Repressed (A Ramble)

Yes, I'm mortified by the cat.
But I love saying "wobbly bobblies," so it evens out.

I grew up fairly repressed. (And I don't mean just sexually, though I do still react with over-the-top mortification when I walk in on "Game of Thrones" during a part showing wobbly bobblies, and yes that IS what I call my cat's testicles when he cleans himself at me.) Our churches tended to be very repressive and as a preacher's kid I was expected to conform. (Mostly by members. My parents have always been cool. They might have been more stressed by a rebellious kid, but they wouldn't have disowned me.)

So I conformed and was a pleasant, clean-cut, repressed little thing, and that was okay. I still think that, in fact. It's okay to be repressed and it's okay to be not repressed. As long as you're happy with who you are. Problem is, I think some of those adults I met as a child, who approved so highly of me, thought that children who weren't repressed were bad.

And that's so so wrong.

My brother frequently mentions in his sermons how he was as a young man: proud, judgemental, and kinda stuffy. I don't remember that part of him, but I take his word for it. He claims to have embodied the repressive tone of our church, and it took him years to come to a new understanding of who God is and what he wants for us. I don't think I ever got super-duper self-righteous thanks to simple obliviousness (I've always lived a little bit in my head), but I did feel the pressure to be a good role model (which has its own spiritual and social pitfalls), and if asked to point out my own sins I would have had to think about it pretty hard. Which is sad.

When I was about 17, during an online argument, I got accused of growing up in a bubble. I think about that now, and I still think it's not true. I grew up in a pretty judgmental and repressive atmosphere (parents and certain awesome folk excluded), but that isn't a "bubble." I saw plenty of fundamentally wrong things, even if I didn't recognize them at the time. People looking down on and judging others for inconsequential things. Starting full-scale feuds over differing opinions. I've seen liars and hypocrites and people who are never satisfied with anything. Uncompromising. Uncharitable. Unloving.

That's not a bubble. That's just a different perspective on the crappy side of life.

Sure, I grew up sheltered in some ways (i.e. wobbly bobblies). I had to grow out of some perspectives and into a more generous mindset. I had to figure out what the crap all those adults were so fussy about and whether it actually mattered at all, and untangling that morass took a while.

Conclusion?: People can be great or they can be horrible. Sometimes they can be both at the same time. It doesn't matter who they are or where they come from or what they believe. Trust and respect are things we earn through our actions, and I no longer hand them out like candy to my fellow Christians the way I did as a child.

Give your blind faith to Christ. Give humanity, whom he loves, fairness, kindness, and the wary understanding that some of them are going to get up in the morning and think, "Now's a good time to spatter some awful on everyone I know."