Rod's reflections of childhood abuse at the hands of a difficult stepfather who was also a church pastor take readers down an intriguing path. Juxtaposed with these extremely challenging elements was a struggle with his musical talent, effectively used to tether him to painful family dynamics. However, Rod's gift of music propels him from the worst experiences of growing up through difficult family situations to a personal realization of God's love, grace and peace. "Pillows" is a must read for anyone hungering to understand how God helps the helpless to survive life's worst and thrive in spite of it. Though heart-wrenching at times, he interjects humor on occasion, no doubt to camouflage some of the horrors he faced. Perhaps to that end, that laughter was often his saving grace. Seeing how beautifully Rod's spiritual understanding and musical gift are portrayed through his original songs, one would not have expected anything less from him than this brilliant work.When W.C.'s car rumbled up the driveway, it was amazing how quickly and drastically the climate changed at home. Our hearing became so acute we rarely got caught by surprise. But once every blue moon he did manage to sneak up on us, and by God, you'd better hope you weren't doing anything that could even be perceived as wrong. In fact, you'd better hope HE hadn't had a bad day, even if it had nothing to do with you. No matter what we were doing, the hum of that big Bonneville's motor made us scatter like roaches when the lights are turned on. We mastered that survival game because God help us if Mom wasn't home to be our buffer. We've all heard this before, "His bark is worse than his bite!" Yeah, well, in our case, his bark was bitter, his venomous bite worse. That constant duress exacted its toll, especially on me and my brother. During one of the countless times we found ourselves in trouble with our stepfather, he made this declaration to us, "I'd rather get my head cut off than tell a lie!" He uttered that line when he was searching for the truth about something we had or maybe hadn't done. Over the years my brother and I parroted that line in such a mocking way, it dripped with sarcasm that targeted the Rev's hypocrisy. Unfortunately, W.C.'s own lying made it impossible to build integrity with us since by then we'd already found him to have a problematic relationship with the truth. In fact, at times lying seemed to be his preferred option, despite that lofty assertion he'd made earlier. We remembered that infamous phrase, "I'd rather get my head cut off than tell a lie." We'd rehearse it each and every time that dubious statement was proven to be a lie. When adults play fast and loose with the truth, they end up digging a hole too deep to climb out of, destroying credibility they may have once had. This isn't Einstein stuff here, just good old horse sense.