Stealing a Life

I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I’m serving follows the fact my immediate predecessor was a plagiarist. It was quite the local scandal and he left in disgrace. I mentioned to John how the complexity included how this person’s sermons included stories of events in his life that changed him and caused him to walk in new directions. Only they weren’t his experiences…

John responded, “I like the guy who made up his life. Those people are always surprising. I’ve had guys give me whole Vietnam traumas who never went there.”

Surprising, yes.

And I’ve mainly thought about the woundedness that leads to such things.

Of course this is complicated in my own life by my memories of my childhood. My father who had a very rough life, perhaps a third grade education, but was very, very intelligent, and loved science fiction. He conveyed that love to me. And I’m absolutely positive it led to my becoming a reader, and all that followed in my life…

Somewhere along the line he started writing stories. He never had but a typescript and one or two carbon copies (there’s a flash from the past…), and would pass them around for friends to read. I love ’em. And kept asking him to try and sell them. I had fantasies how perhaps he could get away from bartending and all the problems that alcohol led to in our family’s life.

Then one day he gave me his latest story. I had read it only a couple of weeks earlier in a magazine he subscribed to and which he knew I read.

We never talked about this.

I love the idea of someone inventing a life.

How such is surprising.

And, I’m haunted by the wounds involved.

And how even those wounds can be passed on to others…