Jerry Who? Un-damaging Our Culture Following The Death Of God’s Salesman

So Jerry Falwell died of sudden failure of the heart. Perhaps God figured the preacher man wasn’t using it anymore ~ hadn’t been for decades ~ and decided to conserve the energy. Who knows? The point is, someone by the name of Jerry Falwell died, and ever since I have seen little else but contempt and vitriol flowing from the pens and keyboards of the gay community.

Now, I’m admittedly no fan of the late Reverend Falwell. But I see little point in spewing venom at the man now that he’s little more than a cold lump of decomposing flesh and bone. That horse is dead. It’s time we get off.

You see, here’s the thing. Every time we think about Jerry Falwell ~ every nasty, hateful thought we individually express over that dead horse ~ keeps us tethered to him. And as long as we are tethered to him, we cannot move forward. In fact, while he is still present in our thoughts, he still owns us. Is that what we want? I’ll tell you right now, it’s not what I want.

I am aware that there are many among us who are of the firm belief that venting about Mr. Falwell and the many damaging, unresearched, and wicked things he said about gay people during his life helps them achieve some sort of catharsis. Does it really? Or are they doing nothing more than beating that lifeless lump of flesh and bone repeatedly, well beyond any purpose? Is there any real lasting good that will come of it, either personally or culturally?

The action I’ve chosen to take in regards to the memory of Jerry Falwell can be summed up in two words, the first of which is "Forgive." When there are opportunities present for us to choose a road in life, it’s usually a safe bet that the higher road is the one most worth taking. We’ve all heard this adage at some point in our lives: To err is human; to forgive, divine. Certainly, we all do our share of erring (and then some). But how often when given the chance do we forgive? Our courts of law would be hurting for business if, instead of our seizing upon every infraction against us as an opportunity for a lawsuit, we forgave the person who harmed us. It may not seem as immediately gratifying or financially rewarding to forgive the guy who did a hack job on replacing our roof, or swindled our grandmother out of her deceased husband’s pension. But when we are so consumed by a need for immediate gratification and payback that we put forgiveness by the wayside, how do we know that we’re not forestalling (or even preventing) a greater good?

For instance, how do we know that the person we whole-heartedly forgive for today’s infraction won’t someday come around and do something nice for us in return? How do we know that through our forgiveness that person won’t be given the tools to do something nice for someone in greater need than ourselves. How do we know that by forgiving a dead man of his hurtful behavior we won’t effect a more global change? We can’t know it if we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to find out, can we?

And so why wouldn’t we forgive Falwell? He was only being that which he was capable of being, and nothing more. Granted, he did things that caused many to hate and revile him. But he also did things that made others love and adore him. And who among us hasn’t done both, even when our intentions were aimed at what we felt was best?

Jerry Falwell preached forgiveness. I dare say he didn’t practice it with the same passion. And thus for all his boasts of communicating the words of the divine, Reverend Falwell may never have achieved the state of divinity we are told comes as the reward for the act of forgiving. Right now we have the ability to do something he never could. If you think it’s revenge you want, an awfully sweet form has been laid right at your doorstep. Forgive the unforgivable. Be simply divine.

And don’t forget to forgive yourself as well. Forgive yourself for letting the man and his words and deeds get under your skin. If you still feel anger, resentment, or hatred toward him, it is really only because you allow yourself to. And thus, even from the grave, he owns you. Forgive yourself for falling into his drama, and free yourself of his influence.

I will caution you, however, that saying the words "I forgive you" while retaining anger in your heart is not really forgiving. In order to truly forgive, one must let go of all thoughts of revenge, resentment, anger, hatred, despair, animosity, pain, and fear. One must cut the cord, as it were. Otherwise we’re back to being tethered to that damned dead horse again. It may at first seem like a challenge to let go of these things and just simply forgive, but as far as challenges go it certainly is not an insurmountable one. And it gets easier with practice.

The other word that I’m thinking of is "Forget." Once we’ve forgiven Jerry Falwell (and ourselves), the best thing I think we can do is forget him. You want revenge? What sweeter way can you think of than disempowering his legacy by NOT remembering him? Every man hopes to leave his mark on the world in some way. Our egos would be devastated if we thought we were all Eleanor Rigbys, fated to hammer out our existence on this planet then die without so much as anybody noticing. Falwell was no different. I am certain he wanted more than anything to leave a grand legacy behind. I motion that’s exactly where his legacy is best left… behind.

There is another excellent reason for forgetting Jerry Falwell… a thing can have no power over us if it does not exist. An old adage reads "out of sight, out of mind." But "out of mind, out of existence" is equally as true if you subscribe to the belief that thoughts are things. For something to be it has to first be a thought.

A legacy is really nothing more than a memory. And what is a memory, if not a thought brought into the present from the past? Forgetting Jerry Falwell is un-thinking him. It is leaving that dead horse in the past, and not dragging him and his legacy into the present.

The present is all we really have. It is everything we are, and everything we own. It is the ever-changing pool of atoms and molecules we swim in at this exact moment. It is everything we think as we think it. It is creation as it happens. The past is an outdated version of the present. It is nothing more than a memory ~ a thought in the here and now pertaining to something that no longer exists. The past has no thoughts of its own; its day to create is over. It is like a bubble of liquid soap that popped midair. It is gone, save for the memory.

The thing we call the Future is that which is under construction in the present. It consists of thoughts that haven’t been thought yet, memories that haven’t been created. It is a plaything of the imagination; a unicorn… a thing which people dream about that doesn’t actually exist. We may plan for the future, but a plan won’t become a thing of the future unless we do something about it in the present. And by the time the future arrives, it IS the present. So we come full-circle; all we really have is the present.

We tend to develop an attachment to the past because of that pesky little thing called memory. It’s much easier to remember that which we’ve experienced than to remember that which we haven’t. And that’s why so many of us (myself included) have grown into the habit of carrying the memory of the past into the present like a dead horse we’re carrying on our back. But honey, dead horses make lousy building materials, so when you find you’re carrying one, put it down and leave it in the past where it belongs. Once we’ve done that we can concentrate on building something wonderful for the future.

In other words, let’s leave ol’ What’s-His-Name where he died and move on without him. By passing he has finally become irrelevant to the here and now. Let’s forgive and forget, and move our focus onto the passionate enjoyment of the present.

Jerry who?



Bareback Jack