Short story purity

Melissa Ann Howell Schier
5 min readMar 24, 2024

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She had posed a question to someone in X about “purity”. The question, she thought at first, might have been misunderstood because X responded with another example, prompting a debate.

Her question was hypothetical, to make a point…
Could man do damage to himself and perhaps to others, in an attempt to be “pure”.

Her point was, that if man saw purity as a quality of “matter” then the answer would seem to be yes. But if purity were to be seen as a quality of “thought” or a belief, then the answer would be no.

Purity, she believed, existed independently of matter. Purity was the belief in the possibility of unlimited good. If confined in matter, such would seem impossible.

Purity as a quality, instead of a physical or visible attribute, could be true, even when it seemed to be false, when looking at people. For example, where her mother lived, there were many people who believed themselves to be Republican. But outwardly they would not show it because a bumper strip would get their car scratched and a labeled ball cap or shirt would get insults yelled at them and if they flew the flag, they were no longer included in round robin tennis games.

Outwardly these individuals might seem to be “undecided” or unfriendly to those who were NOT afraid to call themselves Republicans, but actually, just like their neighbors, they also believed in the constitution, were opposed to big government and its accompanying spending, wanted strong borders and did not want a deep state using a puppet president to run things in support of a global economy, where nationalism became extinct. The outward persecution or “damage” done to attempt to manipulate a population, using fear, could not destroy or change purity of thought.

But in the past, people thought it could and when such people believed that a person must show signs outwardly of attempting to achieve purity, (such as sacrificing animals, or wearing sack cloth, or being put in the stocks, or being burned at the stake), these forced behaviors were mistakes that were made in the understanding of what really defined and demonstrated purity.

Hitler thought a specific race SHOULD be perfect/pure. As History shows us, his fear of failure to achieve purity, as self punishment for not understanding that such purity is not achieved in matter, took the form of mass exterminations and did a LOT of damage.
Those who did not “fit” his “idea” of what “purity” should look like physically, (representing his failure to achieve what he thought was perfect purity) were destroyed, literally. What a horrible lesson the world learned as a result about what “purity” means or is.

X brought up that psychoanalysts, who put men who have done evil, in a room with lots of lights with nowhere to, in an attempt to penetrate their “beliefs” and ask the right questions to understand the motivation of evil, do damage to the “body” as well. A wrong belief put into action, is a gross misunderstanding of good. Good does not justify evil.

To attempt to understand “purity” by understanding its opposite, Evil, is a mistake. To be afraid of purity, because of the unlimited abilities it demonstrates, is also a mistake, as that was what happened to someone related to the big boss. Fear causes human beings to do damage to themselves or to others. Those who do evil who ask for help from the big boss, have the opportunity to experience reformation. But fear of punishment, or fear of lack, can disrupt that process.

Fear of not getting power equal to men is what causes women to do damage to pure infants. But the unlimited nature of purity, which ironically begins anew with each newborn idea, is selectively presented to women, always as a gift.

The law can regulate the way people respond to fear, but trust in unlimited good, has to be a choice and it is learned and developed by the application of good in each presenting situation.

So the debate brought up by the individual in X about psychoanalysts was interesting, and parallel, but not really about the role of mankind in finding out how purity is acquired. It is not acquired, it is a gift.
She stopped writing, as the birds chirped outside the base, and the light started to come through the sofly draped sheers floating in front of the window. What would the big boss say about what she was writing.
She went to go ask.
This is what the big boss responded to her about what she (or others) should do if afraid…
“Then my enemies will retreat on the day I cry for help. By this I will know that the big boss is on my side. In the big boss, whose word I praise, as my master, in him I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

She did not have to have all the answers as she was not the big boss, with his unlimited understanding. She was trusting in his ways and means committees. She smiled as she always had gotten in the habit of turning to her boss, when she needed help and he had never failed her.

The ways of men were not his ways. Reformation of thought achieved the understanding that purity was intact and that good was not damaged. Restoration of behavior that matched an understanding of the unlimited quality of good, gave outward indications of such.

The words she had typed “of the” were backwards. “NO Y, mirroring is not flipped” she laughed as she corrected it. To understand good is not to do the reverse of good, appearing or attempting to “look” the same, (the way a mirror seems to look the same as the image it reflects but is the reverse), as the reverse of good is evil and not good. Good resides as a quality of thought she concluded, not as a material image to be manipulated. And the big boss was really good at knowing the quality of each individuals thought and was doing things to help each one restore purity, where perhaps it had become distant in their thinking.

It was time to ask the big boss for help, as the people who were doing damage, were not listening. “Big boss, will you help me now” she asked. THANK YOU she said immediately afterwards, knowing he would act.

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Melissa Ann Howell Schier

HoustonWorkout on YouTube, mom of five, journalist and artist and conservative who values life.