Newsflash : I AM EVIL

Another conversation with my mom, about how I am the devil, and I don't want to change, and how I'm the kid that she completely screwed up on. And I can agree with her on some aspects - she let me get away with too much as a kid, for a long time I thought that I should get my way, all the time, and that what I wanted was the best idea. But I have changed since then, I have grown.

But if the growth isn't her way, then it's not really growth, now, is it? I read novels. I wrote a novel. And you know what? THAT DOES NOT MAKE ME A BAD PERSON. According to my mother, my brother, my father, though, it does. Why? Because they don't read! I love my religion, I really, truly do, aIn nd I love God, but I get so sick of the people who are supposed to represent him running around and pointing fingers, crying 'evil' at everything they don't understand. Why is a novel bad? I just don't get it. Jesus used FICTIONAL parables to demonstrate his point. JESUS used FICTION. I'm sorry, saying that 'if it didn't actually happen, then it's a lie and therefore a sin' is bullcrock. Fiction is a powerful tool that can be used to demonstrate a point, to say something that needs to be said, and, quite frankly it's one of the only mediums that I can understand. The argument here is so stupid - fiction is bad, even though Jesus used it, because novels are 'trash'. Okay, so what novels? Are we talking about 'Fountains of Desire' here? I can agree, that's trash. But Just Listen? Yes, that's terrible, putting rape into an empowering story based off of true-life experiences of girls that Sarah Dessen interviewed, how DARE you create a story that shows people how to overcome adversary! Or, how about In the Region of Ice, where Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates that Christianity without love and compassion is just this cold and ugly thing? Is that trash?

Maybe my brother's video games are trash. Or maybe Grey's Anatomy, which my mom watches nightly, is trash. Maybe the sports that my dad is addicted to are a steamy pile of horse defecation. Novels are like any other medium - some are good, some are bad. Some are so awful, they have no excuse to exist. The focus here is on the medium, not the message, and it infuriates me - isn't our ABC half-filled with novels? Historical novels, religious novels, but still NOVELS. Are we going to burn books because of a half-thought notion? I don't see the sense here, and it makes me so mad that because I disagree with something I don't even think my family members fully understand, I am unwilling to change, and therefore I am evil. I thought we had come so far, but the progress only shows when I'm sitting with my mouth sewn shut, agreeing with everything they say. I kept flashing back, today, to five years ago when I told my mother there was nothing wrong with Aerosmith, that it made me happy, and she told me that I was going to go to hell with my evil music. I keep thinking things have changed, but htey haven't - I'm still 15, barred and angry, and there's still no one listening.