|
Post by arietty on Jun 4, 2010 4:53:51 GMT -5
P.S. - when I mention "homeschoolers", I'm referring to the "no accountability to anyone/I'll do as I please" type homeschoolers, NOT all homeschoolers in general. I guess we all need to be careful to add an adjective to "homeschoolers". Abusive homeschoolers, neglectful homeschoolers.. I will freely admit that I have known many homeschooling families and only a tiny amount of them have I thought did well by their children academically and socially. But I am pretty critical. That's my lens when it comes to this issue. When I was a fundamentalist homeschooler my lens was, as long as they are at home things are better than the other options. I do strive to be even handed but I'm not without (shifting) biases.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Jun 4, 2010 4:46:42 GMT -5
Maicde if you're talking about Vyckie's post in this thread, #30, I really don't get why you see her as favoring one over the other. I have read it carefully. I think Vyckie did a pre-emptive strike via Mags aimed at all the flack that was going to come Chandra's way from this post, from those that will say "But WE are happy, so YOU are wrong". There is even a whole blog post addressed to that position which Vyckie links to in her reply. And after that she said Chandra's response didn't help things, which it didn't. Seemed even handed to me.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Jun 4, 2010 4:20:03 GMT -5
But everyone else is supposed to walk on egg shells as not to offend the precious little homeschoolers who apparently can't take any sort of criticism. I've got nothing against criticism (I can criticize anything). I'm just not keen on blanket generalizations whether it is all homeschooling is cultic/abuse or all public school is inferior. I disagree with both those ideas.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Jun 4, 2010 2:18:52 GMT -5
What irritates me is that the standard promoted by homeschooling leaders is so low as to not really exist. Sure they love the homeschoolers who go to Harvard and they will talk about for a decade after they graduated to make homeschooling sound fabulous. But have you ever read in a Christian homeschooling publication a simple check list for whether your family is a good candidate for homeschooling? NO. Because they think everyone should homeschool and in order to succeed in the eyes of your peers all you have to do is not send them to school.
Social Isolation is considered a myth by homeschoolers. And you will read again and again here from daughters how very real this was. Even if you had loving parents and no abuse issues in your family social isolation is often keenly felt. It's been my experience that children and teens crave and look for peers, peers and a social circle that is not made up entirely of their siblings. If only this were addressed in homeschool literature.. instead what you get is the teen is considered rebellious because they want friends outside of their siblings and few hand picked families their parents see infrequently. Oh the ridiculous agonizing over a teen who wants to go to Youth Group for instance!!
I hope this site and blogs like Chandra's prompt some families to take a second look at these, really very new, beliefs as to how children develop and what their needs are.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Jun 3, 2010 21:02:25 GMT -5
Kiskelia I agree with you. I happen to live in a place where I can send my kids to any school I like and it is normal for people to send their kids to schools other than their local one. The result of this has been some schools develop a specialization in certain areas, become known as the arts school or the science school. Other schools have actually closed down because they sucked so bad and their reputation just kept getting worse and worse that too many parents pulled their kids out. It allows some healthy competition because the schools know people WILL move their kids and they will lose government funding. So I have.. choice. LOTS of choice. And I know that in most places in America people have no choice and homeschooling is your ONLY choice if your local public school is a nightmare. I myself hated, absolutely hated school, was bullied incessantly. That experience (which defined my childhood) contributed greatly to my choice to homeschool. If I thought my kids were in that situation I would homeschool them again in a second.
There needs to be accountability, oversight and excellence in education in both the schools and homeschools.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Jun 3, 2010 20:56:01 GMT -5
hmschlmomof3 I'd love to hear more about your homeschool life. Maybe we could have a homeschooling thread somewhere on this forum to discuss homeschooling as in "how to do it". I realize you probably have other online places to post about homeschooling so might not be interested. I know we have unschoolers and homeschoolers on NLQ, religious and non-religious. I'd love a (positive) thread to talk about it.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Jun 3, 2010 19:21:44 GMT -5
My personal opinion as to what you need to successfully homeschool:
1. Don't have a huge amount of kids. I've never seen it work well academically in a big family. Ask yourself, are you one of those SUPER WOMEN (who do exist) with boundless energy, ideas, organization, enthusiastic and happy and dedicated? If you are one of those RARE women you might be able to do it with a huge family.
2. Do not have a dysfunctional or currently highly stressed family. Be honest with yourself. Do you have marriage problems? Do you or your spouse have a problem with anger? Is your family under a great deal of stress at this point? Financial, housing, marital, chronic health issues ALL imho make homeschooling inadvisable. Your kids need a break from family stress even if you can't get one, and school can provide that.
3. Do have financial stability, extra money would be useful. All those fabulous field trips and opportunities touted as being benefits of homeschooling cost money, as does the gas to get you there. For every family I knew who used homeschooling to camp, travel, play multiple instruments, visit museums I knew many more who never went anywhere or did anything because they could not afford it. I was a poor homeschooler (actually we weren't poor, my ex-husband just refused to spend money on such things) and when I put my kids in school I was really thrilled with all the cool things they got to do. They got to go to those museums, field trips, camps to places I would never have taken them (especially with a baby every other year). I valued and still value as a mom of many the great opportunities they have had at school to do stuff that was in the too hard basket for me.
4. RE-EVALUATE for high school. I know that teaching little kids to read, do math, mess around with science is actually very easy. Easy and fun and you may well be thrilled at how far ahead your kid is learning this stuff at home. But are you really going to teach them algebra, the history of the rise of fascism, how to write an essay (which you NEED for any further education), chemistry.. I've heard it a hundred times, "what does that stuff have to do with real life?" It's funny because this is what teenagers say in school ALL the time and yet we get homeschool parents saying the same thing in response to this stuff being hard. These parents sound like whiny naive teenagers to me. They act as though knowing these things some how inhibits you from experiencing Real Life. They act as though learning about physics, history, calculus will erode your character.. because if Godly character is the most important thing this stuff is somehow taking up space you could have more Godly character in. As though you cannot be educated AND engaged in real life. It's all just a big smoke screen for this stuff being too hard for parents to adequately teach their kids. You need this stuff to go to college. You need college to get 10 million different kinds of jobs. Why would you want to severely limit you child's opportunities in life?
Education is about providing your child with opportunities for adulthood. Is your homeschooling expanding on or limiting that? This question needs to be looked at once your children are of high school age.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Jun 3, 2010 19:04:45 GMT -5
Interesting thread.. I found myself agreeing with 98% of it. All these conflicting opinions and stories, it seemed like a family I knew came to mind for each one of them.
The families whose kids are educationally neglected, barely literate or numerate, incapable of writing a simple essay, years behind their peers in public schools. Some from 10 years ago whose now adult children swear they will NEVER homeschool their own children.
The family where physical, emotional and verbal abuse is standard fare from one parent and where the other parent's energy is taken up entirely in trying to avoid this. Education seems quite irrelevant to them.
The families who took their autism spectrum children out of the school system, after trying public and private schools and who found it a HUGE boon to their child to do so. A few years out, they eventually returned to school and did much better after a break from social stress and after catching up educationally.
The alternate non-religious hippie families who IME don't seem to be providing a solid education but whose kids have traveled and done an incredible amount of cool stuff in this world for their young ages. I know some families who did that years ago and their kids are now musicians and artists.
I feel like I've known every kind of homeschool family at some point. I don't feel comfortable with generalizations. I do encourage people when they are considering homeschooling to do so if I think they have the resources, but I also give them a heavy handed dose of the negatives. I recently encouraged a mom whose child is on the autism spectrum and has taken him out of school, making sure to put her in touch with groups that can offer specific support for her circumstances. I've also encouraged moms to put their kids in school because their families are imploding and homeschooling is harming their children.. this kind of encouragement is hard work and it is mainly about relieving them of FEAR. Having homeschooled for years and now having kids in school I feel I can offer some encouragement there, no school is not the evil bastion of horribleness you were told it was.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 31, 2010 23:07:14 GMT -5
I certainly believed a lot of those things. I wanted honest, christian children who didn't suddenly morph into teenagers listening to heavy metal and having sex with their boyfriend/girlfriend. I swallowed the whole trip about THE WORLD and all its EVIL WAYS and I was determined to protect my children and only fill them with godly stuff.
But.. something often confused me. I used to look at the worldly families in our church. Two kids, endless after public school activities, mom worked full time, they watched seemingly any movie and dressed in all the latest fashions, they were by every definition immersed in The World. And what puzzled me was that they seemed very happy! The kids weren't even rebelling in that they had great relationships with their parents, did well in school, the families seemed to get on very well. They just were not falling into chaos and drugs and teen pregnancies as predicted. This genuinely threw me for a loop.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 31, 2010 20:49:36 GMT -5
The unfortunate side was that he had no idea the DEPTH of "indoctrination" I was getting from my closest friend of 19 years. That is a story all its own.... Hello Dawn YES.. the depth of indoctrination. How could a person know what they were in for, or what their loved one was in for? Unless you had been exposed to cults in the past and knew all the red flags it just looks like a very sincere, family focused christian movement. Who wouldn't be happy for their spouse to be sincere, bible searching and family focused.. it would seem like it could only be good for the family.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 31, 2010 20:38:08 GMT -5
It's interesting, though, given that the QF worldview is so resistant to debt--and to making use of public services/welfare. Minimum wage workers often have to have up to three different jobs in order to cover the most basic living expenses. When you earn any income at all, your chances of getting any government assistance decrease dramatically... I wonder what QF people expect women to do when they need this money to feed their children? It seems like very superstitious thinking--this idea that money and finances will automatically work out as long as the mother isn't "worldly" and that the things women often do out of necessity are somehow "worldly." Especially surprising when so many QF families become poor with so many children and only one income. Yes the whole movement is rife with superstitious thinking. It's the idea that there is a formula you can discover and once you put it in place you will prosper. If you fail to follow the formula you will suffer. Superstition in a nutshell. As to welfare.. I was on a QF list where most of the people were on some kind of welfare. You won't see it in VF publications but it is common. Husbands suddenly layed off or injured and unable to work, babies still coming along every two years.. many families availed themselves of whatever financial and charity aid was available. They lived rurally for the most part. Life was very hard. Debt free is an ideal but only a minority of people manage it. The reality of QF outside of the very well off Rachel Scotts and VF'ers is one of pretty subsistence living. These women were very grateful for the help they got too I might add.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 31, 2010 20:25:03 GMT -5
WOW Becca your posts are SO interesting! I hope you will be posting more!
The passive husband along for the ride, I will say I have known many of these. Very strikingly so. I think we have focused a lot on NLQ on the abusive control freaks (which is what I was married to) in this movement, they are often the male leadership as well, but the passive husband sucked down the drain is very common. I know the only QF friend I have left is a woman of ideas.. and dramatic life changes.. and plans.. and their family has lurched in the 20 years I've known her through a series of financial, pentecostal, QF and other movements and fads and every single one of them has been her idea. And every single one of them has either fizzled out or blown up in her face. She blames her husband for it all because on the one hand he has anger problems and on the other hand he has never taken leadership, LOL. I now think she needs to have him as a scapegoat, he has certainly been that in all the time I've known her.
Anyway.. that isn't even the most extreme story of passive males along for the ride I could tell. I remember sitting in some homeschool meetings or socials and thinking they were in some kind of coma, some of them.. couples where the woman was like an AXE in manner and feel (scary to me) and the man was very very very soft and doughy and shook hands like a limp wet fish. At the time I did not get how these marriages could function since I was trying VERY hard to make myself all soft and quiet and meek in answer to my husband's tyranny. I was very naive back then and sometimes a little envious of these marriages because the men seemed so.. nice. Which my husband most definitely was not. But they were also kind of creepy in their passivity, the way some find Michelle Duggar creepy.
Now here's a truth. My current husband (LOL) is actually a passive man. If I had rammed QF down his throat when we married he would have gone along with it. His fundamentalist upbringing would have ensured he would not have been able to escape from the God's will card. He's not a fundamentalist at all but the God guilt card would still hit him and he would cave. I could probably get him to do ANYTHING with some Christian imprimatur because of this, just by waving around a few "shoulds". I am very glad he didn't marry someone all super christian like his family would have preferred because frankly his life would be hell. It's given me a lot of insight into how passivity does work (not a natural thing for me, my family of origin is anything but). It's a whole new ball game to be mindful of someone's innate passivity after my first marriage where it was all tiptoeing and dodging someone's wrath. It means I have to hear the unspoken, give weight to what seems a very quietly voiced preference (which since it is actually voiced means it is super important).. this is a tangent now, lol.
And of course the big question is.. what drives women to seek out this alternative, zeal filled life. That can be discussed endlessly.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 29, 2010 5:11:40 GMT -5
btw I don't mean to sound like I think homeschooling is always a disaster or a bad choice. I know it isn't and that some families have a great and successful time with it. If your aim with homeschooling is to educate them better than schools you do have to know when it's time to change what you are doing. I've know homeschool families that sent the kids to school once the work was beyond the parents.. and families that just stopped teaching at that point and came up with some religious blather about "character" or what have you being what you really need to learn. You really see how putting ideology ahead of people ruins what could be a good idea.
It is very hard to do well, or even competently at a high school level if you have lots of kids. It's even harder if you're poor. I think the 200 year plan would have had much more chance of impact if these families had 2 or 3 kids and poured everything into them.. which is kind of ironic.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 29, 2010 0:53:42 GMT -5
Yes and the families that succeed most likely value education and have the means to deliver it. You may also find they use outside resources more. The "means" to deliver isn't just money either, it's energy, health, functionality of the family.. and money helps.
A lot of people think you will achieve this for your kids just homeschooling them, that homeschooling guarantees your kid will be ahead of all their peers, untouched by the myth of teenage-ness and chock full of education. It is often implied that worldliness is what derails kids from this future and so protecting them will keep them give them great opportunities. The reality is many kids send up with much less education than their parents did, pressed into increasing housework because of numerous siblings, getting less and less education from an exhausted mom and a dad struggling to support that many children. Add to this the rural nature of many families (cheaper housing, farming idealisms) and you have 18 year olds whose education is sadly lacking. They would have been much better off going to public school where other people had an investment in their education.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 21:17:31 GMT -5
(and on other threadly topics - I do think that it's important to see eugenics as the really nasty philosophy that it is. QF is essentially about the same thing - it's just reversed. Instead of preventing the "undesirables" (I really hate people sometimes for thinking up awful things) from breeding, they're just going at it from the other angle and planning to out-breed them. Doesn't that nasty Bokins man have like a 200 year plan for all his potential descendants taking over the nation or something? Truly, maddeningly evil.) Yes he does. The QF plan (which not everyone who is QF is into, but it's there in the teachings) is for Christians to breed and homeschool their children into the religious right and dominate the government in the next generation. Where this falls down is that only a small percentage of families that have tons of kids manage to educate them enough that they could actually go into politics effectively or even go to college. These are the families that shine in the media, promoting the wonders of homeschooling. They are very much the minority. The vast army of super educated movers and shakers the movement envisioned in the beginning does not exist. One thing I've observed is how common it is for QF sons to join the army--their best career option as poor and under educated males.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 20:53:46 GMT -5
Brad: Don't feel you have to apologize and explain "Christianese". This forum is primarily for people coming out of abusive religious systems with a focus on the QF movement. Sometimes people react to certain language because they find it triggering. Sometimes people were never "in" that kind of culture and feel the need to educate those using this language as to how sexist or classist or some other ist it is. Just keep telling your story in your own words, it will resonate the most with the people who NLQ is hoping to reach I find this incredibly condescending. ETA: And, arietty, I don't think you know nearly enough about my history to position me in either of these two groups. I was a part of QF, yes, but I chose to leave it when I was still a teenager. I didn't even know it was you who was talking about the Christianese km. Reacting to Christian language has been a continual theme here and I find the reactions tend to fall into one or both of those categories.. either from being triggered or from a perceived need for correction. I want this forum to be a welcoming friendly place for QF people and in order for that to happen we cannot have them called to task over christian culture language. People will not stay, they will not read, they will form the opinion of this place that we see contributed to the shutting down of comments on the True Womanhood blog (afraid they were turning into NLQ). It will feel hostile to their culture and christianity.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 20:46:08 GMT -5
I did read Brad's post, and it was very helpful, but I have to say that your posts just feel like lectures and admonitions in this thread. I can kind of see what you're saying, but... I would point out that the debt had skyrocketed, and things had become far more complicated when my parents finally divorced about sixteen years after it became apparent that they had to. Maybe this is a simplistic view, but my own experience has been such that... The passive response is what crushes you. I know that adult life is complicated, and I knew it from the time I was very small, and it's why I'm so paranoid about adult commitments and marriage and bringing children into the world now. Until I have proven that I won't fuck them up as much as my parents did their children, I have no right. Probably not ideal to be this cautious, but I will be damned if I make the same mistakes they made. And I get that everyone always does the best they can in bad circumstances, but I mean... You are quite right km, my post to you was an admonition. The very first response to Brad's post was to call Brad to account and your subsequent posts hammered away at that. I'm glad you feel you have a better understanding of his position now. Who suggested we had no right to wonder about this? You can wonder anything you like about your future reproductive choices, lol. And yes my children HAVE come to me and asked just that uncomfortable question. And I made damn sure I gave them a truthful answer and let them vent their anger about it, something I certainly was never able to do with my own parents. And the fruit of that honesty in our family has been a very good thing.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 20:20:18 GMT -5
Brad: Don't feel you have to apologize and explain "Christianese". This forum is primarily for people coming out of abusive religious systems with a focus on the QF movement. Sometimes people react to certain language because they find it triggering. Sometimes people were never "in" that kind of culture and feel the need to educate those using this language as to how sexist or classist or some other ist it is. Just keep telling your story in your own words, it will resonate the most with the people who NLQ is hoping to reach
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 20:13:40 GMT -5
You're right, I don't have children. But here's what bothers me... Adults not taking responsibility for the pacifying choice when *children* are often wise enough to see what is going on. I was. I knew from the age of about eight that my parents needed to get divorced, and many of my peers who came out of abusive situations tell similar stories. If we knew how unsustainable the situations were... With no experiences of the world... It's frustrating when adults don't take responsibility, when they don't put us first. I try to believe that people do the best they can in the circumstances they're in, but... Some people are adults when these things happen, and some are children... It's not easy for anyone to leave, but it's not possible for children to do so *at all*... And it's structurally more difficult for women. Why is it problematic for me to say this? I never said anything about you having or not having children. And of course it looks simple to children! Of course they see conflict and bad behavior and wonder why adults continue on in that way! That is a very simplistic view, the view of a child. The child does not see.. fear of being alone, debt, years of investment in a family unit, that family unit's place in their social world, weakness and addictions.. adult life is not simple at all. When I was a child I saw my parents bad marriage very simply. Now that I'm adult I see 10,000 nuances there and I know that my simple solutions wouldn't have touched on the deep issues at work. I hope you have read Brad's last post in this thread in which he expands on how passivity can seem like the right response, the good, kind response.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 19:27:55 GMT -5
This is fair. I can't really say something general about this beyond " fight harder." I'm not even asking for that. I'm asking for Brad to be more transparent about this--and not to claim that his wife or an abstract belief system were solely responsible for what happened. Can't we just listen to people's stories here without demanding that they be accountable to us about every bit of their willing own engagement in this abusive system? This is very offputting KM. The condom story, I'm assuming that is what happened in the beginning. Not ever time they had sex. And it's a very familiar story that I have heard from the woman's QF perspective many times. You will find the debate of whether you should have sex with your husband if he insists on using birth control on QF forums.. what is the bigger sin, using the birth control or denying your husband. And people will choose both sides of that question. And isn't it a whole lot easier in the end for the man to say Okay, if I go the QF way I get a happy wife, sex, AND I am pleasing God in this awesomely brave way and look here are a gazillion books and magazines patting me on the back about it. As someone said, getting sucked in is progressive. So is putting up with abuse. You can go back in my history km, back to when I was young and didn't have any kids yet and say "I want you to take responsibility for staying with him after he hit you and for lying to your friends about how he was a wonderful man, it's your fault too you can't just blame the system and your husband, you're being dishonest by posting that way." There are a lot of moments in our lives where we are presented with choices and we make the pacifying choice. To do otherwise is to be confrontational, sometimes dangerously so. We don't want a mad spouse, a wrecked marriage, and those small pacifying choices seem like a good thing at the time.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 9:45:04 GMT -5
What comes through loud and clear in Brad's article is how this movement teaches us to be so dissatisfied with so much.. the world(ly) parts of life, our church, our non-qf friends and our husbands. I cannot tell you how many times I sat through a homeschool or qf or titus 2 meeting and heard women talk with dissatisfaction and disappointment that their husband did not embrace the details of this movement. Maybe he didn't agree that their daughters should have to wear dresses all the time, or he came right out and said he missed the days when she showed some cleavage, or he kept making noises about sending the kids to school once they hit high school OR.. he did Bad Things like watch mindless tv when he got home from work and act like it was a huge pain in the ass to lead devotions because he clearly would rather watch some sports. All this stuff is just personal taste and as Brad says having your own mind. But in QF land everything, absolutely everything has to be chewed into pulp as you determine how worthy it is and how God wants you to be. There isn't his mind and her mind there is THE TRUTH and by golly this family is going to find it and DO IT.
And this is pretty weird.. I know if we did have abusive marriages and brought this up in these meetings we were quickly counselled in submission and perhaps made to examine how our own behavior contributed to the abuse. But if we brought up our husbands wanting to spend 5 hours on Saturday watching sports instead of renovating the house everyone was very quick to pray for that man, that he would take up his calling as a godly husband. Where the heck was that sentiment when you told stories of abuse?
There is not enough room in a marriage for a whole freaking movement. Too many people as this post expresses so well. Too many wagging fingers and too many books on the shelf about what your marriage is supposed to look like. I cannot say these books ever bought anyone I know any marital improvement at all. Maybe people go through the motions for a while and just focusing on the marriage makes them both feel good but soon people slip back into who they really are and they left with nothing but dissatisfaction and a sense a failure. HOW will their poor children ever grow in the Lord if Daddy doesn't lead them in a Godly fashion rather than sitting around on his ass every weekend?! Really, the fear gets to you. Because those teachings play on fear. Not only do you have to be fearful of the world you have to be fearful of the lukewarm even if is your spouse.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 25, 2010 2:16:23 GMT -5
My belief about the Abrahamic god is just that, mine, based on 42 years of experience and interaction with him, both as a fundamentalist and a walk-away. It is not intended to reflect on other pagans or nonbelievers. The post was not intended to be a threat. It was more a warning as to how bad it can get when a deity takes a serious interest in coercing you back. Wow, this god you believe in must be really STUPID if he thinks killing your whole family will make you love him.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 20, 2010 7:44:20 GMT -5
WOW.
What bondage that woman is/was in. What kind of God does she serve if she would lose a child because of a doll in her house? An all powerful (sounds pretty weak..), all loving (uhh.. NO) God? Or a God where the only way to serve him was to navigate all the things we are meant to fear. So much fear.
Even though I was mad at her while reading this I also felt deeply sorry for her. How good you had a husband who laughed when you brought up some of these outrageous things.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 19, 2010 22:21:58 GMT -5
So why all the outrage when Vyckie's friend from her old life, a christian fundamentalist, asks her which child she would choose to have killed to avoid having been QF.. BUT we get someone posting that God could kill Vyckie's whole family and it's all about tolerance and respecting different beliefs?
This is total shit. Fear inducing threat. It is not somehow less so because someone believes it. It is not a belief worthy of respect in any way.
FOR HEAVENS SAKE PEOPLE read Sierra's recent blog post if you want to understand the soul destroying damage religious fear does to a person. This post was nothing but the same crap. If Siriusly had posted it you would have all been apoplectic!!
|
|
|
Post by arietty on May 14, 2010 22:44:03 GMT -5
Dangermom, to answer your questions, that's what I'd say a Christian could do. Just treat people like human beings, just show them love. Quit worrying about what denomination they're in or whether you agree with the quotes they post. Just don't talk about that stuff. Just call a person up and ask if the kids want to go swimming, or to a movie, or say you're going out shopping and could you pick up anything for them while you're out, and by the way you miss them and would they like to stop by for coffee some time--no praying involved! If they're angry, they're angry. People get that way sometimes. It's not something to fear. Maybe it's even worth asking them why they're angry, and then just listening to the answer without taking it personally. (And I don't mean to be preaching at you personally--I'm just thinking out loud and using a general version of "you.") I'm quoting this for it's great advice/comments not to in any way pile on dangermom! V, I could relate to your whole story. I know I often post about how things get better, being now 10+ years out of fundamentalism, QF and an abusive marriage. But the pain of the church and friend rejection never did get better for me. It just got less prominent as my new life gradually filled up my time and thoughts. However not a week goes by without some reminder of the most painful event of my life and it is still a kick in the gut. And sometimes I still dwell on it and have to deliberately make myself stop. The anger, yes yes yes, I was angry. And I knew that scared people off. And that made me MORE angry. I needed to actually get angry to leave in the first place, 15 years of being trained to be submissive and terrified was not going to get me out. No only anger, an anger that no longer cared what people thought or if my ex was really going to break every bone in my body as he so often threatened was going to do it. So initially I was angry at my ex, my life and myself. Then as time went on I was angry at church people who every time I ran into them or if they contacted me were all about praying my marriage would be RESTORED and who were full of deep, compassionate, nearly tearful concern for.. my ex. And expressed their concerns for "that poor man" to me. The single mother of many children living in poverty in a shack with daily phone calls from "that poor man" talking about the different ways he would hurt, burn, torture and kill me. So yeah, I was angry. And that puts people off. And I knew it did. And people also knew that I was not swayable, not influenceable in any way as to the state of my marriage, that door was firmly closed in their face. And really, it is actually normal that people cannot handle this. I was friends with them because we connected on church or QF/homeschooling culture. Now I had, by my Great Sin, stepped completely outside of that culture and I was well out of their comfort zone. Church culture is all about making a comfort zone away from the scary scary world.. everyone gets affirmed by everyone else that this is a good choice, so when someone steps outside of that the friendship becomes one way. No affirmation from the lost sheep. btw I cried when I read your blog post. I quoted that verse about the lost sheep to my pastor of that time many years ago, about 5 years after I divorced. I had asked him outright why he had abandoned me and he said, "I didn't abandon you, you didn't come to church, I can't minister to people who don't come to church." So I quoted him that verse and said "I was the lost sheep, no one came looking for me." And he responded by getting REALLY angry and denying this and then practically running to his car.
So that verse is very poignant to me.. I know what it is to be that lost sheep so well. And I still feel exactly like that in relation to the church, not just that specific church but the church as a whole. I feel as though that experience marked me for life and I can no longer see "the fold" as anything other than a conditional relationship. I have new, non-christian friends now who like me because of ME, Arietty, not because of any meetings I attend. If I became a Buddhist or did a 180 on my political beliefs they would still be my friends because our friendship is not based on ideology.
You are right Vyckie that Christ does compel Christians to move outside of their comfort zone and go after the lost sheep. But they are to go after that sheep to return it to the fold. Not to take it shopping or have coffee with it. So you are doubley in the too hard basket by being both outside the comfort zone and declaring No Returns.
|
|