I was eight years old when Back to the Future came out. (Fine, do the math. I’M FORTY.) I remember recapping the movie to a friend on what would now be called a playdate but at the time was just called being a kid. We were in my front yard, and I told her about the scene at the end when Doc Brown warns Marty that his kids are going to be assholes. But tragedy occurred in the recounting: I accidentally said the a-word. Aghast at my blunder, I ran inside and told my mother what had happened.

My reaction to that unintentional swearing episode reveals two things to me now: 1) I was a major dork who needed constant approval from authority figures; and 2) I was terrified of God. That terror was built on a heavily Old-Testament-informed view of the Almighty and his retributive nature. I walked around in near-constant fear of him, and not the good kind meant to convey awe or wonder, but the kind where a kid keeps score of her wrongs and lives in perpetual shame.

Read the rest over at Mockingbird!