parens binubus

It is very surreal to read these articles written by these born again Christians (some of whom were my professors), decrying the things that I value. It is also hard to remember that I was a part of their world for several years. Not only while I was in college, but for at least a year on either side of my attendance there.

And I felt compelled to write down the story of that journey. I feel that it is so vital to who I am, and how I think, and how I raise my children. I don't feel like I can even adequately explain my reaction to the things I read that come from the Religious Right in these present times without showing just how well I understand the way they think - what their priorities are - what their fears are.

So here's my story:

When I was 14, my mother decided that she had a gaping hole in her life, and that she needed to fill that hole with Jesus. I am quite uncertain what the hole REALLY was in her life. But I think it may have been a sense of connection to the community, and the world, and instead of giving of herself in a secular way, finding a church was the only way she could think of to connect to the world at large. We were a pretty isolated family. We lived in the country, and my parents had stayed connected to their friends from the town we'’d previously lived in, but did not connect to the town that I spent most of my life in. That may have been because my parents were reaching UP in the move, and were not as well off, initially, as most of the community around us. They worked their way up through the years, but that did not enhance their social connection to the town.

Regardless of the reasons, my mother decided she needed to find Jesus. My father was abhorred. He hated god, because god killed his two of his brothers and his mother, and that pissed him off. He was also abhorred because he had three motorcycles, and had in the past years taken to going for Sunday morning rides, sometimes with, sometimes without my mother, to gather with other motorcycle riders. Therefore, he said no way. He wasn’t doing that, he was going to continue to ride his motorcycle and go to the Marcus Dairy – the Sunday morning motorcycle hang out. I think it was a diner. It still strikes me as odd that motorcycle riders congregated at the Marcus Dairy (in Danbury, Connecticut) on Sunday mornings. What the heck ever happened to the bars? And the beer? And the night? Now it was milk. In the morning.

My mom took the three of us kids, me 14, my sister 11, and my brother 8, to all the churches in town. We tried a Congregational Church (too bland), an Episcopal Church (too stuffy), a Church (too weird), and then, an independent bible-based church which met in a high school auditorium. And there, my mom found Jesus. It was a very small church with about 100 people, mostly family with small kids, and then an assorted bunch of (I'm sorry if it seems tactless) loser adults. They really were, though. Every single adult who went to that church was a misfit in some way. A *serious* misfit. As I got to know each of them as the years went on, they each had their own reasons to be called, by me, a Freak.

The pastor of the chuch at that time (it's since gone through so many changes - in leadership, in location, in attendees, etc.) was a very intelligent and intellectual theologian. He was, in all honesty, a very good man. He was earnest, he was very kind, and he lacked the judgmentalism that I've seen in .... oh, every single other pastor or church leader I've ever come across. He did not speak down to people. But he also spoke way above my head, and all of these positive character attributes never worked to convince me that the stuff coming out of his mouth was important to me, or to my soul. Later in my life (and in this story), I started to pay more attention, and understand more of the theology that was being spewed at me. At this point, all that this stuff meant to me was Rules.

I really bucked the changes brought to my life. The parts I did see of what the church taught was so different from the things I had previously been taught in life. That I could only be friends with other Christians (people who have asked Jesus to come into their heart and cleanse them of sin, and therefore allow them to go to Heaven, because they have been forgiven of all past and future sins. Catholics were most decidedly NOT Christians. Episcopals --– no way. Congregationalists? Snort. And that Unitarian church that met in the high school cafeteria? Well, they worshipped the stars, and therefore, they were actually the devil. Or several devils. Right there in the same building as us, the Only True Christians.) Suddenly, all of my friends were suspect. Suddenly, every time I came home from school and mentioned Tracey or Missy or Jen or Oliver, the first thing my mother asked was "“are they a Christian?"” if the answer was "they'’re Catholic"” or "“their family doesn'’t go to church"” then the only thing I was allowed to do with them was ---- Invite Them to Church.

I remember one weekend, an old friend of mine who had been listening to my complaints of this shift in my family did decide to come and see if this church was as crazy as I thought it was. We sang a hymn that day with the chorus of "“Cause me to Come, Lord,"” and my BF and I sat there giggling, singing "“Cause me to Cum, Chris,"” or any other name of boys we found cute.

I remained very resistant to the whole church thing. My dad also remained resistant, and angry, and resentful. He was resentful because my mom never went on the motorcycle with him anymore, and she started volunteering to do things at the church, and started spending time on the phone with people from church, and he didn'’t like it. They fought about it a lot. And then the four of us would go to church, and my mom would put my dad on the '“prayer list'” and everyone would raise their hands toward the ceiling of the high school, and beg Jesus to call my father to him, and to change his heart, and open him up to the Word of the Lord while others would murmur "“amen, jesus,"” and "“hallelujah!"”

Church was often a 4 hour event. Two hours of church, an hour of Sunday school, and an hour of socializing. It was excruciating. I was miserable. There were two people my age. Myself, and boy named S. S liked me. I did not like S, but he kept things slightly interesting, and so I would flirt with S-, and do everything I could in order to be certain that he continued liking me, so I would not be thoroughly bored and miserable, but only mostly bored and miserable. S- was into all of the church business, and he would never have Kissed or Held Hands before marriage, so it was all very innocent and flirtatious.

But at school, outside of the Church, I was not as innocent. I started dating behind my parents'’ back when I was 15. It had to be behind their back, because no one was a Christian, and if they were, they were boring, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I sometimes found some common ground with those who were Mormon (2 in my school) because their lives were as dominated by Rules and Restrictions as mine had become, but they were not dating material – I think they even believed in their doctrines -- unlike myself. Furthermore, their church would have found me Evil, just as mine believed completely that they were members of a Cult.

I started to date one person in particular seriously, W. That old best friend of mine from above, who was my cohort in turning hymns into pornography --- her older sister used to date W. I knew a lot about their relationship because of that. And I knew that Big Sister had an abortion after W got her pregnant. When this was happening, I was 12 or 13, (and the Big Sister was 16 or 17, and W was 14 or 15), and my mother had not yet gone all Born Again on me, and I told her about my friend's sister'’s plight and decision.

As you can imagine, my parents (plural --– my motorcycle-riding, gun-collecting, deer-hunting, target-shooting father did NOT need religion in order to side with my mom on this one) were absolutely horrified that I had chosen this person to date. I did my utmost to convince them that W had Changed. For a while, they required that we get together either at our home, with my parents present, or with his mother (who was Divorced, and therefore, a suspect chaperone). They slowly relaxed these rules. Unfortunately, I was not able to see how relaxed they would have gotten over time.

I first had sex with W when I was 15, almost 16, and a Junior in high school. Pretty soon after I started doing the dirty deed, I went on the pill, because he had, in fact, learned his lesson while dating my friend's sister. He brought me to planned parenthood, and I had an exam, and I got the pill. I then dutifully got a ride from a friend or snuck myself in my parents'’ car to downtown Waterbury every few months thereafter, to ensure that I would not have to contemplate the Worst Sin Imaginable myself.

I never felt any guilt over this – despite the messages that were being pulsed into my brainwaves on a weekly basis. I did not feel that I was harming myself, or that I was making Jesus cry. I felt like I had a delicious secret, and I loved to imagine what my mother'’s friends at church would think if they knew. I continued to play the game at church --– perhaps even more convincingly than I had in the past, because I now had something invested in them *thinking* that I was on board. I was baptized in a lake at a picnic with a few others at one point (and my mother was absolutely horrified, b/c the t-shirt I had grabbed to wear over my bathing suit - to avoid indecency, was one I had bought at a concert with friends - a Ratt and Poison concert. The t-shirt had all of the Poison band members' pictures on it. Perfect for a baptism.)

Most of my junior year was spent with me sneaking around, living a double life. My parents thinking that I was following their rules, but me being as creative as possible to be able to be out and about with W. I would say I was going out with girlfriends, or the like, and really go out with him. His mom worked nights, so we could go to his house and have nothing in the way of our Fun (although it wasn'’t really, for me, all that fun yet. That didn'’t come until adulthood). By the time W'’s senior prom came along, we had played the game well enough that I was allowed to go, and was even allowed to stay out all night, because my parents believed me when I told them that there was a chaperoned sleep over party at a friend’s house.

I suppose my dad was really never convinced that W was an okay guy. While we were at the prom, my dad went through W'’s car. He found notes I had written to W which detailed my joy and happiness in the fact that he had been My First. My mother called W'’s house and tracked me down as we were getting ready to go to the beach with friends (after spending a night alone in a hotel).

And the next phase of my life began.