WEBVTT

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I'm going to just read from
a little bit of a chapter

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from my book American
Gospel, which

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is really about my
own relationship

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with fundamentalism.

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I'm not a scholar like everybody
else who's been in this series,

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so I really can't say scholarly
things about fundamentalism.

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I can really only
speak to my own,

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to the fundamentalism
I come from.

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And I spent a long time trying
to write myself through that,

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trying to use language
not as therapy, but just

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like a really good country song.

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Just to give shape to
something painful just

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to kind of get a hold of it.

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And I think that
sometimes, that's enough.

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This is from a chapter
called Accommodation.

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My father, like his father,
was a Baptist minister.

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He shot himself with his
hunting rifle when I was three.

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Twenty years later, my
mother gave me his Bible,

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the one he had used since
his days in seminary.

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I opened it to the cloth
marker at chapter 10 of Matthew

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and read "Never imagine I have
come to bring peace on Earth.

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I have not come to bring
peace, but a sword.

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I have come to set a
man against his father,

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a daughter against her mother.

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He who loves father
or mother more than

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me is not worthy of me.

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He who loves son or
daughter more than

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me is not worthy of me."

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I do not know.

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I have no way of knowing if the
marker had fallen on that page

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simply by coincidence
or if it reveals

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something crucial about
my father's suicide.

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But the fact that the question,
like all the questions

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we ask of suicides,
is unanswerable

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makes the second possibility
inevitably more compelling

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and more sinister.

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Who is the egomaniac
speaking these words?

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Who would demand
across centuries

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that we love him, a
historical stranger, more

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than our own fathers,
mothers, sons and daughters?

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And just a few pages earlier,
wasn't this the same teacher

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bestowing blessings
on the peacemakers?

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Given such a wild reversal,
we might with good reason

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doubt the authenticity
of the passage.

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But what I want to know,
and have no way of knowing,

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is whether my father took
this passage seriously.

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From everything my mother,
my father's friends,

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even my grandfather
have told me,

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my father wasn't
the kind of man who

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would have read these
lines literally.

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Much of the anxiety he
began to feel as he grew out

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of adolescence was related
to the fact and the fear

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that a gap was widening between
his own beliefs and those

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of my grandfather.

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Because there was such
a clear distinction

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in my grandfather's mind
between good and evil, spirit

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and flesh, the word of the
Lord and the godless static

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of the world, the answers
came easily to him.

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And perhaps because
they did come so easily

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and were greeted so uncritically
by his congregation,

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I don't think it ever
occurred to my grandfather

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that he might be
wrong about anything.

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Such certainty
lent my grandfather

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his strength of conviction,
his power before crowds.

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But I also think it came at
the cost of self-awareness.

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I sometimes suspect
this is a trait

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common in Baptist
ministers, but it

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isn't one my father possessed.

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When he was pastoring
his first church,

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a woman from his congregation
would come by the parsonage

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every Sunday after
church to give pointers

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on how my father might
improve his sermons.

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My mother told me
he would always

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listen patiently, and
then grow quiet and sullen

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after she left.

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I try to imagine the same woman
interrupting my grandfather's

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Sunday dinner.

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He would have dispatched her
with such righteous haste

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that his butter beans would
have still been steaming

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when he returned to the table.

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But my father lacked
that conviction

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and therefore, lacked the
confidence that comes with it.

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If my grandfather had too
little self-awareness,

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my father seemed
to have too much.

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It led to a debilitating
self-consciousness

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and a depression so
heavy, he could not

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rise out of bed some days.

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He was in such a state when
my mother left to teach school

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on that last morning.

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In the afternoon, she collected
me from the babysitters

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and returned to our
yellow clapboard parsonage

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in Wakefield, Virginia to
find my father still in bed.

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But this time, his
body was lifeless.

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His rifle lay at his side.

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That was September 1, 1970.

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14 years earlier in the
summer before his freshman

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year of college, my father
swallowed a bottle of aspirin.

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He told my grandfather
that he was confused.

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Besides, when they had been on
vacation in Canada that summer,

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he overheard teenagers
making fun of his clothes.

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And you expect me
to go to college

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wearing these baggy pants,
he told my grandfather

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who took him down to Nachman's
department store the next day.

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My grandfather told the
saleswoman, whom he knew,

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I've been blind here.

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I've been expecting
Don to go to school

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wearing these baggy pants.

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And evidently, it's become
a matter of real concern.

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He was trying to make
a joke out of it.

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She played along, measuring
my father for new pants.

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Then said, OK then, Don.

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I pronounce you fit for school.

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But about a month
later, my grandparents

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received a call from
Carson Newman college.

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They were told my father
wasn't getting out

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of bed to go to class.

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The school suggested
my grandparents

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come down and collect their son
before the six week deadline

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when a withdrawal would appear
on his official transcript.

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So that's what they did.

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Driving back to
Virginia, my grandfather

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was still at a loss.

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I thought we had you all
fixed up, he told my father.

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I thought we had you
looking like somebody, not

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like some hick son of
a country preacher.

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But my grandfather
must have known

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by then my father's
problems went

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much deeper than the sartorial.

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My father had always been overly
sensitive to the culpability

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that looms large
in my grandparents'

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religion, the belief that
Jesus died as a sacrifice

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to cleanse a fallen
world of its sins.

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And for Southern
Baptists, particularly

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those of my grandparents'
generation, sin is everywhere.

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As the 20th century became
rapidly increasingly secular,

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the spiritual life
must have gradually

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become to seem to my father
like an ever lengthening list

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of things that must be avoided.

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Women, alcohol, playing
cards, foul language, movies.

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My mother grew up in a small
town near Macon, Georgia

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and met my father when
they were both doing

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summer missionary work
in Montana in 1965.

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My mother was as voluble
and sure of herself

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as my father was
reticent and awkward.

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And whereas Christianity was
beginning to seem to my father

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like a penal system, to
my mother it meant just

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the opposite,
absolute liberation.

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Jesus was the truth
that set us free.

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That was and is the
heart of her religion.

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It must have looked very
appealing to my father.

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Surely, he could have used
some of that lightness.

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In the end, it wasn't
enough, of course.

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And my grandparents found
subtle ways to let my mother

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know she had failed my father.

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Though his life insurance policy
barely paid for the funeral,

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they never offered
to help my mother

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with the cost of raising a
three-year-old on her own.

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In fairness, I cannot
lay all the blame

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of my father's suicide at
the steps of the church.

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He suffered from a
bipolar disorder,

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as did his younger brother
whose life up to the day he died

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remained a haunted
search for stable work

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and the right medication.

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My father hoped marriage
and family would cure him,

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so he hid his problems
from my mother

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until they were married, until
he couldn't get out of bed.

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Rounds of therapy followed.

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An increased dosage of vitamins,
then rounds of shock treatment.

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Nothing helped.

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And in the end, a 22 gauge
Remington looked to my father

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like the only solution.

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I honestly felt like he
was doing us a favor,

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my mother says now
with no bitterness,

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like we would be better off.

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My grandmother always found
consolation in the fact

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that my father was 33.

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The same age as Jesus, she
would say, when he died.

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Several years ago
when I turned 33,

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I started to experience
incredible migraines

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for the first time in my life.

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Then, a numbness started to
creep up and down my arms

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and legs.

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No one could explain it.

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The CT scan showed no signs
of the tumor I feared.

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The MRI showed no signs
of multiple sclerosis,

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but the symptoms remained.

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Then, my skin began to crawl.

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Panic attacks began.

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Doctors tried all manner
of pharmacological relief.

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Nothing helped.

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33 was the worst
year of my life.

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Finally, I sought
out a therapist.

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I told her my story.

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I told her I was the
same age my father was

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when he killed himself.

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After several
sessions, she told me

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I needed to have a serious
talk with my grandfather.

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Over Christmas, I drove down
to my grandparents retirement

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community in Florida.

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During the last few years,
my grandmother had quickly

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begun losing her
short term memory

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and my grandfather was having
one heart attack after another.

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Because he could no longer
take care of my grandmother,

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he had moved her to the
assisted living facility.

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When I visited with my
grandmother in her new room,

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I did all the talking,
mostly about the book

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she had read to me as a kid.

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As I talked, her
mouth would drop open.

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Her chin would
quiver and she seemed

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to be staring hard
at the ceiling,

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as if that was where her
memories of all those events

00:10:23.290 --> 00:10:25.810 align:middle line:90%
had disappeared.

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On my last night,
my grandfather and I

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sat down at his
small kitchen table.

00:10:30.860 --> 00:10:32.500 align:middle line:84%
And with a tape
recorder running,

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I asked the questions
I had never asked

00:10:34.570 --> 00:10:37.120 align:middle line:90%
about my father's suicide.

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That's when my
grandfather told me

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about the bottle of
aspirin, the baggy pants,

00:10:41.140 --> 00:10:44.930 align:middle line:84%
the hunting rifle he had
given to my grandfather.

00:10:44.930 --> 00:10:48.160 align:middle line:84%
He said it was true that the
church, religious authority,

00:10:48.160 --> 00:10:51.940 align:middle line:84%
and his own fundamentalism had
led my father to a crisis he

00:10:51.940 --> 00:10:54.310 align:middle line:90%
could never resolve.

00:10:54.310 --> 00:10:56.770 align:middle line:84%
I think your father was
confusing what God wanted

00:10:56.770 --> 00:10:59.440 align:middle line:84%
him to do and maybe what I and
his mother wanted him to do,

00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:00.850 align:middle line:90%
he admitted.

00:11:00.850 --> 00:11:02.710 align:middle line:84%
We had to finally
realize that there

00:11:02.710 --> 00:11:06.760 align:middle line:84%
was some questions in Don's
mind between religious authority

00:11:06.760 --> 00:11:08.410 align:middle line:90%
and human freedom.

00:11:08.410 --> 00:11:14.110 align:middle line:84%
As time went by, I could
see he felt he was not free.

00:11:14.110 --> 00:11:17.490 align:middle line:84%
This is what I had expected,
what I had wanted to hear.

00:11:17.490 --> 00:11:21.240 align:middle line:84%
But then, my grandfather said
something I didn't expect.

00:11:21.240 --> 00:11:23.520 align:middle line:84%
He said he himself had
thought about suicide

00:11:23.520 --> 00:11:25.260 align:middle line:90%
hundreds of times.

00:11:25.260 --> 00:11:29.160 align:middle line:84%
But he said, I do not have
the character, the courage

00:11:29.160 --> 00:11:33.510 align:middle line:84%
to do what your father
did, to take my own life.

00:11:33.510 --> 00:11:34.800 align:middle line:90%
The character.

00:11:34.800 --> 00:11:37.850 align:middle line:90%
The courage.

00:11:37.850 --> 00:11:39.980 align:middle line:84%
The poor child
felt he could never

00:11:39.980 --> 00:11:43.970 align:middle line:84%
be able to accommodate
himself, my grandfather said.

00:11:43.970 --> 00:11:46.760 align:middle line:84%
And that, I realized
was exactly it.

00:11:46.760 --> 00:11:48.320 align:middle line:90%
To accommodate.

00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:52.130 align:middle line:84%
To find some middle place
between where one comes from

00:11:52.130 --> 00:11:57.500 align:middle line:84%
and where one hopes to arrive,
or to pretend one is at home

00:11:57.500 --> 00:11:59.750 align:middle line:90%
when and where one isn't.

00:11:59.750 --> 00:12:02.330 align:middle line:84%
That is what my
father could never do.

00:12:02.330 --> 00:12:04.850 align:middle line:84%
He could never
find accommodation

00:12:04.850 --> 00:12:07.490 align:middle line:84%
either within his
father's religion

00:12:07.490 --> 00:12:10.370 align:middle line:84%
or within the treatment
of his own depression.

00:12:10.370 --> 00:12:15.050 align:middle line:84%
But suicide is the one human act
that requires no accommodation.

00:12:15.050 --> 00:12:16.010 align:middle line:90%
The suicide.

00:12:16.010 --> 00:12:18.050 align:middle line:84%
He'd never return
like the Prodigal Son

00:12:18.050 --> 00:12:19.940 align:middle line:90%
to the father's house.

00:12:19.940 --> 00:12:22.070 align:middle line:90%
He is unbeholden.

00:12:22.070 --> 00:12:24.320 align:middle line:84%
The suicide cannot
be questioned.

00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:26.840 align:middle line:90%
The suicide cannot be punished.

00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:28.880 align:middle line:84%
To raise the sword
against oneself

00:12:28.880 --> 00:12:31.040 align:middle line:84%
is to find release
into a moment,

00:12:31.040 --> 00:12:34.450 align:middle line:90%
an endless moment of freedom.

00:12:34.450 --> 00:12:36.000 align:middle line:90%