just. annoyed.

Somehow this ridiculous blog made it onto a news site.

I don't think something this crazy really needs criticism. It's one of those writings where those who are predisposed to believe it will drink it down and spread it around fb as this GREAT new thing they are reading!!!!11!!! and those who aren't already in that mindset... won't.

It's not like what I'm writing is going to be some great revelation or change something.

I'm just hella ANNOYED.

Because guys. GUYS.

He starts the piece with "Two years ago, the cutest girl in Indiana was taken off the market! "

Yeeeah.

Let's all take marriage advice from the guy who has been married two years.

That's not even the bad part. "The cutest girl" and "taken off the market!"

Eeeeew. Let's just start a marriage advice post by objectifying your wife and making it sound like you acquired her in a particularly lucrative deal.

JUST EEEEEW.

I know that sometimes those things are just "sayings" but they scream disrespect. My Man has been around those sayings plenty and never once, not in conversation OR a (hopefully) thought out written piece has he EVER said something like that about me.

Combine that with the rest of the piece and here's what you get:

(allow me to translate the christian-ese for you)

"OMG! Being married is harder than I thought - even though I married the HOTTEST girl! Somehow that isn't quite enough! And since I'm a Christian, we don't actually RESPECT each other - not without Jesus FORCING us to. BUT NO WORRIES! Because we have COMMITMENT. That my wife is committed to me is all I need to know about her! And her hotness when I bought her - I mean married her! Because that's way more important than whether we even are compatible or like each other because, ya know, Jesus conquers ALL. Even sucky marriages. Because society can't give us solutions for any marriage problems! Oh, and trust me. I've been married for two years."

That last line he actually says. ("Trust me. I know. Because I've been married, two years now, to a girl who has relentlessly committed to this task with me.")

And then the false dichotomy he creates, making it sound like the secular world ("by society's standards") is the one that tells people they need/deserve/can find a super spouse. HA. Because Christians TOTES don't do that!

Aaaaahhaahahahahahahah!

AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAH!

Guys. GUYS. I just can NOT STAND IT.

Okay, I get the gist of what he is saying. No one is perfect. No marriage is perfect. And some people have their sights set a little too high and that's gonna come back to bite them in the butt. Probably for this guy and his wife this really IS a huge step in the right direction. And I know that when we married at the absurd age of 20 that we didn't have a full grasp of the realities of daily life with another person.

But there are a million other blogs that say that with much more intelligence, clarity and kindness to others who have a different experience. Someone who doesn't talk about his spouse like they are a piece of meat. Whose two freakin years of marriage haven't given them the impression they have the answer for everyone. Someone who is smart enough not to say that there are two kinds of people: "...wrong people who pretend to be right, and wrong people who are becoming right, through Jesus."

I have two friends who are a-religious and both married 40-some years. They speak in terms of soulmates, true loves and such things that this young man claims do not exist. And when I ask what their secret is they laugh and you know that, no matter the hard times, loving this person has been easy and right and beautiful and they tell me "I married my best friend, we respect each other" and one added "we never swear at each other!" This is just a tiny sampling of just people I know whose lives refute his certainty.

If believing that his marriage will always be hard work and that lowering his ideals is the only way to be happy, then good for him.

Some people don't have to live in that mental place, and are happy for 40+ years.

I can't even BEGIN to explain how much better, how much easier it was and how much more confident I became that I more than married the RIGHT one - I married a true friend, lover and soulmate - AFTER I let go of just the ideas and ideals this blogger promotes for everyone ("whether you buy the biblical view of marriage or not") and just approached our marriage as ours and cared for it as I would something beautiful, transcendent and oh so VERY "right." But that's me. That's US.

So go ahead, write what you know.

But when you're tempted to make it sound like you've found THE solution, and demand people trust you because you've been married two years?

STFU.

ignorant children

I'm just one of many who has, at some point in time, resolved to try to do better as a parent than my own parents did with me. Of course what that meant for me has changed a lot over the years.

As a college student I imagined that as a parent I would be sure to have family devotions every day, that my children would know, first and foremost, how important Jesus was to me. 

That changed.

Some of our friends had children around the same age as ours. I watched their children grow in "knowledge of the truth" and marveled at how such a large percentage of their funny-kid-stories were about how much of the Bible their children knew. Their kids talked about Jesus and knew the resurrection story and what that meant for their salvation. They sang hymns and knew Bible trivia and all kinds of stories. Two, three years old and they had it down pat.

Suddenly I saw how little of anything Bible my kids knew. We were still on the Seminary campus, still going to church regularly, still reading our Bibles, still immersed in Christian culture and the Word, still everything, or so it seemed. Husband and I told each other that we were just too exhausted to take the time to teach the children all the stories, to sing all the songs, to be *those* parents.

It was having three children in a year. Yeah. That's why.

I can't speak for Husband, but that wasn't why. I tried not to think about it, but when I did I realized that I really didn't want my kids to be talking or thinking about Jesus dying on the cross. I didn't care if they knew about Noah's Ark or David and Goliath and I didn't want them hearing stories of David and Bathsheba or Sodom and Gomorrha. 

Suddenly the stories I had heard and been told to love all my life seemed too disturbing and full of problems for my own children. Most especially the crucifixion - the heart of the entire narrative I had been given.

There was a time where this lack of Christian anything in my children bothered me a bit, mostly because I had been taught that it should bother me and that I wasn't a good parent without teaching my children, without bringing them up the way they should go.

Now all I feel about their ignorance is relief and a tinge of pride at what great children they are in spite of me and in spite of my failure to moralize and shame them into being who "god" wants them to be. 

And they know, first and foremost, how important they are to me.

in the name of god

We lived in Oklahoma for a mere six-ish months and in that short time the area sort of worked it's way into our hearts. More specifically, the people worked their way into our hearts.

I mourn with them, from afar, and will do the small things I can with my effort and money to help them in their time of need. Because they are people, and all people are my people. Because my parents experienced the terror of children in the path of tornados while distance separated them.  Because horrible things are horrible, and there are no platitudes or answers.

Of course, some (many?) Christians think there are answers. Or platitudes. Or prayers that make everything okay. Or that belief in God means - without exception - hope. Our only hope. 

Pat Robertson says insensitive crap. As always. And since it's Pat Robertson, you can lay his crazy at the feet of his own ridiculousness, his own self-absorbtion, his own need to decide when and for what other people are punished.

But John Piper, my least favorite famous pastor, from my own hometown, tweets Job 1:19 - "Your sons and daughters were eating and a great wind struck the house and it fell upon them and they are dead." And I watched the retweets add up (at least 65, and 23 favorites) during the short time before backlash drove him to take it down.

The always gracious Rachel Held Evans chronicles a fraction of John Piper's insensitivity to anything other than God's feelings here, and she does it with much more grace than I can muster toward Piper on a good day, let alone a day when he writes that about a place I love, for and about people who are hurting.

RHE, along with others who share her theology, are Christians I can like, who interpret the Bible in a way that can be beautiful and kind. And they have Scripture to back them up. Rachel says "What does the Bible actually teach about suffering?

That we don’t know exactly why suffering happens in every situation, and we shouldn’t claim to,

That we are to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep,

That when God wrapped himself in flesh and walked among us, God suffered too.

The great irony of Piper using the book of Job to support his theology is that the story of Job stands as an ancient indictment on those who would respond to tragedy by blaming the victim. That’s exactly what Job’s friends did, and the text is not kind to them for it, because Job is described as “blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” "

rit A year ago or more, I would've found great solace in the above - and said myself that the Bible, the book that most informed and guided my life, supported RHE's theology. I would've done my research, made the exegetical argument, gathered Scripture passages and maybe written a twenty-five page paper on exactly why the Bible is the way I want it to be, why my theology is the one that is correct.

But. I. Can't. Do. That. Any. More. 

I agree with RHE that John Piper's theology is abusive.

But I can't seem to get to a point where I can ignore the Bible passages that support it. They exist. Not that passage in Job, no. But his idea/theology of God's sovereignty is not some ridiculous construct that has no basis in Christian thought, or in the Bible. The idea of God using nature as punishment is not crazy. The thought that the only good thing is God and the only thing to live for is His Glory - and we are not even deserving of that! - is not without support in the Bible and many Christian faith traditions.

When we left seminary I was told "Remember, people will always fail you, but God never will." 

God, if he is there, already has.

A god who never condemns slavery has failed the human race. A god who can not make it clear whether or not he punishes people punitively and vengefully has already failed all of us. A god whose holy book punishes one gender with death and another with a fine makes it impossible for me to find in christianity the equality that is the first and most important line of defense against abuse. A god who creates people specifically for hell (as Piper believes) or a god who claims a victory in the end as 80% or more of the world burns in hell -  has already failed.

People like Patterson and Piper just point out how easy it is to abuse others in the name of God.

turning the other cheek

I read this older post at Slacktivist today. He references an article about Katy Perry where she speaks about her conservative Christian past. I already knew that she had grown up in a home much like my own (although with a mother who was a pastor as well as her father I thought it couldn't have been quite as conservative!) and that she was an apostate who showed the failure of her parents to protect her from worldly influences. Basically, she was a warning - a look-what-can-happen story. She was everything bad that could happen to a devoted Christ-follower. Fame, fortune, scandalous clothes and a song about kissing a girl - and LIKING it.

She got a lot of flack for saying anything about her upbringing and/or criticizing it. Here's what Fred Clark had to say about that: "All of which is to say that Perry doesn’t “slam” her strict, evangelical/fundamentalist upbringing nearly as much as she could or maybe should have.

It slammed her for 18 years and she walked away. That’s not retaliation, that’s turning the other cheek."

Ugh. That was like a punch to the gut. That's exactly how I feel right now - like my religion slammed me for 26 years. the first half of that is true of me - I was "slammed" by the christianity I was with and I slammed others in turn. The second half - the walking away - I can't seem to get. 

Hence the sick feeling in my stomach. Katy Perry - an apostate reviled by my peers and pastors alike - is a better person than I. For some sad reason I can not seem to move past wanting retaliation. Maybe it's because I can't seem to forgive myself for all the evils I in which I was actively participating or silently complicit. Maybe it's truly because I want to raise awareness. Maybe it's because I want to prove to the world at large that I am no longer *that* person.

Turning the other cheek in the form of walking away is something I sense I desperately need to do. I can see the value in progressive christianity, I can mentally assent to the truth that there are good people who are christians and bad people who are christian and being a christian is no guarantee of either. But I can not seem to get rid of this tightness in my chest when I hear the word christian - and on the other side I can not rid myself of the lingering fear of burning in hell for all eternity. I'm in a very strange purgatory where theology is still a fascinating interest to me and also the thing that gives me mental and emotional hives (and very real panic attacks) at every turn.

In the past week I also read the answers of Rachel Held Evan's Ask Jennifer Knapp. At one point Jennifer Knapp gives this insightful answer: "Retrospectively, one thing I’d say is that while it is possible to learn from the experience of being ‘in the spotlight’; it is not the most fertile soil for significant growth. The spotlight is where we celebrate and commune with what we’ve learned. The growth, the creation, self-exploration and processing, I just can’t see how we can possibly do that effectively with an audience. It’s too exposed. Being observed inherently shapes the outcome. We usually talk differently when we are being observed. We perform."

She is speaking specifically here of the spotlight that came on here while she was on tour, under a spotlight on stage, writing music, etc. But I couldn't help but find it to be true for me in a broader sense. I have never had a moment where I was not performing. I have always had to perform for parents, for grandparents, for aunts and uncles. I had to perform for people at church, at youth camp, at CYIA. Strangely enough I performed the least while at Bible college (while still a performance based atmosphere, I got by because I wasn't one of the "bad" kids) and then at seminary it was performance all the freaking time. All. The. Time. 

The word from the seminary now is that if you have social media (eg facebook) the seminarians and their wives are required to friend faculty - so the seminary can keep an eye on you. And social media is just another aspect of how public scrutiny, the spotlight, has intensified. In the past five years or so for me specifically.

This blog is a prime example of how, despite all experiences and evidence to the contrary, I seem to think that being honest in public, being open in public, being transparent through the process is a good or useful thing.

Maybe I perform, and maybe that is hindering my growth, or hindering my ability to just walk away. Maybe not. Maybe I am just delusional, thinking that honesty during the confusing times is helpful for someone - if not me, someone else - and that it won't be a hindrance to whatever I need to learn. I really have no answers.

All I know is that everyone should read all the things that were written by Jennifer Knapp. 

"The spotlight or the communal exhibitions of our human experience are necessary. It allows us to connect with others, build and reaffirm community. It can be a healing process or practical act of human expression in being ‘known.’ It’s a point of celebration of our achievements and passions. But it must be put into perspective. These are but moments-glimpses; a poem, a song, a photographic still frame in what is the long and rich story of our lives. To aspire to only that moment is to miss out on all the extravagance of life. It’s what we do into the lead up and aftermath to those moments that says more about us than fifteen minutes of fame ever will."

listening

My last blog post was a tad self-serving and whiny.

"C'mon guys, it's just SO TOUGH to learn these new languages and to be on the outside of, like, y'know, evvverrryyyythinnnnnggggg!"

And yeah. It is.  And yeah. Sometimes I suck at it. And yeah. I still don't have a clue what I'm talking about.

Maybe I should be waiting to blog until I am on more certain ground, until many of the questions I have run their course and until I have a clearer picture of what life will look like going forward. But to be honest, I think that the value (if there is any) in what I write is public self-examination, public transformation, public change. I don't want to make mistakes, or to get on my soapbox only to have it collapse under the weight of my ego.

So I'm going to just leave that post up and start talking about the important component that I ignored before.

Listening.

(Ya'll, this was inspired by a beautiful woman, whom I love very much.)

Feminism and inclusive language of all kinds are not my first language. I also had been taught a very specific way to misinterpret the words that I heard. When a feminist says "patriarchy" they mean "men are all evil and suck!" When a feminist says "down with the patriarchy!" they mean they want a matriarchy. When feminists say "women need men like fish need a bicycle!" they really mean we should ditch heterosexuality and all 'become' lesbians!

I was taught a specific way to interpret language about race ("they are just whining about old wounds!") and poverty ("they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps!") and other denominations ("catholics worship mary! heathens!") and religions ("all Muslims are militant!") and just about any other group that was not a part of my family or social circle - or even those who were.

A few years ago when I was finally open to learning from others, that learning took the form of listening. Not listening with the goal of debunking their opinions. Not listening while inside forming my rebuttal. Not listening just so I could say that I had. Listening while trusting their opinions had merit. Listening and believing them when they said "I don't hate men" and "I can't pull myself out of this." Listening to the words they were using and asking them what those words meant, instead of deciding for myself that I had the right alternate interpretation.

I was not speaking my original language. I was learning not only new concepts but new ways of speaking about those concepts.

In my last post I forgot one very important thing. I don't speak their language because I am not done listening and learning. In all honesty I hope (and know) I will never be done learning and listening. It's not the fault of anyone but myself that I have taken so long to realize that I even NEED to learn other languages, that there even are other valid languages. And it will also be my fault if I ever think I can be done listening.

Part of the thing I miss about my uber-christian life is how I could speak with authority. I knew my subject, I knew my language, I knew my audience, I knew how to tailor my words and actions to be acceptable and laudable. I could bring others around to my point of view and just be seen as "godly."

The humility of needing to listen - of learning how little I truly know, how few languages I can truly speak - is a very good thing. I may feel slightly cut off from community right now, but part of that is because of my tendency to be the one speaking with authority. The one with answers. The one who has ingested all the researched and pooped out a perfectly formed truth. That kind of certainty accomplishes alienation, no matter what community you're in.

That's not me. Not anymore. Inside, anyway. Old habits, though, die hard.

I just hope I can continue to listen, continue to learn and continue asking the questions.

And I hope those in all communities and who are fluent in other languages will forgive me as I stumble along.

hymns

As a nanny I cared for the most beautiful, sweet, perfect child. He had neuromuscular problems, he couldn't move his legs and at a year he had the mental capacity of a three month old. I cared for him for a year, my first year away from Bible college, my first year as a married woman, my first year on my own. In that year I fell in love with him, his older sister and his younger brother.

I gave him baths pretty much every day, and for some reason I found myself singing to him.

he leadeth me, o blessed thought
o words with heavn'ly comfort fraught
what e'er i do, where e'er i be
still tis god's hand that leadeth me

sometimes mid scenes of darkest gloom
sometimes where eden's bowers bloom
by waters still, o'er troubled sea
still tis his hand that leadeth me

We were that christian family - the one who had the hymnal memorized, who sang together while washing dishes, whose love of music was based on The Concordia Hymnal.

When this little boy I loved with my whole heart left this world, I held to that hymn I had sung him hundred of times.

and when my task on earth is done
when by thy grace the victory's won
e'en death's cold wave i will not flee
since god through jordan leadeth me

I still cry, reading those words.

Today I was driving my own three precious children and listening to the ever-popular Mumford and Sons. The song was Below My Feet.

keep the earth below my feet
for all my sweat, my blood runs weak
let me learn from where i've been
keep my eyes to learn my hands to serve
keep my eyes to learn my hands to serve

I was singing along, quietly, and suddenly I heard the tone, the heart - it was a hymn. I was overwhelmed by how easily these words became a prayer of sorts, a hymn for me. I had no thought in my head that I was praying for some other One to keep the earth below my feet, or to keep my hands and eyes - just that these were things I desired. To learn from where I've been, to learn, to serve.

[Mumford and Sons, for the record, have stated that their music is not Christian and Marcus Mumford eschews the label, but if you look up the meaning for these lyrics person after person interjects Jesus and God and salvation and death and more.]

Guys. It felt so natural. Hymns.

Also this weekend I found myself attempting to talk about things I am learning about and things I absolutely care about. Inclusiveness, feminism, psychology and more. And I floundered. I totally floundered. Inclusive language, sensitivity to others, not acting like an asshole - I kind of flailed about.

In this blog post (which just exploded my mind with ZOMG that's ME!) the phrase "identity suicide" comes up and can I tell you that ZOMG that's ME.

I kind of can't find my footing right now. I imagine that feeling will persist for years. My identity was wrapped up in the Church, was defined by the Church and my future was written and determined by the Church. (Or God, or Jesus, if you prefer.)

I speak about fifteen varieties of Christian-ese. The uber-conservative one, the homeschooling one, the evangelical one, the slightly liberal one, the liberal one and more denominational and theological tongues than I care to think about. I speak these, for the most part, fluently and with a fairly comprehensive knowledge. I can converse with jesus-hippie-libs and dogmatic doctrine-over-person christians. I have the words!

That's important to me. To have the words.

But those languages, those words, are useless to me. Identity suicide somehow involves learning how to speak all over again.

So I find myself pouring over feminist literature, trying out new words. I am learning what kind of inclusive language my GLBTQIA (or QUILTBAG) friends would prefer. I even have to relearn what kind of language that I used to employ is implicitly (or explicitly) racist, sexist, ageist, ableist, etc.

Guys. I'm flailing here.

Twenty-five years of indoctrination and feeling that any other way of viewing things would cause God to be displeased with me? That conditioning is not easily overcome. But I'm working on it, I'm learning, I'm getting better.  Not fast enough, though, because one more hurtful word, one more racist or sexist statement is one too many.

And here I am, working at this like mad, and then hymns.

Maybe I need to do that most difficult thing and give myself time, forgive myself and give me a little space and grace. I do not know how to balance, to remember and enjoy the good parts of my history, my "culture of origin" and the faith that has defined my life for so long, with the new and good things I am learning now. How much can I or should I hold onto and how much should I leave behind?

Even in this, I find myself remembering one of the hundreds of verses I memorized -

"It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes." (ecclesiastes 7:18)

I'm not, according to my faith-culture, one who fears God. And, as I said, I have no idea if there are good things I should be holding onto as I reach for something better.

But perhaps, someday, I will find a new place that honors both the truth-seeker and the mystic in myself.

"After I deconverted and felt like I was losing all of my identity (since I had always shaped and understood every part of it around Christianity), in picking up the pieces I began to think that what must really have been core about me all along were my commitments to truth and to loving other people. Those were the real constants, the things that proved more important than the faith—enough that I had the strength to actually leave it even. And they have proved the most enduring parts of me too, as they remain core parts of who I am over thirteen years later."
( go here. read. )

she was a woman. that was bad.

The lovely Sarah Bessy asked, via twitter, for others to tell her the feminist stereotypes they heard coming from the church. I'm sure she will post about this, and I'm sure it will be beyond fantastic, as is all of her writing. And I won't spoil the fun of discovering the many disturbing tweets when she writes about them, or when you find them yourself on her twitter. I will say that I had heard all of those stereotypes before, and all from church leadership. Reinforced by family and homeschool leadership and basically anyone and everyone I knew. Including everyone I knew and discussed this with in college. And everyone I knew and discussed this with through my husband's seminary years.

Feminists: Destroying the Family Since The Feminine Mystique.

In 1992 I was six-and-a-half and precocious. I climbed trees and kicked boys in the shin when they looked up my skirt - although sometimes one of my withering looks was enough to scare them away forever. I read at least one chapter book a day and I had the vocabulary of a high schooler. And I absorbed everything. I remembered more than my parents comfort level could take.

There was, that year, a bit of political uproar in my house. My parents, my grandparents - I remember them despairing over the state of the world.

"His wife kept her maiden name. Hillary RODHAM Clinton. I guess we all know who wears the pants in that house!"

"I want to elect a man to the White House, not vote for his name and get the wife instead!"

We walked to the Post Office so my stay-at-home-homeschooling mother could mail her work-from-home crafts. She was etsy before there was etsy, selling her creativity all over the US.

Someone had hung a flier for Clinton.

My mother chatted with the Postal worker and mailed her packages and I read the flier. Six year old me, curious beyond belief about these people I had heard of and never seen. These people who were the ones bringing down the world.

I stared. I stared. I stared. There was a normal man and a normal woman. They had their pictures in our Post Office. He was trying to be President - but she was going to RULE.

"Hillary RODHAM Clinton. Hillary RODHAM Clinton."

I whispered those words to myself, rolled them around in my mouth. I knew there was something really awful about them - some horrific meaning to the word Rodham that I just could not comprehend.

She wore "the pants." That was bad.

She would give him advice, or tell him what to do. That was bad.

She was a woman who would give advice to the President. That was bad.

She was a woman. That was bad.


There are people in my life who believe I don't remember things the way they actually happened. Unfortunately these memories are as clear as day. I can tell you the bike I tried to ride to the Post Office. I remember the packages piled on my sister's lap in some kind of wagon. I can see the flier, and I can still taste the rancid word Rodham on my tongue.

That was the first anti-feminist (truly, anti-woman) beliefs and language that I can recall.

And I absolutely internalized this language in the way I detailed above. There was something wrong with women having power. There was something wrong with being a woman.

After all, if there was nothing wrong with being a woman, there would be nothing wrong with a strong, influential woman, who chose to name herself whatever she pleased.