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Tuesday night saw the landslide victory of Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, over long-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the GOP primary for US Senator. Esquire editor Dave Homles made this observation of the televised Paxton victory party:

Three speakers in a row at the Paxton victory party have said “Talarico thinks God is non-binary” to loud booooos from the audience. Lot of enthusiasm for God’s dick up in here.

           Paxton himself said this, a statement which may or may not be factually based on anything Democratic candidate James Talarico has said. It is among the other weird and wrong claims about Talarico circulating in the very online right-wing ecosphere, like claims he believes in “six genders” and is a vegan. All of these claims aim to demonstrate that Talarico holds views out of step with most Texans, although, being a Democrat, you could probably make that point without having to resort to distortion or invention. Paxton is a moral and ethical wreck compared to Cornyn or Cruz, a blatantly corrupt adulterer who would steal a Mont Blanc pen someone mistakenly left at the metal detector at a courthouse simply because he had the opportunity. He has a very Trump-like moral comportment, which is likely what sealed the president’s decision to endorse him over Cornyn, despite the latter’s obvious fealty to him. GOP voters in Texas wanted the previously impeached (though not convicted) Paxton, which was obvious from the first round of voting, and Cornyn was a longshot heading into the runoff. By 30 points, Republican voters endorsed the most amoral Senate candidate the state has seen because morality does not matter to GOP voters unless it can be wielded against women, minorities, or Democrats.

           Having selected a moral void as their standard bearer, it makes sense that the attack on Talarico by conservative operatives is going to focus on Talarico’s religious views to try to tear down his character. To an ordinary person, suggesting someone with an MDiv from a Presbyterian seminary is not a real Christian would appear to be a tough sell, but to conservatives it is not. The non-binary God jab is evidence that they will run headlong into anything if they think they will avoid hemorrhaging actual Christian voters who find Paxton repulsive. But it’s more interesting to consider how divorced the idea of a male God is from a lot of theology. God in the Bible is portrayed as a “father” and is the father of Christ, but does the term have gendered meaning when we are talking about God? In the ninth century, John the Scot suggested that it was incorrect to apply categories to God because God is uncreated; for man, God is impossible to truly know as one knows created beings, and by his nature, God transcends the very concept of being. God is masculine in portrayals in art and literature, but these images cannot be said to portray God in any sense of the word. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, hardly a liberal theological document, it is stated plainly that “we ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman; he is God.” It isn’t that God is non-binary as we understand it, but that God exists outside of human ideas of gender or sex.

           God as male is a very primitive idea that does not hold up to sophisticated theological inquiry. However, it is an important idea in the American cult of normativity, which upholds “traditional” views by exalting the nuclear family and the dominance of men in society. For many American men, any diversion from an androcentric worldview is a personal attack on them, and so there has formed a cult around the American man, his docile wife, and their “normal” family. This cult is well-represented in evangelical Christianity, where focus is placed on reinforcing gender roles and what perceived societal norms were prior to the late 1960s, which conservatives have for years marked as the collapse of their moral world order and the natural hierarchy in which white men were always at the top. Instead of viewing gains by women and minorities as positive attempts to create a more equitable society, these men view them as an attack on their position and status and therefore must be resisted and overthrown.

           Look no further that Freedom Con, taking place June 19-20 at the Gorge Amphitheater, if you want to understand how the cult of normativity operates. Presented by something called Stronger Man Nation and billing itself as “an American congress of Christian men,’ this event open to men only claims to be a “catalytic experience” that will preserve “the vision of America’s Founding Fathers.” Speakers, it is claimed, “will unpack the historical precedent, biblical foundation, and moral necessity of Christian statesmanship” and their breakout sessions “will combine intellectual rigor, unapologetic patriotism, and unwavering biblical conviction to summon men and boys to this noble call as a capstone expression of stronger manhood.” Attendees are promised “a concrete, actionable roadmap to take back ground in your home, church, county, and state.” If this sounds a little more like a political rally than a religious event to you, you aren’t wrong. A peculiar version of Christianity gives a spiritual imprimatur to what is boilerplate right-wing conservatism and “alpha male” gender ideology. On the event’s website, a loop of still photos flashes by showing men lifting weights, chopping wood, riding bulls, running through mud, and generally participating in stereotypically masculine activities. If nothing else, you come away from the photo series understanding that this is gender-affirming care for a specific set of men.

           There is also a strain of militarism running through it. There is a Marine, some Army veterans, and a Green Beret scheduled to speak. This is not all that surprising if you know anything about this form of evangelicalism and it goes hand-in-hand with the generic alpha male tough guy identity that all of these men want to cultivate. One of the headline speakers is Mark Driscoll, the (disgraced) ex-leader of the now-defunct Mars Hill Church in Seattle, who has been peddling this strain of Christianity since he was preaching on public access TV. It’s impossible to point to any one founder of this movement, but Driscoll is a good candidate. A rude and domineering bro pastor in street clothes, Driscoll endeared himself to his fan club and earned the enmity of everyone else by being as abrasive, homophobic, and misogynistic as possible. Eventually felled by an abuse scandal at Mars Hill, Driscoll fled the state and founded a new church in the more amenable Scottsdale, Arizona. His biography on the Freedom Con website calls him “battle-tested,” which is true if you consider being run out of your own church for being an abusive control freak a battle, as Driscoll is not actually a veteran. The “aspirational warrior” mentality adopted by men like this is a hallmark of their own feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. There is a constant worry about not being enough of a man and of being too weak or feminine. Ostensibly this is to project the most desirable qualities toward women in the hopes that they will be attracted to you, but really the need is to gain the admiration and approval of other men.

           To bring this all back to Talarico, he is viewed by these same people as weak and effeminate for reasons that aren’t surprising at all. He is not a vegan despite claims by the president and other, and in the interest of polishing his bona fides as a carnivorous Texan he will now be photographed stuffing his face with barbecue at every opportunity. It won’t help convince these people, however, and will be seen as a put-on. There is no indication he “believes in six genders,” an idea which many people are convinced comes from the president hearing and then misunderstanding the term “cisgender.” And despite claims to the contrary, he isn’t any sort of theological radical, instead belonging to a plain old mainline denomination for which he has done graduate level training. What he appears to be is a very sincere, moderate liberal whose mild attitude and pragmatic policy preferences are out of step with hard-right alpha male conservatives. Will those people come out to vote for a truly terrible man instead? Probably. But how numerous are such people, and are there enough of them to counteract the numbers who will either vote for Talarico out of principle or vote for no one instead of Paxton? That will remain a mystery until the final tally comes in.

How does one begin to make medical decisions for someone who cannot speak? Often when this question arises, the person incapable of managing their care is in a critical situation, in which preservation versus comfort questions have an urgency that forces the guardian to act, such as a scenario in which the patient is on life support. A poor prognosis forces one’s hand quickly because there isn’t room for decision-making paralysis. But there are other instances in which the prognosis is far murkier, yet the same decisions remain.

G. is 78 years old, is profoundly disabled, and has lived under the care of the state in a facility for nearly fifty years. Last month, she needed to be admitted to the hospital for what her nursing staff believed was a UTI and upper respiratory infection. After perfoming a CT scan, the physicians at the hospital determined that she had a bowel perforation that was causing an infection. Under ordinary treatment plans, the bowel would be resectioned. Initially, the surgeons were ready to go with this course of action. However, further consultation revealed that such a surgery would be extremely high risk for her, and there was a decent chance she would not even make it through the operation. If she did survive the surgery, she would face a difficult recovery. She might need a g-tube. None of these things sound very good when you are dealing with someone who cannot communicate, has no ability to understand her circumstances, and lacks the ability to perform basic tasks unassisted.

However, it was made clear that the only other option was to keep giving her antibiotics and hope that the perforation sealed itself, which is a possibility with bowel perforations. The chances of a self-repair diminish as time goes on and eventually the infection will diminish the effects of the antibiotics, leading to sepsis and death. So, there were two choices, high risk surgery or hope the perforation resolved, presented by the physicians. To their credit, the doctors were candid in their assessment and while they did not push either option, they made it quite clear that major abdominal surgery to prolong G.’s life would be precarious and would diminish her quality of life. Ultimately, it was decided that the best path was the one that allowed her to go back to her home and continue antibiotic treatments with the knowledge that this could turn into a palliative care situation quickly.

It has been a few weeks since she returned to her facility and the perforation shows no sign of repairing itself. The provider explained that her bloodwork indicates a worsening infection and the antibiotics appear to have diminishing effectiveness. At this crossroad, the options are to send her back to the hospital to get treated with IV antibiotics that may be more effective, or to finish the prescribed course of antibiotics and then switch to comfort care measures. The former option would simply be a temporary delay of comfort care at best. After consultation with her niece, the decision was made to forgo active treatment and make her comfortable for the duration of her life.

Decisions like this make us uncomfortable because we are confronted with the hardest truth of life, that it has an end. How, we think, would we like it if someone decided for me to forgo life-saving treatment in the interest of comfort? This is harder to answer than it first appears. Most people would opt for comfort, but not everyone. When loved ones are incapacitated, we must speak for them, perhaps not knowing exactly what their wishes would be, but with experience of having known the person. In G.’s case, however, no one has truly known her. Not once has she uttered a word or written anything, but she is not a vegetable, she has had a reasonably active life. She has likes and dislikes. The mind is a mystery, and the extent to which she does or does not understand things is unknown. Operating with limited data, we are forced to speculate, and that raises the stakes in deciding how to treat her.

Ultimately, the choice is made by her body, frail and overburdened as it is. Morphine will flow generously to wrap her into a warm cocoon of comfort for her voyage to the far shore. She will decline until she breathes her last. Some people choose the manner and time of their own death, but for most of us we don’t have much of a say in the matter. Life is about learning to detach yourself from worldly objects and pleasures, and the denouement of the whole journey is learning to detach from our imperfect bodies. She may not be aware of this, but she will come to know it. Maybe her sister and mother will be there to wave her into a place where she can roll around in the cool grass in soft afternoon sunlight forever, having transcended her physical body and attained freedom at last. At least that’s how I would like to imagine it.

I was unaware of how severe my mental illness was until last year. I had bad anxiety – I was aware of that – and transient depression, but I felt I could function just as well as someone without these conditions. I have been on the receiving end of someone’s severe mental illness, so I thought that I had a good idea what that would look like. My problems were more of a nuisance, persistent but not debilitating. I was medicated and that would keep me from falling into a worse state.

I was so confident in the mild nature of my anxiety that in 2015 I decided that I didn’t need medication anymore. This is not something unusual in mentally ill people. The side-effects become more bothersome than the condition. Plus, we are not feeling like we did before medication, so maybe it’s not a problem anymore. Maybe it was related to adolescence after all, and now that we’re adults, it’s not going to be as bad. There is a desire in all of us to feel like we are normal. Needing medication to stabilize our brain is not normal. Therefore, if we can get off the medication, we will be normal.

So, for four years or so, I was unmedicated. At the end of 2015, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, we lost some dogs suddenly, and we discovered that part of our house was full of wood rot and needed to be rebuilt. The next year was consumed by long months of cancer treatment combined with construction done by one carpenter, which required my assistance. The following year my father-in-law died suddenly. I was anxious all the time and thought it was normal, somehow. I developed insomnia which meant I would get up every morning as early as 2:30 AM and walk for up to ten miles.

It was only after years of this that I determined that my anxiety was not, in fact, normal, and that my belief that I had left the need for medication behind was delusional. I went back on venlafaxine. It’s a horrible drug in several ways but it works for me. I was finally able to sleep like a normal person and did not feel on the edge of disaster all the time. Things got better for a while.  But, at some point in the last few years, I had to increase the dosage. The side effects became worse, but I couldn’t stay on the lower dose because it had stopped working like it had before. This was because my stress level had increased. A traumatic volunteer experience plus having a friend become psychotic made life feel much less stable.

Last year I had a breakdown. In a lot of ways, it was the culmination of decades of dealing with traumas by moving forward. Imagine being a runner and repeatedly falling and injuring yourself. Each time, instead of addressing the injury, you get up and start running again. This is how I lived. I believed that I always had to be the one to take care of things. I believed that there was no one who could help me, and I didn’t want help anyway. If I asked for help, surely I would be seen as weak or lazy or incapable. I am a fixer, and whatever it is, I will fix it. So last year, after a particularly stressful spring and early summer, I finally collapsed. As hard as I tried, I could no longer get up on my own. So, at the insistence of my wife, I went back to the doctor and asked for a dosage increase. I did not want to go up another 75mg, because I remember the last time I was at that level, in 2004, the side effects and the flat feeling it gave me were hard to take. My doctor also gave me the names of two mental health clinics so I could find a therapist.

I did not want to do talk therapy and did not believe it would be beneficial to me based on experience. I was dead wrong about that. The therapist I found listened to me and changed my thinking about my behavior. Things that I thought were normal turned out to not be so. I was given a battery of diagnostic tests. Each test resulted in me meeting the criteria for whichever condition it tested for. I have a cluster of symptoms and behaviors that could be autism, OCD, ADHD, or some combination of the three. I will try to describe my most debilitating and persistent symptom.

Have you ever had a thought enter your mind, unwanted? Intrusive thoughts are not that uncommon, however, the way I have intrusive thoughts is different. My mind likes to revisit past negative experiences and try to analyze them. This is not unusual on its own, but I obsess over them. I reanalyze past events, try to find things I missed, seek out hidden messages I did not get at the time, and play out “what if?” scenarios. If this was a one-time event, it would be fine; the trouble is that I become obsessed with it for months. Every day I will be bombarded with intrusive thoughts. Without conscious effort I will become enthralled in the little game my mind plays. I will replay visual and audio memories repeatedly to the point it resembles watching a short film on a loop, from the time I wake up until I go to bed. I don’t like uncertainty and there is nothing less certain than past events that feel unfinished. Not being able to attain certainty or solve the problem, I can never be satisfied. This leads to extreme anxiety and depression. Sometimes the only thing that can end it is if a present-day crisis presents itself. In that case, all my analytical abilities – and the desire uncertainty creates – shift to the new problem.

Therapy has made me realize this is disordered thinking, but it has also made me have to deal with the fact that I will never be able to get rid of it. Managing it is possible, but it will remain a life-long condition. Some days I am more accepting of this than others. Sometimes, at a low point, I will have suicidal thoughts intrude, never to the point of planning or considering it but present. I know that sounds bad, but it’s my problem-solving tendency throwing out ideas, not something I would ever consider. I think it’s just hard to accept that I am not “normal” and that I won’t ever be. On days when my thoughts feels stifling, I descend into a deep well of despair. On days like that, it is hard to function.

I feel better than I did a year ago thanks to therapy and medication. It has been incredibly difficult to get to this point. Therapy is very hard work when you are forced to address the things that scare you, the things that you have tried to suppress, the things that you ran from. I do not want to deal with these things, but at almost 42 years of age, I need to. Before they kill me. I am trying to be open about it, because feeling ashamed and hiding it is not helpful. I am trying to be compassionate towards myself. I can’t really allow myself to feel shame for something I can’t control, and you shouldn’t either if you also are suffering from mental illness. We are all imperfect creatures trying our best out here, after all.

“Please eat.”

The first time I said this was Saturday morning, as it had been 24 hours since he last ate. I was growing concerned by his lack of appetite and energy. Since he had come home he had mostly slept, and I assumed he was just tired from being in the hospital for three days. But now it was Sunday, and the extra appetite stimulant I picked up on Saturday afternoon had done nothing.

“Please eat.”

I woke up Sunday morning dreading the day to come because I could see it in my head. I knew this was it. He was not going to get better, and there was nothing left for us to do but the inevitable. I have done this more times than I can remember. The act itself becomes liberating compared to the agony you experience beforehand. There is a pall cast over everything until you are there, in the quiet room, waiting for the doctor to come in.

“Please eat.”

Waiting is so painful because you see them alive and know that they will soon be only memory. You see their little bodies breathe, you watch their little movements, you soak in their presence. All of this will be gone in minutes or hours. There is also the lingering hope – stupid, irrational hope – that they will make a miraculous recovery. I have never seen a miracle.

“Please eat.”

I had already been crying Sunday morning as I read stories from people who knew that their dog’s disease had won. The stories were filled with pain and also the deep love these people had for their pets. Reading their descriptions, though, told me we had reached the end. I got up and did my morning routine, I took the dogs out, I fed the other dogs their breakfasts. They were unaware that anything was amiss. Then I tried to feed Felix, knowing it was fruitless.

“Please eat.”

I was begging him. I felt my grip on things fail. Within seconds I was weeping and wailing, loudly and violently. I do not remember the last time I had a breakdown like this. I had spent my week from Tuesday until that moment lost in worry about this dog, and I had spent an insane sum of money to try to save him. I would have kept spending it, too. But when I got the secondary appetite stimulant on Saturday, the doctor let me know in so many ways that this was a last-ditch effort. The next step would be a feeding tube, she said, and at that point she would ask the client what they hoped to accomplish. I knew what she meant.

At the vet hospital, I held him while the techs got an IV catheter in him and checked his blood sugar and ketones. I saw the results instantly and knew. He was exactly where he was when he got there on Tuesday. The doctor offered the possibility of hospitalization at a specialty hospital and a feeding tube. We would not do that to him. Half an hour later I held him in my arms while he exhaled for the last time.

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Felix was something of an add-on dog. We originally were trying to pull another dog named Balto and learned he was bonded with Felix. So, being crazy, we were going to take both of them. But Balto was adopted, leaving Felix alone in a particularly bad shelter. And he ended up being very sick with a respiratory infection, which pushed the date of his arrival back. Instead of finding some sort of transport to send him up here, I decided to fly into Ontario so I could pick him up in San Bernardino. I would have to stay overnight.

I picked him up in the late morning and decided, on a whim, to drive into the mountains. I had a little bed and a stuffed elephant for him, and we drove up through Rim of the World and Crestline and turned around at Lake Arrowhead while listening to Buffalo Springfield. In Crestline we share a hamburger and fries. He was a perfect little companion. To kill time before checking into the hotel in Ontario, we drove all the way to Pomona and back. He was perfectly happy laying in his bed and occasionally sleeping. At the hotel I fretted about leaving him alone while I went to get dinner. But when I got back to the room, he was curled up sleeping on the couch.

That was Felix in a nutshell. He was perfectly fine just hanging out and nothing seemed to bother him. A lot of chihuahua mixes are decidedly not chill, but he was just an easygoing, pleasant little dog. He loved people and people loved him. He loved life and was never happier than when he was sleeping in the sun. It was almost like he knew he had gotten a reprieve and was committed to enjoying his time on earth.

I thought we would have more time with him. It seems unfair that we knew him for less than six years. But you never know with shelter dogs if they are older than you think or younger, so time is not something guaranteed. When he passed, it occurred to us that he might have been older. But it doesn’t much matter. He was taken from us and now we are deprived of his presence in our lives, and we are poorer for it. I think I will resolve to try to live my life like he would, taking things as they come and not letting the stress of the world get to me. In that way, his spirit can live on.