Review: Holy Ghost Girl

This week I read a book that has me thinking. It’s Holy Ghost Girl, by Donna M. Johnson. I read it on Kindle, mostly late at night, curled up the larger of our two family cats, Lilo. The story can be loosely summarized as “God Joins the Circus.” Or rather, “God’s Kids Join the Circus.” (And no, I am not committing sacrilege; I’ll explain this.)

The general story goes like this: When Donna Johnson is just three years old her mother, burned by an unfortunate experience with Sin in Hollywood, returns home to her Pentecostal roots and finds religion in a big way. And there the story might have ended, had tent evangelist David Terrell not come to town. Donna’s mother decides that God and David Terrell need her to play the organ for them on the “sawdust trail.” She packs her children, three-year-old Donna and one-year-old Gary, into their aging car and joins the caravan of old cars and trucks who traveled with Terrell and his family, setting up a “big-top” style tent, lining up thousands of chairs, and then serving as assistants and security in the charismatic services, and helping those who wished to be healed to the front.

Terrell bases his message in the Pentecostal tradition, though that affiliation becomes increasingly strained as the years pass, and so earmarks of charismatic worship–things like speaking in tongues, heavy reliance on emotional appeal, and healings are ever-present.

What is also present is Terrell’s obsession with the women who joined his traveling ministry to serve God, wind up serving “Brother Terrell” instead. Early on, Johnson’s mother becomes Terrell’s mistress, and for many years is convinced that he is trying to “do right by her” and the young daughters they have together, even as he is living and having children with other women as well. Ultimately, Donna and Gary find themselves left with a succession of virtual strangers, while their mother continues to travel with the tent evangelist.

The book is a good read, but perhaps the greatest strength of it is Johnson’s refusal to allow for easy answers. While a story like this lends itself to caricatures–it would have been easy and understandable for Johnson to present Terrell as a monster–she doesn’t do it. Instead, she presents a nuanced, complex story of a childhood lived in a world populated by people who all too often found themselves unable to live up to their lofty ideals, a world where a mother might love her children, but lose sight of them in her obsession for a minister who is all too willing to use his position as God’s messenger to exploit those around him. A world where love and abuse are ever-present. A world where a man might force his wife and mistress to travel in the same car and live in the same house–and treat his own children and his mistress’ children with great love. A world where it is acceptable to tell “nigger” jokes, even while one risks Klan violence by preaching to mixed audiences.  A world where he might fast to learn God’s will, and then take poor folks’ last dollars to power his fleet of Mercedes and finance multiple homes. A world where healings are sometimes faked, and sometimes real. A world where the one constant is the immense power generated by a combination of personal charisma, fear, guilt, religion, and deliberately stoked emotions, all wielded by a minister who has become conflated with the God he professes to serve, a God who is sometimes love, and sometimes terror, who requires pain and money as His due. A world where showmanship and tricks are sanctioned in the name of soul-winning.

Ultimately, the teenage Donna is married off when her mother decides to move to a secret location (Terrell has run afoul of the Internal Revenue Service) and Donna objects, and increasingly finds her path diverging from the charismatic tent evangelism that has formed the backdrop for the only home she knew.

This is not a story of redemption, but it is a story of great love–while it is difficult to like Terrell in light of the trail of destruction he leaves through the lives of those closest to him, Terrell’s two children and Donna and her brother Gary become “family” to each other, with all that entails. Indeed, when Terrell’s “secret children” from a number of mistresses are revealed it is Terrell’s son Randall who welcomes them to the family, Randall who offers love and acceptance.

In the end, Holy Ghost Girl is a study of the power of love, the love of power, and what happens when the two become intermingled. It’s a thought-provoking read, particularly in a world where extremism, showmanship, and spin are increasingly being regarded as virtues. It is a book that demands that readers respond in nuanced ways to complex people–and a powerful reminder that absolute adherence to absolutes is a dangerous path to follow. Mostly it’s a book that perfectly captures the paradox of fundamentalism. I recommend it highly.

Unsolicited Advice, II

Here’s another thing about being pregnant. You. Pee. All. The. Time. Night. And. Day. That translates to never being able to get far from a bathroom during the day, and never getting a full night’s sleep. For me, this translated into a foggy (because all things except for searing terror of impending labor were foggy in those days of chronic sleep deprivation) sense that life was really, really unfair. I mean, here I was, participating in The Miracle of Life, wanting to look my fresh, dewy, soft-focus best, and instead I had puffy ankles, aching hips, anxiety and depression, and bone-deep exhaustion brought on by nights spent primarily in trips to and from the bathroom, with brief rest periods in between. And at the end of it all, the prospect of yet more sleepless nights.

It seems unfair–expectant mothers should be able to sleep better, to store up rest in preparation for the long, sleepless nights of new motherhood. Instead, what we get is ever-increasing broken nights, followed by labor, followed by yet more broken nights. I was incredibly lucky–I worked with a group of evolved men who made it possible for me to sleep in the afternoon, but that didn’t mitigate the fact that I was clocking upwards of a mile and a half a night in trips to and from the bathroom.

If you’re in the later stages of pregnancy, chances are good you’re experiencing the same thing. If you are, you have my sympathy. It’s not fun, having to wake up, get up, walk around, then go back to bed only to repeat the whole cycle an hour or two later all night, every night. It’s particularly draining if, like me, you’re one of those people who seem to be programmed to fall asleep once a night–and once you’re awake, you’re awake for good.

And it’s precisely for people like us that those nights are absolutely crucial. The deeper wisdom of the broken nights of late pregnancy is that your body is retraining itself–it’s teaching itself the vital mothering skill of being able to wake up, get up, walk around, and go back to sleep again. It doesn’t happen easily or comfortably, but it happens for all of us. Our bodies make sure of it, so when we bring home those tiny, cuddly, needy, demanding bundles of love we are able to wake up in the night, feed them, and then go back to sleep.

Your body keeps you up in late pregnancy so you can fall asleep as a new mother. It’s training itself to see the day not in two major blocks–Day, Night–but in many little blocks–active/resting, active/resting, active/resting….

None of which will help with the sleepiness. What might help a bit with the exhaustion is understanding the new pattern your body is trying to help you establish. Try seeing your days as well as your nights in shorter increments. Give yourself time for short naps interspersed throughout the day, if you can. Work with your body. Help it to learn the new pattern. And know that the skill you’re learning will stand you in good stead as a new mother.

Unsolicited Advice

This is a poster version of one of the illustrations from "Benchmarks: A Single Mother's Illustrated Journal", available on Amazon.

Way back in the dim past when The Boy was still just a large bump between my boobs and my knees, I took a childbirth class. The class was in Hollywood, and run by a lovely woman named Margie, because that is not her name. I was thirty five going on thirty six, a single mom-to-be, and nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and there I sat, beside my good friend Mimi, listening to Margie speak lyrically about the joys of natural childbirth at home.

The idea of a home birth with no drugs left me completely and utterly cold. Months ago, I sat in the doctor’s office. “It’s positive,” she said. “What do you want to do about it?”

“I want to keep the baby,” I said. “And I want to have it in the hospital, and I want to have drugs.” Nothing in the intervening months had made me question this decision.

Next Margie showed us a film of a home birth. The images of various women walking sweating, panting red-faced, and weeping while family members offered happy chat and children ran by frightened me. Call me slow, but until that night it had somehow escaped my notice that what was in my belly was going to have to come out. And my belly was very, very large. It seemed impossible.

The movie ended, and Margie started around our circle. Elegant Hollywood mothers-to-be and their glowing husbands described their “birth plans.” They involved things like hot tubs, home births, music, and family. They sounded lovely. Nobody was having drugs.  I realized I was in the wrong childbirth class.

When Margie got to me I blurted, “I’m going to the hospital, and I’m having drugs.” I could feel my face turning red. Margie laughed. “The important thing is that you feel good about your plan,” she said. “Everybody’s different.”

I fell in love with her right then, because that was absolutely what she believed.

Later that night, she said something else that has stuck with me. “There’s something about a pregnant woman or a new mother that makes people want to give advice,” she said. “It’s like you’re a magnet. Total strangers will come up to you and tell you all sorts of things.

“You don’t have to take all the advice. Just smile, say, ‘Thank you. That’s good to know.’ Think it over later, and if it makes sense try it. If it seems crazy, just let it go. Mostly people mean well.”

As the rest of my pregnancy passed, and then my years of being a new mother, I discovered that Margie was absolutely right. I got a lot of advice, both from strangers and from family members. Some of it was good. Some of it wasn’t. It took me longer than it should have to realize that I need not feel guilty about not implementing every bit of “received wisdom” that came my way. Once I remembered that, The Boy and I were much happier, and did much better.

How this will all play out in the future I don’t know–The Boy is fifteen, so we still have some way to go before I can offer an opinion on how my child-rearing stacked up. What I do know now is this: When I was trying to please the advice-givers by using discipline methods I didn’t feel good about to enforce values in which I did not believe I was an inconsistent, unhappy, guilt-ridden person. I was not a terribly good mother.

When I acknowledged that, for me, many of the rules and shibboleths of child-rearing simply don’t make sense, and need to be abandoned, when I focused on lovingly and consistently teaching my son the values in which I could believe, we were both much, much happier. Mostly, when I remembered that a child is a gift, and I took the time to enjoy our little family, and to simply love my son, I knew that I was being my best self, and the best mother I could be.

And so here’s MY unsolicited advice. Take it or leave it, as you will. Love your baby. Hold it. Talk to it. The time passes far too quickly. Enjoy  your family. Let the rules you need to live peaceably and happily together evolve as you need them. Don’t do anything simply because you’re told that it’s what you should do. Keep it simple. Start with the love.  You’ll figure the rest out.

Music Education

A friend of mine referred this to me, and I felt it was necessary to pass it on. Enjoy!