I was doing some research just now on Frances Farmer, the actress who had suffered for many years locked in institutions for supposedly being crazy. Fact is, she was an alcoholic, but beyond that, she was suprisingly articulate and intelligent.
When she was in school, she wrote an essay called "God Dies" which is really a remarkable piece. I found it on a website, and I thought it was pretty provocative considering its subject matter, and also thought I would share it.
The whole essay can be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/~themistyone/god_dies.htmHere are the first four paragraphs:
"No one ever came to me and said, "You're a fool. There isn't such a thing as God. Somebody's been stuffing you." It wasn't murder. I think God just died of old age. And, when I realized that he wasn't any more, it didn't shock me. It seemed natural and right!
Maybe it was because I was never properly impressed with a religion. I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them. The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.
Religion was too vague. God was different. He was something real, something I could feel. But there were only certain times when I could feel it. I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night after I'd had a bath, after I had washed my hair and scrubbed my knuckles and finger-nails and teeth. Then I could lie quite still in the dark with my face to the window with the trees in it, and talk to God. "I am clean, now. I've never been as clean. I'll never be cleaner." And somehow, it was God. I wasn't sure that it was ..... just something cool and dark and clean.
That wasn't religion, though. There was too much of the physical about it. I couldn't get that same feeling during the day, with my hands in dirty dish water and the hard sun showing up the dirtiness on the roof tops. And after a time, even at night, the feeling of God didn't last. I began to wonder what the minister meant when he said, "God, the father, sees even the smallest sparrow fall. He watches over all his children." That jumbled it all up for me. But I was sure of one thing. If God were a father, with children, that cleanliness I had been feeling wasn't God. So at night, when I went to bed, I would think, "I am clean. I am sleepy." And then I went to sleep. It didn't keep me from enjoying the cleaness any less. I just knew that God wasn't there. He was a man on a throne in Heaven, so he was easy to forget.
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The whole essay is about twice that length--I hope people do go and read it. Remarkable insight from a young girl.