A Restful Place

I grew up in a conservative church. My parents had their heads on straight, as did the church they settled down at when I was fourteen, but we moved around a lot before that because my dad was a preacher and dysfunctional churches are the ones who need new preachers the most often -- because they don't retain preachers for very long. (Dysfunctional churches have the worst conflict management.)

Right now, in my thirties, I need a church that can remind me that being a Christian is a joy, not a burden.

Growing up, I learned all about the rules. Don't do this, don't do that. I know the rules. Over and over, for years and years, I had them drilled into me. Today, I don't want to attend a place that keeps harping on the rules. It's ground I've already covered. It's redundant. It's a waste of my time. And it's depressing. When all you get is the Do Nots, where is the joy? There is no joy. I'm done with Do Nots. Now I need Dos. I need hope. I need comfort. I need joy. I need simplicity and a place to rest.

This, but nobody ever let us inside. Thank God.

In my conservative Christian college, there was constant pressure to evangelize. I went on a mission trip where we doorknocked and, aside from liking the people I went with (it's how I met my husband) and the people arranging things, I hated it because it felt like a sales pitch.

This is how much I hate selling things: in high school, I had to sell chocolate bars for choir. All day, other students would come up to me and hand me a dollar, and I'd hand them the chocolate. It was the easiest gig possible, and I hated every second. It made me tense and miserable and anxious, and I never want to do anything like that ever again.

I am not a salesperson. I am not an evangelist. I am not a missionary or a leader or anything that my college and churches kept trying to push. I never wanted to marry a preacher because I saw how much work and stress it was for my parents, and that is not a role I have ever been equipped to fill. I still feel anxious when these things come up, decades later, because pressure became associated with these things in my mind.

Today, I need a light and fluffy church. Somewhere that doesn't cover the hard issues too much. Not because I want to ignore those issues but because I've heard about them so much that they've made me weary and eroded any joy I once had.

I need a balm now. I need rest. I need to be accepted without being pressured. If I can get that, maybe I'll get to an emotional and spiritual place where I can actually be of use in one way or another.

But I'll still never be or want the things I grew up pressured to be and want.

And that's okay.

* My parents have never pressured me.

** My parents have sound theology that was not as strictly conservative as some of the churches my dad preached at. My dad is a common sense sort of preacher, and I always paid attention and internalized his lessons, especially because he was my dad. I can't think of much he taught that I disagree with even now. In the car once, he made fun of a Bible guy on the radio who connected every last line of scripture to baptism. Every. Last. Line. Dad laughed and laughed about one particular line he thought nobody could get baptism out of and the guy still did  (Dad believes in baptism but that radio guy was 100% ridiculous). Dad has a great sense of humor and was always sad when people stopped being themselves and went on their best behavior when they learned he was a preacher.

*** The church my parents found when I was fourteen was a restful, peaceful place. It was a place where people could have different beliefs on the minor things and it was fine. (i.e. Jesus died for our sins, but if you believe in the rapture and I don't, no worries.) The church originally formed because most of the members had left dysfunctional churches. They were tired of drama, so it was full of people who wanted a peaceful environment to worship. I'd like to find somewhere where I live now that has the same energy.

**** The churches that focused the most on rules were legalistic, meaning that they concentrated more on trying to be perfect to earn or keep God's grace than the idea that grace covers you all the time.

Repetition

If you grew up in the church, you know that there are certain turns of phrase that get popular and spread and never go away.

There's nothing wrong with that; nothing bad about it.

But the words do lose a lot of meaning and potency after a while, and the writer in me cringes b/c a lot of phrases just feel cliche when I hear them now. Overused.

So sometimes, in my head, I rephrase things for that person while they keep speaking, as if I were writing their dialogue instead of listening to it.

Writing realistic dialogue has always been one of my strengths, even when I was starting out. Vary the structure, keep it flowing but to the point, and never reuse memorable words or phrases. If I use the word saccharine, I can't use it again for at least four chapters, because it is a word that stands out. And another character can't use it as if it's an original turn of phrase. They have to use another word or reference that they got it from the first person who used it.

I can't decide if repetitive phrasing annoys me more as a person or as a writer. I THINK that my feelings about it are something that have always been part of me and have informed my writing.

Anyway, that's a long-winded way to say nothing. :D Not a rant, just a factoid. Every now and then, I cringe because of phrases I've heard way too much in the past. The end.

Excuses, Excuses

When I was a girl, there was this idea in church that the truth was supposed to make people uncomfortable and should inspire guilt and shame.

But the result of that is that when you disagree with the mainline view of something (like cursing or alcohol), the discomfort you feel when it's condemned is seen as you balking at the truth.

So if you tried to talk about it, explain how you saw things differently... you'd just be clinging to your sin and resisting the truth.

Discussion would be shut down before it could even happen. Why should the mainline believers talk? Why listen? Why consider other points of view? One way is right and the other is wrong, so why give it any more thought than that?

How righteous is it to treat someone like their words don't matter? Like different viewpoints aren't only unwelcome but inherently sinful?

How does that bring anyone closer to Christ? How does it allow for grace? How is it compassionate or thoughtful or kind?

It doesn't and it's not.

Anyway, there was a bit of a rant in the pulpit recently about cursing, and I use cursing in some of my fiction writing. I felt guilt and shame even though I've struggled with the matter for years and found my own views on it, and I got the impression that talking about it would only be seen as me making excuses.

It helped a bit to think about my therapist and how exasperated and annoyed she'd be with that guy, but it doesn't erase the fact that a part of me wanted to squish myself back into that Sweet Obedient Little Girl box where I don't get to make my own choices or be an adult or rebel at all ever for any reason or else I'm bad and people will frown at me and judge me and reject me.

Fear is a powerful motivator to keep people in line, and rejecting other ways of thinking while refusing to listen is a great way to encourage that fear.

Men Only Classes

Growing up in the church, I understand the thought process why men have their own classes and retreats:

1. Men are leaders and need specific training.
2. Men want a place where they can bond with other men.
3. Men and women have different roles and expectations in the church.

Equality gets a passing nod by adding a Women's Class, even though the teacher is always a woman and therefore has all the same disadvantages her students have, since she obviously never had any more exposure than her students to the skill sets our men are taught. Generation after generation have perpetuated the cycle of disadvantage because someone long ago decided women don't need the same skills as men and no one ever questioned the practicality of that idea.

Here are the notes I made on my bulletin yesterday:

If the church taught me women how to lead the way it teaches men, maybe I'd have more tools to deal with being the de-facto spiritual lead of my house.

• Not a teacher.
• Taught and inclined to follow.
• Barely able to keep up my end of the housework (at all until recently).

WHAT IS THE POINT OF BANNING WOMEN EXCEPT TO TEACH MEN SKILLS THAT WOMEN DON'T "NEED" (BUT ACTUALLY DO). 

WOMEN DON'T HAVE TO LEAD SERVICE TO BE LEADERS.

We are expected to be leaders in situations with kids but are never given the tools.

Really starting to identify with women who
trash talk "the patriarchy" all the time.

Underneath those notes is a lot of anger and grief. Because I was never prepared for this. And no one ever thought that maybe girls might find a use for the skills they teach boys.

My husband, who also grew up in the church but no longer believes in God (and screw those of you now thinking about all the tactics I can use to change his mind and prepping your comments to coach me about it; how we deal with it in our marriage is none of your business, nor is my referencing it an invitation to weigh in), he said he's always been bothered by the way women are excluded. He told me exclusion is the point. I said I don't think people even consciously understand what it's doing to women or the position it puts us in, that it's just habit and tradition by now. Men's classes are a thing, they've always been a thing, and nobody really thinks about them beyond the surface reasons for having them.

Separating the sexes for gender-targeted teaching has screwed me over as the only Christian parent in my home. Because I was always taught, always told, that my husband would be the spiritual leader of my house.

But that's not what happened. And it's not what happens for widows or divorcees or single moms. Women need these skills not only because it would help us be co-spiritual leads to our children but because some of us are the only spiritual leads for our children.

And we are not prepared.

I shouldn't have to be playing catch-up. And women with leadership qualities shouldn't have to find ways to use those for the benefit of the church in spite of the church. If women at the front make you uncomfortable, fine. Women have a long history of helping behind the scenes, taking charge of programs involving traditionally female roles, but they are still at a disadvantage when the church insists on teaching men skills but refuses to teach those same skills to women.

I need those skills. And I was never encouraged to develop them. I am naturally inclined to follow, and I have always been fine with that. Plenty of boys aren't inclined to lead but are forced to learn because that's "their role," and that's a lot of unfair pressure to put on them. The church talks about women as "helpers" but how can we help take some of that load if we have no idea how? Why does the entire burden fall on the men? It's unfair to everyone involved.

Separate men's and women's classes is point-blank denying one group the chance to learn what the other is learning. Giving one group the lesser teachers, different lessons, leaving women out.

The few times I've encouraged the men in my family to have a guys' night, my sister-in-law has insisted that she be allowed to go because we're all friends and they're usually considering doing something she wants to do, like playing a game she also enjoys, or watching a movie she wants to see, and you know what? They're fine with that. Because they're not interested in excluding anyone based on gender, and they're not doing anything women can't be part of. They're not the kind of men who act differently without women around. They don't have some juvenile "no girls allowed" mindset.

We aren't lesser members of the family. We aren't considered weaker (or stronger in only feminine ways, which is a nicer way of saying weaker), and we all like each other on our own merit as people.

So when my husband and I were talking about this subject and he started joking about finding things to exclude me from, I understood it as the parody of church policy that it was. "Maybe we can randomize what we exclude you from. Like, one day we'll say no women at game night, the next time it'll be a movie you really want to see, and you'll never know when it's coming so it has that extra punch to it."

Churches need to prepare women the same way they prepare men to be spiritually strong and to lead if the occasion arises. Not to lead as women but to lead, no qualifier, end of sentence. Because the situation does arise. It has for me. It will for others. And we're not at all prepared.

Oh, and those of you who spent less of this listening to my point and more of it trying to parse together the story of my husband's situation and how much I knew when we got married and what happened and why so that you can decide how and where to assign blame? Fuck you. You're an asshole.

Sanitized Holidays

Pirate Cat disagrees with your antiquated notion of maturity.

In October, I overheard one of the teachers at my kids' school say, "We don't do Halloween at school, but we have a lot of fall-related activities."

Halloween is my favorite holiday. You get to dress up and eat candy and everything has this fun spooky sheen. It's the best possible combination of things, culminating in an experience of childlike joy.¹

The teacher's words gave me a mental pause, and in that space I thought, "Wow. I am startled by how much this doesn't bother me."

Schools today have the most bland, sanitized version of every holiday. They do it on purpose, so as not to offend anyone, and I never really knew how I'd feel about that until my favorite holiday was affected.

It breaks down like this: it doesn't matter if my kids celebrate at school, because we're celebrating it at home. And we do it up right at home.

So, let school be bland. It doesn't matter, since your kids get the real experience with you.²


(1) Not to be confused with "childishness." Childlike joy means you hop up and down when you see a rainbow. Childishness means you punch someone in the face for dissing your rainbow because you have no emotional control. Childlike joy is getting blissed out on your favorite ice cream. Childishness is pouting or screaming or breaking things when you are denied that ice cream. Some people do not understand the difference between childlike pleasure and immaturity, and those people suffer from a terminal case of "dull" with the occasional symptom of "awful person."
(2) This applies to any holiday you celebrate which your school does not. I'm looking at you, Christmas.

Creativity In Heaven

What if I want to write a fanfic to entertain Jesus?
Will I just not be weird and quirky anymore?

"I'm worried about creativity in Heaven," I said to my Bible study group many years ago.

"There will be plenty of opportunities for creativity.  We'll just use it to praise God."

"That's my concern -- that I'll be limited or just won't want to write about anything but Jesus.  Stories are about flaws, contradictions, and struggle, but we won't have that in Heaven.  And I'm scared that we'll forget how to write stories about flawed people.  Real people."

No one had an answer for me.  For them, Heaven was a place of rest and reward.  Praising Jesus for eternity.

And that's great, it really is.  Except . . . I still have so many stories I want to tell.  I don't want to stop when I die.  I also don't want all my stories to turn into "This person praised Jesus and everyone was super happy about it."  That isn't art.  It doesn't delve into the morass and emotional upheaval that it means to be human.  Humans are deeply flawed, and writing is only interesting when there is conflict.  (And sometimes dragons.  Depends on who you ask.)

If everyone only perceives goodness, can there be art?

The only answer I received is that, in Heaven, I probably won't care about this anymore.  And I agree -- if Heaven is a place of flawless perfection and neverending joyful worship, I probably won't care.

But for now, I do.  Because I'm still on Earth and I still have stories I want to tell.

"All Part of God's Plan"

Natural disasters, human tragedy, and cruelty.  Christians sometimes say these things are "God's will" or "part of His plan."

Why?

It is an effort to find a rational explanation which accommodates several core beliefs:

1. God is omnipotent, all-knowing, and all-powerful.
2. God is "in control" of our lives.
3. God loves us.

None of that is technically wrong, yet these beliefs are often taken together to mean that God continually exerts himself on our behalf and for our betterment even when things are at their worst.  When one believes that God has an active hand in all things, it is difficult to explain why that active hand ignores suffering.  "God's will/plan" is the noncommittal answer, the way of saying "I don't know, but I have faith that this is for our own good."

It's fine to live your life believing that God is active and your troubles are opportunities to learn and grow.  But it should not be used as a way to avoid pain or grief, and it should not be thrown about as empty comfort.  Too often, it is adhered to because it is the easy answer and therefore the lazy answer.  It ignores both the hard questions and the people who ask them.  It sometimes belittles pain and suffering and anger.

I believe in a loving God, but responding to the cruelties of this world with the idea that our pain is integral to God's master plan comes across as "Oh, that happened because God's a dick.  But it's for our own good, so you should shut up and calm down."

And that's not the message anyone wants to convey.  I'm pretty sure.

Here are my hypotheses; my ways to reconcile a loving, omnipotent God who allows horror to affect us.  (Note that a hypothesis is an assumption without proof.)

1. Cruelty occurs (my strongest hypothesis) because mankind has free will and sometimes that free will is used for evil.  All the terrors and inhumanity performed by humans on one another is because of humans.
2. Natural disasters and disease occur (and this is my weakest hypothesis, but I prefer it to God as a mass-murderer) because this world is not permanent.  It is not meant to last forever.  It is a temporary plane of existence and therefore physically flawed.  God called the world "good," not "perfect."  Our bodies age and decay, and sometimes they break down early.  Our world breaks and trembles because it is finite.
3. God is not ambivalent.  This is more of a theory because there's plenty of proof in the Bible.  God cares.  And I don't think he's abandoned humanity.  I think he's just more focused on our spiritual well-being than our physical well-being.  Bodies are temporary, but the soul is eternal.
4. There is no good reason for evil.  Not everything that happens has to have a greater purpose.  Christ's death had a purpose.  Other than that, it's up to each individual to decide how to face these things.  Do they have meaning for you or are they random?  I don't think either approach is wholly wrong.
5. Can God prevent tragedy?  Yes.  Does he?  Probably.  Then why would he let X happen?  I don't know.  It would be hubris to claim that I know God's motives for doing (or not doing) anything.  I will not offer explanations I don't have, and I doubt that there are any easy answers for this.  If the existence of tragedy is a deal-breaker for you, then there is nothing I can say that will change the fact that God is powerful enough to make this world and our lives perfect and yet tragedy, horror, and evil still occur.

Here is how I cope.

Bad things happen to good people.  To innocent people.  It is heart-breaking.  No buts, no qualifiers.  It just is.

I believe that one of God's most amazing gifts to this world is the ability to bring good from evil.  Be it an outpouring of aid to a disaster area, a victim growing up to help other victims, or a ravaging disease inspiring someone to work in medicine, humanity is capable of great compassion when horror finds us.  It doesn't always happen -- humans are imperfect -- but our capacity to try and balance evil with good is boundless.  We have seen so many families and communities and nations come together to seek justice or relief or protection for others.  And that is good.  That quality is from God, given to us at creation, his precious gift to us.

It doesn't solve our problems.  It doesn't erase the darkness.  But it does provide the one thing we couldn't live without.

Hope.

And that is how I have faith in the face of evil.

My Politics Aren't Christian

Love or hate your leader, this is still adorable.

I really wish I could use scripture to say my politics are more Christian than yours.  But I can't.

My only comfort is that your politics aren't more Christian than mine, either.

My dad taught that the Jewish people of Biblical times thought the Messiah would bring sweeping social and political change, essentially bringing back the halcyon days where Israel was prosperous and powerful.

But he didn't.  Jesus didn't drive out the Romans; he didn't campaign for political office or join the priests or lobby for legislative change.

In fact, the only political statement Jesus made was: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's."

It's not anti-Christian to make a social and political difference, but neither is it Christian.

Christian is supporting spiritual change on a personal level.  "Go and sin no more" wasn't legislation Jesus tried to push through, it was said to a woman whose heart he saw and knew.

Christian is focusing on the spiritual health of the people around you, connecting your life to others.

Jesus spent time with people.  He spoke to smelly rooms full of strangers, on blistering beaches, in the dust and the dirt, among the salt of the earth.

Jesus, who is God, paid no attention to the state of his country.  He paid attention to souls.  When his country killed him, he didn't rail against the political system.  He focused on the men dying with him.

Politics inspire our passion, causing both joy and rage, but if we want to follow Jesus' example, we can't allow the problems of the world to ruin the love between us.

The Devil is in the Details, But God is in the Science

Chemistry Cat likes science.

I'm not a "science person," but that doesn't mean I distrust science. Science is about discovering God's beautiful and infinitely complex creation, and that seems important to me. It's cool to know he created atoms and quarks and bajillions of galaxies and still loves insignificant little us, giving us worth we could never achieve on our own.

This Christian distaste for science is doing a disservice to our people and making our world an objectively worse place because we're also distancing ourselves from the scientific process, a type of thinking that prevents crazy conspiracy theories and those email forwards we should all know are fake but get circulated anyway.

We use God as a defense to stop seeking truth, claiming that "science" is against him. This is not true. Science is neutral, it seeks knowledge, and it is unfathomable to me as a Christian why we should fear knowledge and truth. God is truth. Thus, the search for truth must inevitably lead us to him, and the study of his creation can only bring us a greater appreciation of him.

We need to learn hypothesis from theory from fact and how to test each. We need to re-educate ourselves and pursue truth beyond what we're told by those we trust. We need to be examples for our children, so that they know we are SO SURE OF GOD that we pursue him through study not just of his Word but also his world.

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."

Expectations

"You do good deeds out of gratitude to and love for God."

I got taught this in church as a kid.  Even heard it a few times as an adult.  The problem?  All I learned was that adults expected good deeds out of me to prove my love for God.  Whether or not people who say that judge your Christianity by their own personal measuring stick, it's still the implication of that kind of statement.

I personally think that until you start not giving a crap what other Christians expect of you and start focusing on getting to a right place with God, you'll hate being a Christian.  Being a Christian to please other Christians SUCKS.  It's stressful and you're never good enough.  Trust me.

Thank God that he, at least, doesn't expect perfection from us.

Things I Believe

• All humans are imperfect.  We've all made mistakes.  We've all done things we regret.
• God requires perfection.
• God sent Jesus to fulfill that requirement for us.
• Conclusion: God has not abandoned humanity.

Group Charity

I wonder what my youth group excursions for charity work actually taught us -- that charity is worthwhile or that the group expects you to do it?

Raised Good

"Just take me to Heaven now.  I deserve it."

The reality is this: kids raised in the church, who obey all the adults and live like we're told, are at a disadvantage because we don't see ourselves as sinners.

If asked, we'll say "Yeah, I'm a sinner."  But in our hearts, we think "What have I done that could be called a sin?  I haven't stolen, fornicated, gotten drunk, cursed, or worn inappropriate clothing."

We think this way because we're raised to be good little Christians.  It's not that our parents have done a poor job or even that our church has forced bad ideals on us.  Even with wise adults around us, we are still prone to this fallacy of "What, really, have I done wrong?"

We think we have less to be forgiven for because we were raised as good kids.  Sometimes we rebel as teens or stumble and fall later in life, and sometimes we stay good kids our whole lives.

The problem is this: if we don't have anything to be forgiven for, then why do we need God?

God is only useful to people who have made mistakes.  Who have regrets.  Not us church-grown kids.  We're good.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the scariest mindset of all.

People who have had hard, wild, mistake-riddled lives are in this way better off: forgiveness means more to them.  Christ does more for their peace of mind, and their gratitude is real and vital and profound.

I want my children to make more mistakes than I did.  To take more chances.  Maybe if they do, they won't fall into this dangerous mindset.

Lifestyle

Consider: do you truly 100% believe that Christ is more important than the Christian lifestyle?

When I was younger, back in the days when I regurgitated everything I learned from adults, I really and honestly thought that changing behavior was the key to making new Christians.

The church today places undue importance on new Christians conforming to a certain lifestyle.  People who have never known the Christian lifestyle (or who know it but find it stifling) will reject Christianity based on these rigid man-made expectations.  It makes people uncomfortable, and not for the self-righteous "we're hitting at their sin!" reason I've heard so often.

These are man-made shackles that the Bible does not require.  Yet we are confused when we try to shackle others and they balk?

The Bible teaches that change comes after Christ, not before.  When we make change more important than Christ, we drive people away, and we do our faith a grave disservice.