Some random thoughts about the conviction this early morning.
“We’re in Hawaii being bad.” I think this is how Tara changed Coleman’s life. Chris grew up in a devout family. When he married, his wife took on the faith and embraced the Joyce Meyer Ministry fully...finding her friends there...becoming involved in missions....and in bringing others to the peace she’d found.
One of those “others” was her friend Tara, the divorced strip club waitress, whose life had followed a very different path. Sheri hoped to “convert” Tara to a life of faith and service, but it was Tara that converted Chris to a life of “being bad.” I think Tara was Chris strength to rebel...the threat letters calling Meyer a “hypocrite” were Chris venting at his employer, and the values he’d been raised with, the “goody-two-shoes” wife...everything that kept him, to his mind, caged in. Not free.
Tara was freedom. Sexy texts and videos every day. Hotel room trysts in beautiful places. Do whatever feels good. Please yourself. Pleasure yourself. Take what you want.
Sheri was responsibility. God. Family. Faith. Walk that straight and narrow. “Do unto others”... Sheri was a cage.
And Chris’ job was a cage. It paid far too well to leave and he had security that only long-standing personal ties to the Boss might bring you. He wouldn’t be “special” if he went someplace else.
So, he devised, over months, a plan to beat the system. A way to “be free” and in the morality of Tara’s world, get what he wanted and get rid of what he didn’t. Tara’s creed was “take what you want.” Your best friends husband, his kids’ vacation, ..she taught him well.
Chris would take Tara and the job and slaughter Sheri and the little boys.That’s what felt good.
He’d be Tara’s Bad Boy...masquerading in a well paying Good Boy job. Ha! Ha! How they would sneer at them all. Joyce Meyer, Pastor Daddy, Sheri, her family, people who live by rules and morality...FOOLED YA!
So how’d that work out for you, Chris?
Life in prison is the ultimate cage. But, think of it, if he wants to keep Daddy Pastor sending candy-bar money and preaching about his innocence...he has to spend his prison days as The Good Boy again...”saving Souls”...talking the talk...pretending to be what I think...he most despises. Chris is as unfree a it gets. Forced to mouth words he reviles and profess a faith he fully rejected in the most heinous fashion two years ago.
I hope Coleman lives a long, long life.