"My Father, the Morning Star" by Rita Chang-Eppig

January 2, 2022

I was born into the Church of Scientology. My mom and dad worked at Sea Org, and when I was a baby I was cared for by strangers. My mom wasn’t allowed to breastfeed me, and she only saw me before and after her sixteen hour workdays. She and my dad made very little money. I am grateful that my mom left the church before I was two years old. I don’t know what really happened. What she told me is: I called my parents and told them I was trying to leave, and then I told the church that my parents would call the FBI if I didn’t come home. There was a story about driving from Southern California to Kirkland, WA, where her parents, my grandparents, lived. I had diarrhea. That was always part of the story. My aunt’s story is that my mom’s parent’s drove down and saved us. I’ll never know the real story.

I grew up with my mom’s narrative of Scientology. At eighteen she moved to Los Angeles. Not sure why. She worked at the Unicorn Cafe and a pretzel stand. She met my dad, who was in his late thirties and had a fancy suit for his position within the church (all those suits were designed to look like the Navy; ironically my dad had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy when he was younger).

There’s a famous test Scientology does, where they hook you up to a machine and measure how many thetans are in your blood or something. It’s bullshit, but my mom took the test because she fell in love with my dad, and they (according to her) locked her in a room and brainwashed her. She cried when she told me about it, and I heard it over and over again from a very young age, and despite the abundance of new age books in our house I have always been hyper-critical of religion. How could I not be? My grandma was a lapsed catholic who took me to her AA meetings with her. At my grandfather’s Buddhist temple I admired the statues and inhaled the sweet smoky smell of incense.

It was at Grandpa’s temple that I felt most at home, and because of that, maybe, I have continued to study Buddhism. There is no god there. Maybe that’s why. There is no room to be locked in. There is nothing I absolutely must believe that I can’t prove to myself.

“My Father, the Morning Star”

When I announced my stories, Chang-Eppig said this one wouldn’t measure up to being included here. I understand the writerly instinct to talk down one’s work, but after two readings, I disagree. This is an expansive story about god and satan, religion, humanity, the burden of needing to fit into one’s destined role, aging, and love. It’s told from the perspective of the daughter of satan (if I am getting things right. I told you, I am not a religious person). He’s made her from his own tears, and she is blood red in color.

Like all of the best narrators, his daughter (I’ll call her star, not capitalized, as her friend Carreau calls her in the story) is burdened by parental expectations and unsure of the fabric of the world around her. One night, after seeing her mangled father stone-still on his throne, burdened by the duty “to sow chaos and discord, to poison minds with hate and harden hearts with greed.” The morning after, she decides to leave the underworld and venture into the world of humans, hoping to understand them.

The method of narration here is formal; vintage. Biblical, of course. Yet the narrator is also familiar. Confiding. As the daughter of satan, she suffers and her father suffers. She dislikes seeing others suffer in the human world. Upon witnessing homelessness, she offers two people sleeping in an entryway warmth, and they immediately “broke into a fetid sweat, their blood roiling with fever.” Every time she offers some sort of kindness, it causes more suffering.

An angel, Sachiel, befriends star and they roam together, both of them burdened. star has come to believe that angels are callous and uncaring, but Sachiel clarifies. They must not feel anything for humans or their hearts will break. God, angels— none of them are capable of undoing the work of the underworld, so they would suffer as much as humans if they had attachments to them.

This story is parceled out, broken up by spacing which creates easy transitions from the present journey in the human world and more musings on the world below, as well as heaven. As star sees it, god, satan, and the human are locked into a state of codependence. She visits an agnostic community burying the dead and asks if they will pray. “For what purpose?” a woman answers her. “Prayer doesn’t change reality. Belief doesn’t take away the pain.” The woman sends star away after the procession, and star finds herself envying this group of people. While she can see into the minds of everyone who believes in god, their minds are blank to her.

When she decides to go back home, she carried with her the intention of sowing doubt into the minds of humans, to save them from this codependent existence. A way of aligning herself with her duties while also, in her mind, being kind.

I was deeply moved by this story and impressed by its intimacy and expansiveness which worked in tandem. It’s very emotional. I’m not sure how it would read for someone who has more attachment to god than I do.

Something to pay attention to as a writer: notice how much each sentence brings to this story. Chang-Eppig truly packs every sentence to the brim with descriptors and never loses the voice of the narrator. It’s balanced, though. Nothing feels excessive. I will now always think of a crescent moon “scything,” thanks to her.

You can visit Rita’s website here, where you’ll find all of her publications.

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Tomorrow I’ll be writing about Sonny’s Blues, by James Baldwin. One of my favorite stories on the planet, ever. See you then.

With love,

Stacy