because this was my big complaint about the Catholics — early. Pinching my fingers, my father’s hands flying, did his religion mean anything to him outside of going to church every Sunday? What is this in my textbook?

I knew at twelve that these things don’t get better. It didn’t even occur to me to talk to anyone about it. He was, clearly, a special case. What was happening to him? I thought and thought. That’s all I did.

An important first step. I had an experience of coming to, waking up under the dining table being kicked around. I became conscious of what was happening. I hadn’t been hurt; not really yet. However, we had tipped over into the physical. It couldn’t go on any further, I had to tip it back. These things don’t get any better, they only get worse. Our neighbor slipped a note under our door that night—next time, they were calling the cops.

By my father’s reaction to this note and what the authorities would imply in my case, I had to stop it. Getting to this point; hitting a child, was not anything I wanted to be apart of. I wasn’t going to foster care—not a chance. I meditated on it even; the feeling that came over me was enough.

For the parts I didn’t understand as to what brought this between us, I don’t know, this life, this strange world, I had to let that go. My parents were peculiar to say the least. Why I had chosen these conditions for my life on some level, I wondered. Why these two people?

I had the time bending experience. I felt and knew that no matter how improbable, there was a future in which I was already out of this. I can remember the silence in my room. I created a link to that feeling, that place. I was already out of this. I meditated, I asked for help. I was patient. How am I going to stop this? It was my singular focus.

Everything exists in a relationship?

It was my inner monologue but I was too young to know that. I was past who did what, started what first, him or me. I’m talking my inter-personal relationship with him exclusively. God wouldn’t sanction this on any level; any God. I felt secure with spirit on that one. It helped me move through the emotions. Could spirit explain the human experience to me? No. I don’t know; it was just what I concluded.

I had to induce a fight consciously.

How, why? I didn’t mistrust my inner guidance on this one. He would change states, I could see it. I had to break him right when he switched — no delay. I had to tease the beast, more or less, and strike. If I were to break the threshold between these two states, then maybe I could break the logic.

But the guidance, if you will, was no emotion. I had to go through the whole event of it, all probable scenarios. I pictured him coming into my mind; I rehearsed it. What if he…where would I go? What would I do? I got to on the other side; I was going to act. I exited before I got there. That took time. Even if…it wasn’t going to work. Then fine. I’ll die. If that’s what he is; I had that kind of rage. But to be frank with you between my father and me, I could have destabilized him. I would throw a chair. I wasn’t going to be shy if it came down to a life and death situation.

I had to have no chords to this. There had to exist something called divine laws from a position of non-judgment. Again, he was sick. I was dealing with my case, but this is what happened. I don’t remember much. That future in which this was no longer the case was my sole objective. It wasn’t hard to induce a fight.

It was the most out-of-time or bizarre sensations I ever had, as if I were in different space than he was. I was squinting quite visibly because I couldn’t believe it was working. I didn’t engage, I just poked at him. I was walking out of it, backing up into the dining room. He was advancing towards me.

I had a visual experience. It was mechanical; a mechanism, I was stepping out of it. I was leading him to the door to slam it in his face, psychologically speaking, I suppose. I was fixed on his eyes; his change of state. The second he flipped, lunging towards me, I raised my arm slow and strong with a palm in his face. The contretemps—as we would say at Jacques Lecoq School; moving with a different rhythm — startled him.

My energy state was still.

He took in my arm.

What are…

“I don’t want to do this…”

I looked into his eyes.

“Do you want to do this?”

It was a human to human question.

This is not who we are, was more or less the delivery. I had no feelings of righteousness, no anger. I had to get over that to get here.

My palm turned into a pointer finger over to the front door.

If he hit me again, I would leave and never come back. He didn’t know how to take it. I was holding. Was he going to come after me, I hoped (sincerely speaking) that I was dealing with a human being here. It had gone too far for me. I didn’t want to have to call him an abuser. On some level I could ascertain that something was wrong with him.

He regarded me up and down quickly and walked away.

We fought — that’s all we did. But he never crossed that line.

I confronted him outside our house, the black gate opening, the Cutlass parked out front. It was his final chance.

In my textbook, I turned the page to homosexuality as a vocabulary word in the margins of my book. To record what this teacher was saying was my intention. I decided to take a few “pictures” of this book in my mind, also as an experiment to see what I would retain and wouldn’t. Two.

He was putting away his golf clubs in the back of the Cutlass—I snuck up on him.

“What would you say…if I were to date a woman?”

Obviously, he was going to have the “oh you’re twelve, father reaction,” whatever. Enough of this nonsense. I was twelve, I was aware of this. I don’t know that yet, personally. I don’t think so. I shrugged. That’s not my question, I snapped. Answer the question.

“This is not the point.”

“What would you say to me?”

It was a hypothetical. I was his daughter, no?

“What’s wrong with it?”

It’s supposed to be between a man and woman — what kind of logic is this? He said that to me as if there wasn’t nothing cruel in the statement; it was just the way things were. Negotiating around the Cutlass—trimmed hedges across the street behind me—Did you think that God would send people to…or that human beings are supposed to be tortured? Since the age of eight, I had been pleading with this man.

“There’s nothing with sex!”

I had spent four years dancing the lambada! My Brazilian Mama-person was one of the hottest ladies on the planet, backing it up, dancing at all times, getting turned on by life. This Catholic didn’t even consider that I had spent four years in a Brazilian-Jewish family.

It was a hard column in his psychological framework; that’s what I saw it as. I could perceive these as hard; engrained ideas that he wasn’t even conscious of. This was a great offense, I said, “against God.” You’re killing people. You are the sinner. He started chasing me around the Cutlass. Get over here. Not a chance. I was firing names at him. Any discomfort around this was dismissible, intolerable.

I had run across the street or down the sidewalk. In my recollection of it; I was at a distance. I was scared, telling him to stay away from me! Supposed to be between a man and a woman? Go away! A question came into my head. I wasn’t planning to ask it. I didn’t want to, but since we were on this subject.

I took a deep breath.

“And what about a Black man?”

What would you say? I was yelling, my father was breaking down. He had no idea how to respond. I snapped at him.

“No, of course not, I just think it’s easier to stick to your own kind.”

I eliminated him.

Mankind.

Sticking to your own kind would imply your family; okay?

“Everyone is a human being!”

I was leaving the Catholic Church, but I was still in a Catholic School. I wasn’t necessarily ending my relationship with religion, but I had to draw a line somewhere. No more church. I had stopped assisting at Sunday School. My teacher had invited me to lunch; I hung out with adults. A dozen red roses were sent to my house…thanking me for lunch. I never stepped foot in Sunday School again. I ghosted; I wanted him to feel the freeze.

I went through the same method as I did previously. I would take my stand on Sunday. I had to go through each step that I had support from spirit 100%—the right to do it. Are we not human? Mankind? All of us? So what if this guy was my father — good. Maybe it was an opportunity to stage a small act against my own kind, literally.

Not going to church — it wasn’t possible with my father. There was no missing church. It wasn’t something we could “discuss.” It was one of those that would flare up upon delivery. On this, maybe he would finally snap. I mean, I don’t know in what order I did this. It was all happening at the same time.

I had to let the time run out as much as possible; he would never skip church.

I had trained my father at that point to not wake me up — crazy. He would burst into my room like a madman, an anxious wreck. Get up get up! The second I’d hear him creak from the bathroom —I popped up and start yelling at his level through the wall; “I’m up I’m up!”

Okay!

I did that over time. It worked.

I got up from my bed. I’m not sure if I changed.

I waited, staring at the door, breathing.

I listened to his morning routine behind me. He operated like a clock. Same script, same time. He was going to come for me around the bed; I knew what was going to happen, but I hoped it wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to think of flying across the bed, not him.

I would dash over the bed as he came around the corner and head fast to the only door with a lock; his room.

He walked past my door. I made no sound.

I stood very still.

I heard him make breakfast. He began calling me. I didn’t answer, forcing him to assume — I heard his response — that I hadn’t gotten up. I didn’t peep.

At the bottom of the stairs, he called.

Up the stairs, he flew into my room, shocked to just find me standing there on the other side of the bed.

Well, what are…time to…I wasn’t going to church anymore.

The approach was truth.

I had really thought about my argument. I could have presented it, that is, my four-year investigation into the Catholic Church. It was the last straw. Him. It was over. I even held my fists and told him that I had to find my own spiritual path.

That’s what tipped it over the edge.

It was my sincerest line.

I cannot believe in something just because you do. I was attempting to communicate that to him.

My father came around for me, around the bed — my socks went flying over the comforter — a pink and teal pastel Pollock. Out the door, sharp right, I slammed the door shut and flipped the lock. I backed up, unleashing at him through the door. I hit his recliner in between two crucifixes because he forgot that he had already bought one.

Open the door. No.

You are killing people. Baby killer!

What is this world?! Your own kind?!

Everyone is human!

He walked away; was he coming back?

The garage door opened.

I watched his Cutlass from his bathroom window drive away.

We never spoke about it. He never asked me to go to church. I got confirmed. I wasn’t going to miss that day; I knew if I ever wanted to speak out against them, I wasn’t going to let them disqualify me.

The Crusades.

When this was mentioned around the Confirmation book I was supposed to sign, I felt the energy of “The Crusades” so strongly, the blood. I had rage for the Crusades. I didn’t understand why. As went to sign my name, I was the type of person who made vows. I set intentions. I was very close to spirit; it never abandoned me. I would speak out then, if I had to.

To who? I know.

This was really me at that age. I laugh now, I have to. My rage for the Catholic Church was strong, I had to move through it, but I never judged the value of the church per se. I didn’t want to devalue human beings or their beliefs.

Five years later, he came to the railing — dementia — disappointed.

You don’t go to church anymore.

I looked at him.

That was five years ago.

I wanted you to build a relationship with God.

Sure.

I sent you to a Catholic School.

I knew that.

Ah shucks, disappointment.

He forgot.