Begging for Spiritual Bread (Part 1)

I was 14 at the time. The pastor of our church was hosting a family BBQ/Baptism at his rural house with a pond. A few of my friends were being baptized, so I mentioned it to my father on the ride home from church. I told him about the event and asked if he would allow me to be baptized. He said no.

I was deeply disappointed. All my fears came flooding back. I was a fake Christian, God expected more of me. Dad was right to say no. Even though I was sure I already knew the answer, I asked him why the answer was no. He explained that it was inappropriate for a woman to be baptized by anyone other than her spiritual head. It was his duty and he would baptize me himself when the opportunity presented itself.  My mother suggested that he speak with the pastor. Maybe he wouldn’t mind letting dad do the dunking. My father agreed to call.

And so with no discussion of my heart or soul, I was scheduled to be baptized. For two weeks leading up to the event, I tried harder than ever to get my heart right with the Lord. I spent hours just praying, begging God to reveal himself to me. I poured over every page in the bible, looking for something that would move me to tears, or at least make me feel like this was real. I started to think that maybe God would show me something after the baptism. Or maybe even during! I dreamed of rainbows and rays of sunshine that God would send especially for me. My dreams turned to faith. I KNEW God would come thru. So I waited.

The day of the baptism was one of the most exciting days of my life. I talked glowingly about the Lord to my friends at church. I listened intently to the sermon, despite the butterflies in my stomach, waiting for a hint from God that he was planning something great. The sermon was about some Old Testament character and did not apply to me in the least, but I shrugged it off in anticipation of the baptism.

Later that day, I watched as, One by one, people waded out into the pond to be dunked by our cheerful pastor. Each one came up smiling. They scurried out of the water to hug their families and be congratulated. Nobody was speaking in tongues, or prophesying, and I knew that God was saving that for me. Finally it was my turn. My dad cuffed up his sleeves and waded out into the pond. I tucked my skirt between my legs and with one last silent prayer, I followed him. I heard the pastor reciting something about the father, son and Holy Spirit.

                                     ............and then down I went.

   

(To Be Continued)

I Am Human

In my senior year of High School, I attended a “rebolution” event hosted by Brett and Alex Harris. They are the little brothers of the infamous Joshua Harris (author of “I kissed dating goodbye”) and the sons of Gregg Harris (a well known leader in the Home School community.) The “rebolution” is a movement that challenges young people to rise above the low expectations of the culture and become men and women of honor. At first it sounds like a great idea. The American teenager is often pushed aside and discounted. We are not treated as full members of society. I loved the idea of a movement encouraging kids to fearlessly pursue their dreams and step outside the “irresponsible teenager” box. However, the Harris brothers do not want kids to pursue their dreams. They want them to pursue “God’s” dream. Much like Eric and Leslie Ludy, they teach young people that God has a plan for them bigger than any dream or desire they might have. They talk about our fallen, depraved culture and about life’s struggles, and then proceed to give us the recipe for success. No matter what your situation in life, you can fix it by “selling out” to Jesus. They tell us that it is impossible to engage in the world and still be a real Christian. All our problems are caused by our lack of faith, by our inability to leave the world behind and trust God fully. They challenge kids to stand up in the middle of the seminar and confess their apathy. They demand that we forsake all, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. I saw kids with tears streaming down their faces, convinced that they had finally found the answer. I watched them commit to purity and promise to throw away all their secular music. I saw girls zip up their jackets, ashamed of the clothing that so clearly represented the world. I watched an auditorium full of my generation get swept away.

Christians get all excited about the idea of being set apart. It makes you special, part of something bigger, and definitely on the winning team. I’m not sure when Fundamentalists decided that the highest form of devotion was separation, but somewhere along the line, they decided that our souls were the only important part of our being. The human body, Emotion, Culture, Self expression, and the fruits of the human mind have somehow become the enemies of our souls. We all want to be fulfilled. As humans, this often leads us to make radical decisions and do crazy things. There is nothing more radical than denying our very humanity.

To remove yourself from “the world” is to remove yourself from your humanity. Humans have bodies and minds as well as souls. We create art and music and scientific theories. A lifestyle that demands only spiritual expression will squelch human emotion. A worldview that rejects any knowledge and beauty apart from God will not engage or value the power of the human mind. We cannot pick and choose which parts of our being to keep or throw away.  When you do this, you run the risk of setting yourself above all others. I was taught from an early age to look down on women wearing makeup. I was taught that my emotions were something to hate and my sexuality was something to be ashamed of. I was taught Doctors were liars and the Psychology was the devil’s work. I was taught disdain for fashion and culture. Fundamentalist groups see human nature as evil. They promote a lifestyle that is supposedly Godly only by virtue of being different from everyone else. They have lost site of the enduring and troubled beauty that is humanity. Humans are blessed with a range of emotions and senses as wide as the sky and as deep as the ocean. History and culture are a canvas painted by human hands, minds and hearts. We are an excellent and fascinating creation.

I love knowing that i am no different from the guy sitting next to me on the bus. For the first time in my life I acknowledge my feelings as valid and natural. I am fascinated by psychology and the study of the human mind. I am free at last to engage in my culture without fear of demons or destruction. I LOVE BEING HUMAN. Brett and Alex Harris mean well. They were taught what I was taught. They think they have found the answer and they are passionate about sharing it with their peers. But they are missing out. Humans are so much more than a soul. 

We cannot live fulfilled lives without accepting the fullness of our humanity.

Chasing Perfection

My Mother and Father were born into broken families. Both had alcoholic fathers and were raised in poverty. Both had troubled siblings and my father was physically abused. Christianity provided them with hope and purpose. They met and fell deeply in love. He was a soldier, she was a teaching student. They married and started a family right away. A beautiful baby girl, and then two, and then three. They loved their children and each other very much, but i imagine they were still afraid. Would love be enough to keep these precious little ones safe? What if the lies of the world drew them away from the love and hope of Jesus? What if they were brainwashed in school and there was nothing they could do to stop it? What if bad people drew them into drugs and alcohol, like Dad's sister? what if they made mistakes in raising them and they ended up bitter and wounded like Mom's sister?

One day my mother found an article in the newspaper about homeschooling. My dad, who had hated every moment of public school, loved the idea. They started looking into it. They soon discovered what they had been searching for all along. They discovered people who knew all the answers. Books that promised healthy happy children that feared God and loved their parents. This system taught them what God REALLY wanted for them. If they followed these steps, God would bless them. Their family would never suffer the way that THEY had suffered as children. It was calm in a world of chaos. It answered every question and calmed every fear. They implemented their new beliefs and soon began to reap the blessings of God.
It was may years before those babies grew up and rocked the boat. We are not the chaste, happy, selfless children they were promised we'd be. Between the oldest five there is depression, drug and alcohol abuse, promiscuity, self mutilation, sexual abuse, eating disorders, and suicide attempts.  But still they will not renounce the system. They hush it up, brush it under the rug, and let everybody think that we're still perfect. They see the system as something good that they were never able to achieve.  Today i see my cousins falling into the same trap.

My father's sister struggled with alcoholism and bulimia her whole life. She and her husband made some terrible mistakes and eventually their family fell apart. leaving my cousin Wendy (not her real name) and her two siblings in a wake of destruction. Her brother got into drugs, she struggled with depression. Then she met Jesus at church, and then a boy at college. This boy has 11 siblings. He was home schooled in a family that looks just as perfect as mine. His sisters are submissive and his father is a strong leader. Wendy has fallen hard for this boy and everything he represents. She hopes to have his children, and teach them at home just as God intended. She wants to follow the system to a T. She has been promised that they will never suffer the way that she did. They wont get in to drugs like her little brother. they wont lose their virginity to a liar or lose their mother to the bottle. She thinks she has found the answer to all her fears and questions.

I have tried to pull her back from the edge, to save her like i saved myself. Maybe i still can. But right now, all she can see is perfection.The promise of certainty that just does not exist. I just hope that some day when her children tell her she was wrong, she'll have what it takes to admit it, and maybe stop this cycle once and for all... 

Independence: A Taste Of Freedom. (Part 2)

2 days after the birth of my baby brother, my dad drove me to Midway airport for my flight to Virginia and freedom. “You are never to be alone with a man at any time, not even professors”
“If a boy expresses any interest in you whatsoever, you must give him my number and have him call me before you spend any time with him”
“Remember, men are scum”
“I know this is supposedly a Christian college, but that doesn’t mean you can automatically trust people!”
I humored him and pretended like I was listening. This was the last time I’d have to hear it after all. He walked me all the way to the gate, hugged and kissed me goodbye. He was a little choked up; I was chomping at the bit. Dad had gotten better over the last year at telling us girls he loved us, but it was too late now. I was so used to not hearing it that now it all just felt so forced.
The first few weeks of college were a blur of activities, new people, and frustrations. The college was founded by leaders in the homeschooling movement, so every kid there was either a socially awkward dreamer, a spouse hunter, or a really confused public school-er who ended up there on accident. The latter describes my two best friends: Tim & Kevin. (names changed) I pretended to be just as confused as they were, but secretly I knew exactly why the college only allowed men on the security and grounds teams. I understood the theology behind shy girls with no makeup and long dresses. I silently sympathized with the blond who, free for the first time, was caught in the back seat of an upperclassman's car at night furiously making up for lost time. This place was only different from home in that I was able to be whoever i wanted. Nobody knew i was actually one of the girls sent to college only for an MRS degree. I painted myself as the tough, feminist, martial artist. My hair was boy-short and i swore allot so everybody bought the facade.


About 2 weeks into my first semester, the guy i had been dating back home started to get serious and i started to get scared. He was using the "M" word. Allot. He had been more of a stress reliever to me than a potential husband. Between "sortof-boyfriend" and the school Rules i started to feel trapped again. And the more trapped i felt, the more drawn i was to my friend "Tim". He was blond, handsome, kind, and best of all he didn't pretend to understand me. He thought i was pretty (what!?) and called me a girly girl. I found myself thinking about him all the time, ignoring calls from "sortof-boyfriend" when we were together, and smiling every time i heard his voice. When "Tim" finally asked me out, i was still technically dating "sortof-boyfriend". I said yes right away, and then dumped "sortof-boyfriend" 4 days after that.


When "Tim" (I'll just call him Boyfriend now) and i started dating, My world changed completely. He was amazing. I fought and doubted my feelings for months, but he patiently chipped away at my bitterness with honest goodness. He cared about ME. He told me my feelings were important, helped me work through the jumbled mess that was my heart. We were completely in love. Using the "M" word came easily with Boyfriend. I couldn't imagine my life without him. But still i had to keep it a secret. I couldn't gush to my Mom about how amazing he was because i knew she would tell Dad. And Dad would get in his car and drive all 13 hours just to scare off the scum bag. So of course it was a huge shock when i brought him home for Thanksgiving.


That weekend was full of screaming and tears and anger. Dad ordered me to break up with him immediately or marry him within a year. There was no other alternative. He took Boyfriend into his office and grilled him for 2 hours. "are you ready to be her spiritual head and protection?" "How are you going to provide for your family?" Boyfriend and I escaped back to school with lots of questions for each other and ourselves. I told my parents we were thinking about their ultimatum and would eventually decide between the choices. We knew we wanted marriage eventually, but we decided it was no-ones decision but our own. We would wait out these college years together and then see what happened.....

(To Be Continued)

Part 1
Part 3

About Me

I struggled to fill out the description box on my profile. How can i accurately portray myself with words? Will 500 characters be enough? Will I even be able to come up with 5? Should i list the things i do? the things i like? my struggles?

I have a million old diaries and just as many documents on my computer: all full of my rambling conversations with myself. They start when i was 8 years old. I got twin baby dolls for Christmas, they came with bottles and rattles. I loved them dearly, but they got old pretty fast. They came with their clothes sewn on permanently. What i secretly wanted was a barbie doll to dress and undress. But Barbies were not allowed in my house. They were immodest and inappropriate. They represented woman in a way that "worldly." Dr. Barbie and Lawyer Barbie would no-doubt fill my head with feminist notions about being anything other than a mommy when i grew up. And that was just not what "God wanted." Hence: the baby dolls.

The Diaries continue throughout my teenage years, there's the time i secretly kissed a boy. He told me he loved me. I thought we would get married some day. when we weren't 12 anymore. The time I got in huge trouble for rolling the waistband of my skirt. We wore them all the time. Pants were inappropriate, which made it Oh-So-Hard to ride a bike. Around 15, my writing grew darker. I was a overweight, I was awkward, I could never do anything right. I knew i would never be normal. The pages are full of anger, pain, desperation, and tears. There's the time i broke the window in my bedroom on accident: I saved the sharpest pieces of glass in a little box. They were perfect for those times when I needed to demonstrate that i owned some part of my life. It takes strength to open your own skin, to watch yourself bleed out, to wait until the dizziness started to take you before staunching the wound. The themes throughout are the same. Torn between who i want to be, who i am supposed to be, and who i am, I lost track of myself. I didn't know what my heart i looked like anymore.

I threw out a few of my diaries, tore out pages i was ashamed of, scribbled out words that showed too much emotion. Looking back, I wish i hadn't. I assume that my thoughts and feelings are a huge part of what makes me, me. I hope that by publishing them in a blog, they will become a story instead of disjointed set of words. I have this silly idea that if i throw enough paint at the canvas, I will start to see something that looks like me. I'm really excited to finally see what that looks like!