Personal – Page 2

Treatise of a Hypocrite: Attachment, Millennial Migration, and the Problem of the American Church

August 30, 2017 by anna 2 Comments

Before you begin reading, please know that I am coming from a place of love, not of judgment. Also, like every other imperfect human being in the world, I struggle on a regular basis with living a balanced life of love and truth consistently. In essence, I’m a hypocrite– down in the trenches alongside everybody else who’s trying to figure things out.

A few days ago, I posted a controversial little article on Facebook about how the church drove Millennials away because it offered more judgement, hatred, and bigotry than love. The people who’ve left the church, “liked” it, while those who still attend church, said, “But truth! Truth!” So, being the person who loves people on both sides of the proverbial fence, my mind has been churning with a small bit of the complexities as to why, I firmly believe, something seemingly unrelated is of utmost importance to the church.

First, let’s look at the two viewpoints of those who have left the church and those who’ve stayed.

Here are the 4 most common reasons I’ve heard from friends who’ve left the church:

Hypocrisy (anti-abortion but also anti-human rights—like refugees, immigrants and the death penalty)
Judgmentalism/self-righteousness (believing ourselves superior to others)
Inconsistency between beliefs and practice (saying you love everyone, but hating the LGBTQ community, for instance. Chick-fil-A sandwich, anyone?)
Irrelevance (where’s the church when ___________ was happening?)

(It’s interesting to note that people who’ve left the church and espouse zero love for it, still believe its people should live up to a higher standard than the rest of society. Example: Those pointing out the hypocrisy of Joel Osteen not opening his church in the Texas flood.)

The #1 reason many current church-goers believe so many have left the church?

Because they don’t like the Truth

Since the beginning of time, truth hasn’t really changed, but now, people are leaving the church in droves. And since I don’t buy that this generation has a greater aversion to truth than former generations, what’s really changed? I think it’s more complicated than simply Love vs. Truth. So, let’s look at a bit of historical context to get a better idea.

Beginning in the 1730’s, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield led what would come to be known as “The Great Awakening.” This, most would argue, was also the birth of the Evangelicalism. This period emphasized high moral standards, hellfire and damnation, personal redemption, and introspection. This movement was in contrast to the Enlightenment period whose hallmarks were Rationalism, and adherence to rituals and traditions.

The 1790’s-1850’s brought the “Second Great Awakening,” characterized by emotionalism, and super-naturalism; eventually spawning the Restorationist Movement. That, in turn, featured the concept of preparing and cleansing ourselves for the end times.

From there came Pentecostalism which began at the 1906 Asuza Street revival. It emphasized miracles, inter-racial worshipping together, and emotionally charged services. In reaction to this movement, came the Fundamentalist Movement alongside of it, which emphasized strict literal interpretations of certain Scripture passages, rigid adherence to dogma, and making clear distinctions between themselves and other religious groups.

By the 1960’s, the Jesus Movement was the newest trend and paired well with the hippy mindset of peace and love. It emphasized miracles and feelings, and much of it was Restorationist in theology. This movement spawned what we think of today as the “Christian right” and “Christian left.” The left sticking with the more Charismatic nature, and the right veering into the reactionary Authoritarian/Fundamentalist side of things. Is it clear how this pendulum swing of love and truth is throughout each generation?

And now we arrive at those “damn Millennials.”

By the time I was born in the 1980’s, the Fundamentalist/Authoritarian mindset was in full swing throughout much of the country. The church was great at boldly stating what it didn’t stand for and took on a fight-the-culture mindset: home schooling became popular, Christian music became a thing, and Christian movies and actors got their start. The church created its own sub-culture to shelter its people from the common sinful pitfalls of the heathen culture around it. We were taught to live by strict rules, to keep ourselves pure from evil influences, and were judged harshly if we didn’t.

And it is this little history lesson of pendulum-like reactions that brings me to why I believe that Millennials have left the church.

For one more moment, I beg of you to take a seemingly large, unrelated leap with me. I’d like you to consider the two following scenarios.

Scenario #1: It is your first visit to a new doctor. You admit that you smoke frequently and immediately he responds, “You know, you need to stop smoking because it can cause A, B, and C…”

Scenario #2: Your beloved spouse of 10 years tells you, “Today, you really worried me because you were wheezing and breathless as you were going up the stairs. Please try to quit smoking because I want you to still be beside me 20 years from now.”

Which of these two scenarios seems more likely to move you, the smoker, to action? If you have a healthy relationship with your spouse, probably scenario #2, because even though your spouse is not the expert, you have a long relationship built on trust. The truth was told in both scenarios, but one told you the truth out of love and used your trust of their intentions to communicate to you. In other words, your spouse used your attachment to him/her.

What is attachment and why is it so crucial to the everyone, especially the church? My own definition would be this: attachment is love and trust over time. For anyone who’s parented a child with attachment issues, you already know that attachment is EVERYTHING. Without it, there is no relationship and especially, no disciplining your child. If you discipline a child who has a tenuous attachment at best, the child is likely to shutdown, meltdown, or run away. And this doesn’t just apply to children. Like the doctor scenario, it doesn’t matter if you have all of the right answers, if you haven’t taken the time to build that loving trust. As my dear therapist once put it, “it’s okay to have high expectations if you have an equal amount of love to go with it.”

All human beings seek attachment: it is a biological necessity. And this is the order in which it MUST proceed.

Physical needs. If those basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, and safety are met, there is enough trust in place for the next level.
Mental/Emotional needs. Physically being there for the child, loving them, showing goodness to them, no matter their behaviors. This is the stage where children (aka everyone) learns that they are loved and they belong, no matter their choices. This is where they understand their precious personhood. And only then, when they have learned that no one is abandoning them, or hating them, or judging them, are they ready for the next step into something deeper.
Spiritual needs. This is where children can observe and emulate a parents’ moral compass, develop empathy, guilt, learn right from wrong, and hopefully, develop their own beliefs.

Reading this list, can you see the connection between the generation raised in Fundamentalist (and for me, Evangelical) churches that emphasized lots of truth, sometimes outright hatred, very little love, and the strong reaction (historical pendulum swing) of those tenuously attached Millennials to run the other way?

I find it interesting how many New Testament verses there are about adoption. My favorite, which I believe, sums up the very foundation of our faith is this one: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:15) This verse explains the intimacy that we are supposed to have with God our loving Father. So how do we, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, help people to build that connection with God? I truly believe it’s through being a kind of placeholder, building attachment over time. Here are my ideas.

Physical needs. The church does this pretty well. Keep providing for basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing, but make sure it’s consistent over time.

Mental/Emotional needs. This step is probably the most lacking in the current American (especially Evangelical) church. Our job as Christians is to be Christ-like, not to be Christ. It’s not our job to change hearts nor to judge. It’s not our job to hurry things along, which, as an impatient person, I’m very bad at. It’s our job to give time, love, compassion, and space to everyone. We must wait with them in love. It’s hard because it may mean sacrificing our time, our comfort, etc… And we must do all this, without believing we are somehow better than “them.”
Spiritual needs. This is where most church-goers assume that everyone around them is at. But honestly, many people are stuck back at the second step. The time for the big “T” (and by that I mean truth) will come when it comes. We don’t have to hide it or shy away from it, and more often than not, a ready heart will seek truth out; especially when it’s safe to do so. Truth from a loving place is sometimes hard to give, but if we must confront someone, we must first ask ourselves, “Do they already know that I love them? Do they trust that I want the best for them?” The answer may be no. You may not be the right person or it may not be the right time. And so many times, if we’re really living out God’s truth and love in our own lives, not much needs to be said.

To my dear friends who’ve left the church:

Yes, we, the church, have failed you and even though we have, God won’t. Maybe you no longer believe in God, or maybe just not his people. Either way, please keep telling us the truth in love—hopefully, sometime soon, we’ll get the hang of listening.

Filed Under: Faith and Religion, Personal

Grasping at Consistency: Honest Thoughts On A Religious Journey Part 2

February 25, 2017 by anna 4 Comments

I’d like to tell you a story, but I would like to start near the end of the story because really, it’s closest to the beginning.

It was an oddly warm morning this past October and like almost all mornings, I took my dog Aera for a walk. I decided to go to the outdoor track behind the YMCA because I needed a change of scenery from our usual places. One of the best things about having a dog is the necessity of a silent walk—perfect for praying. And that particular morning, my heart was heavy with a decision that I’d made. I was praying that God would give me one last confirmation—a Biblical fleece, I guess you could call it—to show me that I was indeed, following His will. So as I prayed and walked, we passed a lady who was running and she smiled and waved to us. And because this track is a large loop, we passed her several more times. At one point, she stopped running to talk with us. We made small talk about the weather, dogs, and then she asked me a question I was not expecting.

“I know this is going to sound strange,” she said, sounding a bit hesitant. “But do you believe in God?”

“I do,” I replied.

She looked relieved. “You may not believe this, but as I kept passing you, I received a word from the Lord.”

Now I know very well that the phrase “word from the Lord” is a Pentecostal phrase that means, God spoke to me about you, so I was very interested to see where this was going.

“Oh?” I asked, trying to show her that this was indeed welcome information.

“The word I got was ‘courage,’” she continued on without much of a pause. “You see, I think it has something to do with a decision you are making and that you should have the courage to go through with it and not be afraid. This is what you’re supposed to do.”

For a person skeptical of the more mystical side of Christianity, I’ve had quite a few things like this happen throughout my life, so I couldn’t help but smile. “You know, you’ll never believe this,” I responded. “But I was just praying for confirmation for a decision I’m making—that it’s the right one and that God would give me a sign.”

She beamed at that point, “Take this as confirmation. I also feel this has something to do with those close to you—your family? Maybe telling them something they don’t want to hear.”

“Yes,” I said, shaking her hand. “Thank you so much for having the courage to tell me this. It really is what I needed to hear. Your words are an answer to prayer.”

She stood for a few moments, seeming hopeful that I would explain what all of this was about, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to shake her faith.

We kindly parted ways and I shook my head, trying to contain my laughter at God’s sense of humor. You see, what had just taken place was this: a Pentecostal had just told a Presbyterian to become Catholic and to have courage to tell her Southern Baptist dad about her decision. See the humor now?

The following is my thought-process throughout this 5-year journey, it is in no way a complete look into my thoughts, but it is enough. That being said, here is my journey towards Catholicism. I’ll start with the boring stuff I had to come to grips with first about the Catholic Church. If you’re not interested, then feel free to skip to the last paragraph.

Problem #1: Authority

Part 1: I have always had a problem with trusting authority because throughout my life, I’ve had a front-row seat to religious leaders and others in authority abusing their powers (whether through sexual abuse, misleading “truths” to push a personal agenda or to gain notoriety, etc…). Many people my age have left the church because the great amount of hypocrisy they’ve seen. I have not left because I know that a church is a place full of sinners who need God (and the only difference between people in a church and outside of a church is that church-goers admit that they need help to be more like God). For me, God has always been much better and higher than His sin-tainted church. But we try and that’s the point.

What about all of those children sexually-abused by Catholic priests, you are asking? How can you ignore that? I don’t. Here’s the thing, the Catholic church is huge. There are an estimated 1.2 billion Catholics in the world currently. In 2010, there were an estimated 800 million Protestants (many different denominations). I grew up Evangelical and knew that the same awful stuff was happening in most of the churches I’ve attended, the difference being, the churches are smaller and can cover it up more easily. The Catholic church is huge, and thus, much easier to expose. I’m glad that the sins of the Catholic church were exposed because hopefully it can heal and change.

Part 2: Accepting Apostolic Succession. This was not a hard one for me. Catholic theology teaches that when Jesus told Peter “Upon you I will build my church,” it was meant literally. Apostolic succession is through the laying on of hands from one Apostle to another. The Apostles were the first bishops of the church.

Part 3: The all-male Magisterium (bishops of the church who have ruled on interpretation of questionable scriptures throughout history). I do not love that women are excluded as deacons and priests, especially since Junia was named in the Bible as an Apostle (bishop) and is recognized as such in Catholic church history as such, and Priscilla and Phoebe, recognized as a deacons. Thus, historically and Biblically, women should still be eligible for includsion in church authority but they currently are not. That being said, the exclusion of females in governing leadership is nothing new to me. Presbyterians, for example have a Presbytery and only men are considered for pastor, elder or diaconate roles. I tend to give a bit more leeway to Protestants because they think they are acting Biblically. For example, Junia is argued by John Piper in his work in helping to translate for the New English Standard Version to really be Junias (even though there is less-than-nothing to back up that claim besides his own distinctly patriarchal p.o.v.). Protestants shrug at the inclusion of Priscilla as a deacon because they say that she was paired as a “helper” to her husband Aquilla who was the real deacon and was not really referred to as a deacon. The many verses in Timothy about women being silent in church, etc…is always taken out of the patriarchal cultural context at the time too, but whatever. I could go Episcopal or Anglican, but those tend to be pretty liberal leaning or non-existent in our area.

So why am I becoming Catholic despite this? Because progress is being made and the church is open to it. For the last 50 years, many strong nuns and leading female (and male) Catholic writers and sympathetic priests have raised this issue. Every few years, the current Pope brings it up as something that must be changed. Summits are held, voices are heard. Change is slow, but I am happy to lend my voice to this cause.

Part 4: The Pope, the Magisterium, and our ultimate need for consistent authority. Whether or not Protestants like to admit it, we all have our own “Popes” or “Magisterium.” Whether we ourselves are the final authority on what we believe or whether it is a favorite pastor or a more celebrity-type leader (like the Graham’s, Dr. Dobson, Bill Gothard, John Piper), we all listen to someone as the final authority. Becoming Catholic, I am choosing an authority with a long history, both good and bad, that has been consistent in its teachings throughout the centuries.

Problem #2: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary

I’ve read the Protoevangelium of James (aka the Gospel of James). I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty weird and I have a tougher time with this one. It’s an account of Mary’s upbringing, Christ’s birth, and testimony to Mary’s perpetual virginity. But what about the mention of Jesus’ brothers in Scripture? The church teaches that they were most likely the children of Joseph from a previous marriage or cousins. But having accepted the church’s authority in general, this is one I can live with. And because the Catholic church dates back to Jesus’ Disciples and what they taught, I’m going to believe the people who knew Mary personally. So even if you are a Protestant and are thinking, “for shame,” just remember that the original Church Reformer, Martin Luther, believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity too.

So I’ve told you what I had to really work through, but what simultaneously drew me?

A Consistent Theology of Life, Love and Truth in Action

I was 21 when I picked up a copy of “Death of Innocents” by Sister Helen Prejean from the library. I knew absolutely nothing about the book, I just liked the title when I came across it on the shelf. It was a book about those wrongfully convicted on death row and the idea that the death penalty is always morally wrong (innocent or not). I wrestled with the concept at the time, but now I see that it comes from a theology that is all about respecting the entirety of life. I love that the Catholic Church is pro-life all the way through life and in every aspect. Pro-life to Catholics means much more than just protecting the unborn. It also means caring for and loving the refugee, the prisoner, the oppressed, the mentally ill, the homeless, the elderly, the poor, your enemy; and all of these are equally as important. It means that Catholics were the main overlapping group who attended both the women’s march, the march for life, and refugee rallies across the US. It means having a theology that says others who’ve never heard of Christ but who believe in God in the way that they are able, will likely be alongside Christians in Heaven. It’s a theology that embraces the idea that it is our job to be good stewards of the earth that we live on and we are to care for all of its inhabitants (plant, animal, human). It is a theology that says, yes, God created the earth, but we don’t have to deny science to still believe that. It is a beautiful thing and one, that without putting words to it, I have always believed and tried to live out.

Complexity and Suffering

The churches I grew up in were somewhat fundamentalist, but Advanced Training Institute (ATI) was legalistic to the extreme. They taught us that there were always clear, black-and-white, Biblical answers to every problem that could arise in life. Special rules were formed for that reason: you should not dance, because dancing could lead to sin, for example. Remember King David dancing before the Ark and how that turned out? That was the ATI example of why one should never dance. The philosophy was, it’s better to avoid things that could lead to sin, rather than come near temptation—a sort of bubble wrap theology. I believe very firmly, and always have, that God did not call his people to take the simple path. He did not create for us a simplistic black-and-white, all-or-nothing, comfortable world with easy Biblical answers that we can close our eyes and point to and say, “problem solved!” It would be convenient if the world worked that way, but it doesn’t and can’t. (I’m also not saying that we should purposefully go out of our way to put ourselves in losing situations either).

Although the Catholic church has the same downfalls as any other religion/denomination to ere on either side, its core theology is embracing of that fine line, that delicate balancing act of being in the world fully, but not of the world. It is subtle, nuanced, difficult and complex, and never quick nor easy to explain. Much of what Protestants (including myself a few years ago) say the Catholic church believes is an inaccurate soundbite of the actual belief that misses all of the important complexity. “Catholics believe that you can work for your salvation” is one, for example. In reality, Catholics believe that salvation through Christ’s redemption is the only way, but they take the verse in James, “Faith without works is dead,” very seriously.

Within a portion of that embracing of the complexity, it also means embracing ideas that could lead to suffering. The Catholic church teaches that suffering is a good thing and a normal part of the Christian’s life, and although suffering for suffering’s sake is never right, they encourage believers to not shy away from it, and in some respects, to expect it. In a very real way, if one is truly pro-life and acting on that by visiting the sick, the prisoner, or giving aid to refugees, you might be placed in dangerous situations. You may become ill, you may die, doing what you are called to do and this is what the church is much quicker to embrace than many Protestants. There are two movies that I think really embrace the complexity of trying to grapple with difficult issues of faith, suffering, and what part God has called us to play: The Mission, and Silence. I would encourage you to watch them if you haven’t yet.

The main thing that I would like you as the reader to know is that I’ve put much thought and prayer into all of this as I hope was clear. If you know me well, you know that I’m not just following my husband (as some well-meaning people have assumed). For a handful of people that are very dear to me, I have not told you before now because we have not been face-to-face since I’ve made my decision, and how do you awkwardly work in “oh and by the way, I’m being confirmed in the Catholic Church” into the end of an e-mail, text, or a two second conversation? I know for many people, this might be controversial and that is okay. Note that I did not site scriptures or texts, but they are easily Google-able, so if you want to discuss something, feel free to look it up first and we’ll talk.

One last thing. Please know that I did not make my decisions based upon a dislike of Protestantism, but a love for Catholicism and foremost, because God has called me here.

If you would like to read about my thoughts when Ethan became Catholic (Part 1), here’s the link.

Filed Under: Faith and Religion, Personal Tagged With: Catholic, catholicism, Eucharist, faith journey, protestantism

Christmas…New Year’s Letter

December 28, 2015 by anna Leave a Comment

Each year, I have the best intentions of writing a Christmas update letter and every year, I sit staring at a blank screen, referring to our calendars and thinking to myself,“We did so much…” and “How in the world do I make a letter that doesn’t sound as exciting as a grocery list?” And, as you can tell from the prolific amount of Christmas letters you’ve received over the years (yes, that would be a whopping zero), I come up with no answer, shrug and console myself that there is always next year…

So Christmas has obviously passed (unless you’re Catholic), but the New Year is just around the corner and I have energy, so here goes nothing.

Where to start? I suppose it would be easiest to tell you what has not changed. Ethan is still Catholic and I am still a Catholic-loving Protestant. I still teach piano and voice lessons and accompany for two strings studios. Ethan is the CEO of Demme Learning and is a Township Supervisor.

In the early months of the year, Nick and Ethan took Tae Kwon Do at the YMCA until Ethan started traveling for work in the spring and Nicolas got a full-time responsibility in the form of a sweet little fur-ball that he named Aera (pronounced: Air-uh) because it sounded cool. After naming her, we found out the name means “Lion” in Hindu, which is exactly opposite of our dog’s loving personality, so we’ll say that we’re being hipster and named her ironically. For Nicolas, having a dog has been such a life-changer. He is so good to his dog and takes such good care of her. He’s really stepped up his game in taking responsibility in most areas of life. We’re so proud of him.

In March, my brother Philip came up to live with us while he decided what was next in his life. He’s currently enrolled in HACC while working full-time in the pharmaceutical industry.

Ethan and Nicolas also began a project to fix up this old car so that Nicolas will have something of his own to drive soon.

In school, Nicolas has found an affinity for all things computer, and loves his video production classes. He is hoping to attend the Lancaster CTC for his senior year if he can pass two tough classes this semester (Chemistry and Algebra).

In his spare time (hyuck, hyuck), Ethan trained for and completed a Half Ironman, a Marathon, climbed a 14,000 ft. mountain, and participated in the annual 100 mile bike ride for YSC (Young Survivors Coalition). You understand the laughter in the last sentence if you know anyone training for anything longer than a half marathon. Training takes up all the would-be fun parts of life. Example:

Me: What do you want to do this weekend?

Ethan: Well, I have to get in a long (choose two: run, ride, swim) Saturday and Sunday. After that, I’ll probably be wiped, so let’s just watch some TV or something.

Me: Woohoo (sarcastically).

As for me, for the first time in over four years, I began to feel better in late May. I still have setbacks on a weekly basis, and my new normal is not my old normal, but I’ll take it! In everyday life, this means that I’m able to sing again (yay!) and am able to be more regular with commitments and writing. It also means that I am slowly getting back to running races. This year, I completed the Mt. Gretna triathlon and accomplished my biggest goal, which was to run a 10k. My times were pretty slow for both, but I finished strong.

This upcoming year already promises to be a tough but exciting year. Nicolas will be finishing up his Junior year of high school, Ethan is running a very heated race for State Senate, and I will be starting back to helping refugee families get resettled in Lancaster after a four year hiatus.

So here’s to a New Year! God bless!

Filed Under: Personal

The What, How and Why of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

August 20, 2015 by anna 3 Comments

“I’ve heard of Chronic Fatigue,” several people have told me. “That’s where you’re tired all the time, right?” They then proceed to tell me I should just get more sleep. I smile and think to myself, “If you only knew.” So here is my effort to bring people into the “know.”

It’s been 4 1/2 years since I got sick and I have a hard time trying to write about it. That’s right, this is the dreaded post about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, as it’s called in the UK). There are three reasons I’ve not wanted to write the following blog post:

No one likes reading/hearing about illness, especially when it’s chronic and can’t be “fixed.”
I don’t want my illness to define me.
I don’t like to come across as whining, complaining or wanting sympathy.

So why, you may ask, am I writing this post that no one wants to read and that I don’t want to write? Because I think it’s important to understand what CFS is, how it affects people that you may know, and what you can do to be a good friend to them.

How does it feel to have CFS?

Imagine you’ve just finished a half marathon that you didn’t train enough for (that’s the only thing I can compare it to from experience): you’re joints are aching and sore, your muscles are fatigued in the extreme and are constantly on the verge of cramping. Now on top of that, you have a very bad case of the flu, and you’ve not slept for four days straight prior to the race so you can barely keep your eyes open or think straight. You have a headache, and your heart is skipping beats every now and again. That is what Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is like a majority of the time. It’s painful, you’re tired, and you are painfully aware of how much dumber you are because you just can’t think clearly.

What is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome really?

Each cell of your body is made up of anywhere from 2 to 2,500 mitochondria. Mitochondria are the “energy factories” in each cell. They turn nutrients from food into energy and oxygen that powers each organ and muscle throughout the body. For a person with CFS, these mitochondria are impaired; thus, rendering their ability to absorb nutrients and thus, turn it into oxygen and energy, ineffective. That is why the entire body (including the mental capacity) of a person with CFS is affected: it’s starving for oxygen and energy! That’s why, on a daily basis, I and others with it, experience anywhere from 1-80 symptoms. Before I was officially diagnosed, the seemingly random symptoms were worrisome because they mimicked other, more life-threatening conditions. But after an official diagnosis and a few years experience, I’ve learned better to listen to my body and now only experience around 30-40 symptoms on a monthly basis.

So why can’t you just sleep a lot and overload yourself with vitamins? You can, and people have–under the supervision of doctors, of course–only to experience little to no benefit or relapses that left them worse off than before. Long story short, there is no cure, but sometimes those with CFS can improve over time.

If it’s incurable, is there anything to be done to manage it?

The best advice that I’ve read is that you have to stay within your energy limitations, eat healthily, sleep regular hours, and use graded exercise.

Many people who know that I still run and do sprint triathlons think that since I do them, I must not be too bad off. It depends on the day. And even when I do run/bike/swim, I go slowly and take lots of precautions. I don’t run nearly as fast or as long as I used to, but I do still love running. When I first got sick and tried to run like usual (not knowing what I had), I had heart palpitations, terrible leg cramps, and several times, almost fell asleep while running. It was crazy. Thanks to my husband pushing me to get a heart monitor watch, I learned to run by heart rate and by feeling (something I’d not done previously).

I also try to eat highly nutritional foods every day (and take vitamins for the elderly). Thankfully, I’ve always loved collard greens, kale, spinach, and the like, so not much had to change. I still have a weak spot for cinnamon Pop Tarts though…

Why do people get CFS/ME?

After finally being diagnosed as having CFS after one and a half years of testing in the Thomas Edison fashion, I wanted to know why. Why me? Why others? After lots of research and reading, here’s what I found. Let’s pretend there is a checklist of how to guarantee that you will develop CFS. Having one or more of the following increases the chances of developing CFS or some other chronic illness, dramatically:

Have one or more preexisting diseases that affect the immune system
Contract the Epstein-Barr virus (or Mono)
Be an over-achiever, or live under high amounts of stress for a prolonged period of time
Score a 3 or higher on the ACE test (I scored a 7)

It would be a miracle if I didn’t develop CFS since I can check off each one of those things (several more than once). The one that put me over the edge was contracting Mono while Ethan and I were visiting Russia in 2011.

The most eye-opening part of this journey was learning about the ACE test and understanding how trauma/stress affects the body. I encourage you to click on the link.

What important things am I learning?

Happiness always comes from within. Even though circumstances suck, and I awoke most mornings feeling worse than when I went to bed, I learned to look closely for the little beautiful things in life. As much as I ragged “One Thousand Gifts” by Anne Voskamp for the fluffy and distracting writing style, it was a helpful book in reminding me to always be thankful and noticing all the small gifts God gives.
It’s normal to grieve the loss of the self I thought I was. I am learning to embrace that my identity is not in what I do, but in who I am. It is a constant battle for me because I’ve always been a doer and a perfectionistic one at that. I have to be okay with a messier house, an overgrown yard, and having less energy to be creative.
“No” is a difficult word for everyone. I don’t know how many things I had to quit because I was just too tired and felt too bad. These were things that I really loved. But overall, it was freeing to having fewer expectations. Speaking of which…
Good friends hang around without expectations, others only call when they want something. There were so many times that people asked me to do something for them and I told them “no” with the explanation that I didn’t feel well enough. And after saying similar things to, “I’m sorry you feel bad,” they would many times end with “but could you still do this very quick little favor for me? It’s easy. It shouldn’t take long.”
It’s okay to ask for help. I suppose it goes along with being a doer, but I’m not good at asking for help. I’m still pretty bad at this one, but through necessity, I think there is slight improvement 🙂
Humility. This word takes on a whole new meaning when your brain and body are completely unreliable. I quit softball because I felt so badly during games and could not focus enough to know what was going on. I had difficulty playing piano because either my hands were arthritic or I would have days I could not focus enough to read the music. I was not able to sing much for several years because I was constantly sick with other illnesses. The most humbling part is constantly feeling stupid and knowing that I’m not that dumb.
Looks can be deceiving. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, “You don’t look sick to me.” I never know if people mean they don’t believe me, or that it’s all in my head, or they mean it as a compliment. For a long time, before my diagnosis, the only way that certain doctors believed me was that I ran a non-stop fever for three years. The picture at the top of this post is a good example. I don’t look sick, but I had a high fever, was dizzy and still had to hike the rest of the six miles down the mountain.

So there you go. Whew. I’m glad to have this post finished 🙂

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: CFS/ME, graded exercises, mono

The Ugly Truth about the Church and Mental Illness

April 10, 2015 by anna 3 Comments

I’ve seen quite a few people writing recently about the subject of how churches are dealing with mental illness. They are good philosophical arguments complete with quotes from scripture and testimonials from people who struggle with depression. But what about those people that are bat-shit crazy? Then what?

I have always found it trite and academic when people in church debate Calvin’s theology of predestination. I was introduced to this theological point in Sunday school, during my senior year of high school. The idea is that God chooses some people to go to Heaven and others are simply created for destruction and eternal damnation. I could give you my theological/philosophical argument as to why I think that is incorrect, but I’d rather not. I’d rather you see it through my lens instead.

It’s easy to say you believe in predestination when your life is comfortable. It’s easy to ask those questions if your brother you grew up with wasn’t a schizo-affective disordered sociopath and believed by many to be destined for hell. It’s not difficult to believe in God’s creating and subsequently choosing certain people to hate, when its not your brother yelling commands to his demon army in the backyard at two in the morning. It’s easy to say yes, God chooses some to send to hell for absolutely no reason–just because.

It’s also enjoyable to debate Nature vs. Nurture, unless you’ve wrestled with understanding that line your whole life. How much is he really responsible for? And can I love him even if he’s responsible for all of it?

I’d like to take you through my personal experiences as a siblings of someone diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder (that’s basically bi-polar and schizophrenia rolled into one) and as a sociopath, and what the church’s role was in our lives.

Jeremy was a sweet, pretty much perfect baby. He had curly golden locks, and big animated blue eyes. Life was good. Then, he began to talk. One of his first phrases was to call us, his siblings, “Dodo birds.” Not only did we realize that he was calling us names, we had no idea where he’d gotten that name. We looked it up and thought how strange it was that he was calling us extinct birds. How did he know about Dodo birds when we had never even heard of them? From there, the phrases progressed to “I hate you,” “everybody hates me,” “I’m going to kill you,” and “No one loves me, I’m gonna kill myself.” Writing this, I realize how odd it is for a child to say these things, but Mom said similar things at times, and we were all used to Jeremy’s dramatic nature, so didn’t think much of it.

By five, he’d already attempted to throw himself from a moving vehicle onto the highway (multiple times), tried to kill me with a knife, and when I talked him down, he turned it on himself before I wrangled it from him. Trying to strangle people was also regular occurrence, although I’m not sure if I can attribute that solely to Jeremy since I remember Mom doing that several times to me and we kids doing it to each other when we were angry.

Jeremy has never admitted to feeling guilty about anything, and I remember well, his satisfied smile at witnessing the pain of others. We knew early on that he had the uncanny ability to read people, but he only saw the negative. He was incredibly smart, but never understood most humor but especially, sarcasm. For him, sarcasm seemed a way for people to say the negative things to him and get away with it. Half the time, he was probably right.

It was around his sixth or seventh birthday that Mom found a crack-pot “Christian” child psychologist to evaluate Jeremy. Her first diagnoses were “sociopath,” “ADD” and “bipolar.” (It is not common nor recommended practice for anyone under 18 years of age to be diagnosed with the labels bipolar or sociopath). Her major caveat though, was a big one; it was most likely “demon possession.” So, I was ushered from the room to take care of my siblings in the waiting room, while the psychologist prayed over (exorcised) Jeremy.

After the session, Mom attested to the fact that Jeremy became angry and agitated while the woman was praying for him. She failed to mention until much later that the woman was holding him down on the floor while they prayed the demons out of him. Her final diagnosis? “There’s not much I can do for him.” At this point, I’ve not made it hard to tell that I find this ridiculous. Do I believe that people can be demon-possessed? In theory, yes. However, the Fundamentalist culture in which I was raised (ATI, etc…) was always far too quick to dismiss mental illness as a spiritual problem. That being said, I’ll continue.

At one point, my parents took Jeremy to a pastor in the Gothard inner circle who deemed Jeremy the worst type of fool: the “Steadfast Fool.” Again, the idea being, nothing could be done for him; he will go straight to hell if he doesn’t change his ways. No one considered the fact that maybe there was something terribly broken in his brain.

At some point, my parents sent Jeremy to live on a farm in Waycross, GA for troubled teens. He did pretty well there, because the one thing that showed Jeremy’s humanness was animals. He truly cared for them and did well taking care of them. He also learned the finer points of growing pot, what it feels like to be shot at close-range with a BB gun to the stomach, and how to make a tasty squirrel stew.

We went to visit him once as a family. Things were going well…until we turned off the lights to go to bed. I was thinking that maybe he really was changing for the better, when out of the darkness, he grabbed my arm and started shouting at me calling me a “fucking bitch,” etc. Nope, I guess I was wrong. Still crazy. Our relationship was another complicated piece of the puzzle that added an extra dynamic to the insanity, but I will leave it out for right now.

After the farm, Jeremy began a go-to-jail, come-home, go-back to jail, cycle. I think he was about 15 the first time he went to Juvenile Hall, but to be honest, my timeline is a bit hazy since there was so much other ongoing drama. I also don’t remember what it was that landed him there the first time, but I do remember the relief we felt. For the first time, I didn’t have to worry about him going crazy and killing us all in our sleep.

Once old enough, he went to jail mostly on assault and possession charges. Each time he returned home from wherever he was living, he had a different accent and varied vocabulary. After the farm, he had a thick hick accent and after a long stint in jail, he fused it with Ebonics which was an odd and interesting combination. He still speaks with a lesser hybrid of both.

Up to this point, can you see the role that the church has taken? That’s right. It’s non-existent— unless you count the shoddy exorcism attempts (which were not even connected to our churches). It is easy to avoid people that are messed up, weird, different. Jeremy is twenty-six, his brilliant mind is gone from years of heavy drug-use, his body is like that of a 70 year-old man, and he spends most of his time smoking and talking about his how he is “the Beast” prophesied about in Revelations. So what has the church done for him? Well, in a few of his more lucid moments, he says that he believes that God cannot love him or forgive him, and that his soul belongs to Satan (because he sold it to him in exchange for taking his sadness and anger from him). Jeremy still believes that no one loves him and that he is, in fact, likely to die and go straight to hell.

Most of my family takes no pity on him because they can only see the damage he’s done to himself and our family. They think that every stupid thing he’s done is his choice. And that’s the hardest part: loving someone with such severe mental problems and trying to sort out what was a choice and what wasn’t. Has he made bad choices? Certainly. Was he born with a problem? Definitely. Was there ever any help for him? I don’t know. But I do know this: he’s a human being who stills needs hope and love to thrive. It’s easy to hate him, to hold back compassion from him. My bones still remind me of our tumultuous relationship each time I sit in certain chairs or whenever a storm front is coming. The problem is, I love him and I’ve seen his humanness. I’ve seen the way he cares for animals. I know that he loves animals because they don’t judge him and they accept him for who he is: broken and crazy. I’ve seen the light of hope in his eyes when he decides to garden and make things beautiful. I’ve seen his sadness at thinking that he is unloved.

Jesus loved crazy (demon-possessed) people. They didn’t bring themselves to be healed—their families brought them or the family had already given up on them—and half the time, the crazy people came just to mock Jesus. But Jesus always had compassion on them. Aren’t the crazy ones “the least of these” that we are told to love and care for? Is it hard and sometimes on the verge of impossible? Yes.

I hold no animosity toward the church, and I don’t blame the church for wanting to hide its face from the ugliness that is mental illness. Many people within the church are unequipped to handle mental illness, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is ignoring the reality of mental illness and saying that it’s definitively a spiritual problem when it’s not.

So this week, as I’m trying to convince my dad that Jeremy needs to live in a personal care facility, it’s not because I hate Jeremy. It’s because I love him and I have hope that at some point in his life, he may be able to feel love.

Filed Under: Faith and Religion, Personal

On Forgiveness

January 8, 2015 by anna 1 Comment

Some things are easy to forgive, and others, well, you can’t forgive because it feels too good to hang onto the hurt. At first, the anger feels good, like a fire burning inside you. It gives you strength, energy, fuel for living.

But slowly, that fuel of anger burns away your happiness, it incinerates your joy. You focus on the person you hate, who’s wronged you. You cannot stop feeling hurt and angry. And without knowing it, you become like the person you hate and refuse to forgive.

Wait long enough, and that hurt and anger becomes depression. A yawning hole in need of something to fill it. So you try things. You smoke, you drink, you try sex and drugs. You turn up the music, turn on the TV to drown out the thoughts always screaming in your mind.

You find these things give you a moment of rest, of happiness. But it never lasts. And the more you’re drawn into those things, the more they swallow you up until those once pleasurable things no longer bring an ounce or moment of happiness.

You’re stuck.

Long ago you convinced yourself that you don’t need anyone else. You push people away, telling them that it’s none of their business. But deep down, you want them to keep pushing past your walls to prove that they care about you. How much pursuit is enough?

You have the choice to be miserable and let the person you can’t forgive ruin your life, or you can let them go. The thought of them hangs on you like heavy, wet clothes. Every movement you make, they come with you. The idea of them makes you sick, but you won’t take off those old clothes. You need them because you think they’ve become who you are. So what can you do?

Forgive them. They don’t ask for it or even acknowledge that they’ve hurt you. They may only care about themselves and they may wrong you all over again.

But you know what? They’re just doing what you did for all that time. They are filled with that same anger, that same hurt, that same sadness that’s eaten them alive because somebody did the same thing to them. They take out all of their hurt on the people around them who care about them most—just like you do.

Can you forgive someone for making the same choices that you did?

Maybe you can’t do it on your own. Maybe you need someone to show you how it works. Ask the guy who forgave the whole world—you, the person that wronged you, the person that wronged them—to show you how to do it. Jesus is just waiting until you’re ready. Can you accept his forgiveness for the wrong you’ve done in order to forgive that person who’s hurt you?

Filed Under: Faith and Religion, Personal, Prose Tagged With: alcoholism, Anger, drug addiction, forgiveness, forgiving the unforgivable, How to forgive, the forgiver, vices

A Look Back (on our 8th anniversary)

December 16, 2014 by anna 2 Comments

Today is my 8th year wedding anniversary to Ethan and boy has it been a great adventure.

Some people know our “how we got together story,” but if you don’t, I’m going to indulge myself by telling you (because I’m biased and I think it’s a great story).

Our relationship began our very first day of college in our small orientation group. We were playing a get-to-know you game where each person has to take so many squares of toilet paper and tell that many things about themselves. Only, the reason for taking toilet paper was never explained ahead of time.

“I know what we’re doing,” Ethan blurted out in his bombastic way, and proceeded to take half the roll of toilet paper. I took three squares, still having no clue what was up.

As each person explained 3-4 things about themselves, Ethan rolled down his ream of toilet paper like a hard core couponer looking over a receipt, thinking she was overcharged. The bragging about himself went on and on. Let’s just say, I don’t usually dislike people automatically, but he was one of the handful in my life.

Let me take you back for a second and tell you the mentalities that we brought with us entering into college. I went into college distrusting all men and never wanting to date, or especially, marry. I would do my time, and go on my merry (single) way. Ethan went into college with the belief that women are meant to be led (told what to do) by men. I was a feminist, Ethan, a semi-chauvinist.

As college progressed, God softened my distrustful heart a bit and Ethan courted a girl for 2 years. It was an unhealthy relationship that slowly turned him into an egalitarian. And little by little it was coming to an end. And unbeknownst to me, I was one of the wedges in their relationship. I noticed more and more that his girlfriend would constantly give me the cold shoulder and had no idea why. Later on, Ethan shed a bit of light on it.

“I learned too late that if your girlfriend asks you who the prettiest girl on campus is, always say her.”

“What did you say?” I asked, unsurprised at his lack of girl knowledge. After all, he did grow up with only brothers.

“I said what I thought. ‘Anna Squires is the prettiest girl on campus.’”

“Never answer those questions,” I informed him with a smile and a shake of my head. “They’re traps. It’s like the ‘does this make me look fat’ question. That is also a trap. Never answer, but if you do, always give the answer they want to hear.”

So after the breakup, being a small school, rumors were spread and sides were taken. I never cared either way because being the individualist that I am, it was none of my business.

Towards the end of that spring semester, Ethan’s best friend Andrew died very suddenly. Ethan asked for prayer for Andrew’s family and for the first time, I could see that Ethan was trying hard to be strong and not cry and that he really cared about someone other than himself. I recognized the look in his eyes because it was the same look that I had. About a month after Ethan’s friend died, Mom tried to commit suicide and was in a coma for three days.

Summer came and went. Ethan was angry at God and trying to work through his faith, and I was trying to make things work at home with a Mom who was never quite the same. At the end of summer, he was resolved to quit wasting time and decide what he was looking for in a girl. It was his last year in college, so he wanted to make the most of it. He made a list—an actual list—with some very wonderful girls on it.

“And you were first on the list,” he later told me, “because you were beautiful, nice to everyone and smiled a lot. Shoot for the moon and all that.”

So the fall semester came, and Ethan asked for a haircut. I gave haircuts (I’m sure they weren’t great) to make a little extra money. He payed me and left me with 2 rubles because I’d told him of my desire to go to Russia one day. I thought that was very thoughtful, but no way was “him and me” ever happening. But just in case he had ideas about “us,” I would test him. No one ever passed this test. It was the let-me-tell-you-about-my-crazy-family test that made guys either feel sorry for me and try to rescue me or made them forever ignore me. I’ve given this test plenty because it scares people away like a charm. However, Ethan said, “that sucks” with an understanding look on his face. He wasn’t scared away and he knew I could and had always taken care of myself. Years later, we’ve come to understand that we both grew up with an abundance of similarities in our backgrounds—hence the understanding.

At the time, I was teaching music at a little school down the road and we had a Christmas pageant coming up. I had a dream several weeks before the play that the man I would marry would be there at the play. I woke up thinking what a weird dream that was because I was never going to get married. The night of the play came and before the play began, I looked around the room, the dream coming to mind. I saw no one at all that would interest me in the slightest. Whew. When the play was over, Ethan and my friend Kari came up to me. I swallowed, thinking Never will this happen, and said hello. But instead of just saying hi and bolting, he stayed for 2 hours and helped me clean up the church. He didn’t know this, but one of my love languages is acts of service (big time). When we finished, I couldn’t help but be blown away by his thoughtfulness.

Fast forward to January, when Ethan tricked me into going on a date. And let’s just say the date was hilariously disastrous. Have you seen the movie Hitch? It’s like that. We went to a coffee shop and ordered tea. He said he had to go to the bathroom and stayed in there for about an hour while I was left to sip my tea and look through some photos of a trip he’d taken recently. By the time he emerged, I had the pictures memorized in order. When he sat down, he looked at me and asked, “Are you okay? Your eyes look funny.” I went into the bathroom, looked in the mirror and saw that yes, my eyes were swollen. Apparently, I’m one of the handful of people allergic to a certain type of tea.

After a few more hilariously disastrous, adventurous dates, I found myself liking Ethan, but I was scared. I didn’t want to marry because I was afraid that I might have a marriage like my parents. I was afraid to lose my newly found independence. I didn’t think I could find a man with a will to equal mine. And all of my friends were against the relationship because of Ethan’s previous relationship. So we had the let’s just be friends talk. Basically, I told him that “we” were never going to happen. He smiled and was still nice to me. I’ve never had one of those conversations go so well. In his mind, he thought, “Challenge accepted.” In my mind, I thought it was over.

We continued to hang out and be friends, and slowly, I started to realize that I didn’t have to lose my freedom and that we were not our parents. I was still afraid to allow myself to trust someone, but he’d been perfectly honest with me as I had been with him. The night before graduation, we had the final talk. It went something like this:

Ethan (very nervous): I like you, etc….will you date me?

Me: “I’ve thought a lot about this and blah blah blah, pros and cons, you’re not at all my type, (sounding doubtful), so heck, why not? I’ll date you.”

And because this saga is far too long already, I’m just going to say, he loved me through my cold attachment issues while we were dating, and we both loved the freedom and complete honesty in our relationship. He got to be himself, and I got to be myself. To both our surprise, I was the first to say “I love you.” It totally caught him off guard, and he didn’t respond immediately. He was waiting until he proposed to say it, but I was tired of saying stupid things like “I like you a lot” when we both knew what we really meant. “I, I love you back,” he finally replied with a sweet smile.

We’ve been married 8 years today and I would not give up a single moment with this man. He is strong (inside and out), loving, thoughtful, gentle, intelligent, a lover of adventure, still likes to brag too much at times, is a joke stealer, and at times, shares my dark sense of humor. So, as I part, I’ll leave you with some of the loving things we say to each other that keep the marriage strong ;p

Ethan: Don’t worry. If you ever start gaining weight, I’ll just remind you that throwing up after every meal is an effective weight-loss tool.

Me: When I die naturally in my early 60’s, you need to remarry someone who doesn’t speak English so you’ll have someone to laugh at your jokes. And as long as you keep her green card valid, she’ll keep laughing until she learns English.

Filed Under: Personal

Happy Vignettes: A Smattering of Joyful Moments From This Summer

October 8, 2014 by anna 2 Comments

1) A young man walking down the road, alongside the farm growing corn and soy beans, singing an Irish song at the top of his lungs with not a care in the world.

2) A French Canadian family brushing their teeth in the Niagara campground restroom while listening to “Gift of a Thistle” from Braveheart.

3) A beautiful Japanese girl with long, loosely braided hair, holding a black umbrella and wearing a stylish blouse and long, pencil skirt that blew ever so gently in the breeze. She looked as if she stepped out of a painting.

4) Two boys sitting high on a statue as crowds of tourist passed below them. One playing a Gameboy and the other providing helpful instruction on how to beat the level.

5) A small Asian couple walking in the park together, hunched beneath a tiny scarf to stay out of the glaring rays of the sun.

6) Playing the piano while my Dad sings hymns in his beautiful soft baritone voice.

7) Hilarious Kid Conversation:

“Hey you! Girl in the blue shirt,” a little boy called out to me from across the large playground. He and a little girl that I assumed was his sister were playing on the slide. I was swinging while waiting for my brother Nick to come out of the bathroom.

“Did ya hear me, girl in the blue shirt?” The boy called out again. “On the swing, in the blue shirt,” he clarified.

“Do you mean me?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He jumped from the slide, the little brown-haired girl followed.

“I thought that maybe you were talking to your sister,” I said, nodding to the brown-haired girl.

They looked at one another “Ew!” they said in unison. “No way am I his sister,” said the girl.

“Gross!” the boy interjected. “She’s just my cousin.”

“Oh, I see,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

As they got closer, the boy exclaimed, “Oh, sorry!” He seemed startled. “You’re not a girl! You’re a teenager. I’m really sorry that I called you girl.”

“I told you,” the cousin said, elbowing him in the ribs. “That was rude and she’s like 14.”

“I thought you were a kid,” The boy told me, blushing. Both he and the girl looked to be about 9.

“That’s fine,” I said with a laugh. “It’s probably not too many people my age that you see swinging.”

The boy shrugged and climbed on the swing beside me. He kept glancing over at me with a puzzled look on his face. It was then that Nicolas came out of the bathroom and joined us on the swings.

“This is Nick,” I said

“Is he your boyfriend?” the girl asked.

“No,” I laughed. “He’s little my brother.” More apologies ensued and more puzzled looks came my way.

“If he’s your little brother,” asked the girl, “then how old are you?”

“Are you 14?” the boy asked, thinking he was right.

I was really getting a kick out of this. “How old do you think I am?” I asked.

“Can’t you just tell us?” the girl asked.

“After you guess,” I said.

“I think 13,” the boy said.

“No, she’s probably 16 or 17, stupid,” the girl said.

I laughed again. “Higher,” I said.

They kept going up one year at a time until they finally arrived at 31.

The boy jumped off his swing and looked at me with a very serious expression. “You can’t be thirty-one. My Mom’s that age and you don’t look anything like her.”

“Well, I am thirty-one.”

“Wow,” the boy said.

It was the girl’s turn. “Are you really that old?”

“Yep.”

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: 4 mile creek state park, happiness is small things, joy, niagara falls

The Importance of Being a Girl

September 3, 2014 by anna 5 Comments

How would you react if someone told you, “It’s your job as the woman to take care of the menial tasks at home so that [your husband] can focus on accomplishing the important things that he needs to do.” This is a quote from a conversation that I had not long ago. It is one of many like it. If you are a woman, it’s very likely that in subtle and not so subtle ways, you’ve been told that you are unimportant because you were born the wrong gender.

What I really want to discuss is my journey as a girl who never wanted to be a girl. Don’t get me wrong, I love dressing up every now and again and feeling beautiful, but if God was giving out preferences, I would’ve chosen to be a boy. Why? No periods. Haha, no…seriously, let me take you the long way around through some of the more memorable highlights.

The first time that I realized that being a girl was not all it was cracked up to be was when I was 4. My brothers and I were painting our “tree house” in our back yard. My older and younger brother had their shirts off, so of course, being a hot day, I took mine off too. Don’t worry, I was dragged in the house by my mother who was completely dismayed by my lack of modesty. Modest what? I was 4. “Girls always have to wear shirts, Anna,” she said as she wrestled my shirt back over my head. “But Jonathan and Andrew don’t have to,” I whined. “It’s hot and we’re workin’.” (Yes, I had a little southern accent back then.)

“You’ll understand when you’re older, but you always have to wear a shirt and they’re boys—they don’t have to.”

“That’s not fair.” Oh how right I was as a little girl.

That was the first time I realized that there were rules which applied to me and not to boys.

My next foray into inequality came when my family first joined ATIA (Advanced Training Institute of America). My first encounter with ATI was in Knoxville, TN. Each year, there was a big conference where all of the families from the east coast and midwest would gather for “Biblical training.” I don’t know exactly how old I was when we first joined, but I was forced to attend the children’s sessions.

To blend in, my parents bought us all regulation clothing. Much to my brothers chagrin, they were forced to wear white, button-down dress shirts and navy pants. For me and my sister, it was an ankle-length navy skirt (or as close as one find in such “worldy” stores such as Wal-mart), and an ill-fitting white blouse, to camouflage any feminine body part—such as knees, necks, shoulders, and chests—which might cause a brother to stumble.

“If anyone asks,” Mom drilled us before we arrived in Knoxville, “you dress like this all the time. And Anna,” she said, “don’t mention that you wear blue jeans. If they ask, tell them you don’t.” I was given permission to lie! I could handle this. This undercover life excited my imagination. I saw it as great practice for my later career as a spy.

However, the excitement vanished as soon as it had come. Dressing in a long skirt meant that I could not do any of my favorite things without great difficulty. I learned quickly to distinguish fakers like me from the hardcore Gothard-ites. The real ones wore red scarves tied 50’s soc-hop style around their necks. It was also easy to tell by how gracefully one was able to sit on a concrete floor. The ones that were used to sitting on the ground in skirts, were able to sit down in less than a heart beat with the utmost grace and modesty: like a weightless fairy upon an enchanted lily pad. I worked my way through several awkward positions, looking like I was wrestling a piranha that was caught in there before I had myself situated. I couldn’t sit any of the ways I normally sat.

In the children’s program, we sang dumb songs (and as a kid who never stopped singing, for me to draw the line at these song says something about their poor quality), watched Mr. Andrew–our K group leader–do finger exercises and ventriloquy while we waited each morning for the bus, and heard stories about how animals, like the Indian elephant, could teach us character qualities such as perseverance, and hard work.

Each year following, there grew more and more dissenters in our family. The second year, two of my brothers had a contest to see who could get more “wisdom walks.” “Wisdom walks” were ATI’s happy sounding phrase for punishment. Only bad kids got those. It was some form of punishment that usually involved running laps around the large warehouse and a good old fashioned talking to. And this was exactly what my brothers preferred, over sitting in this awful place. They likely received spankings as well, but I really don’t remember.

The next year, two of my brothers and I graduated into the teen program. At first I was excited, but I soon came to realize that it was far worse than the children’s sessions. We still sang songs, but we were graduated to actual hymns now. I learned the hard way that there were some hymns that I, as a female, was not allowed to sing. For instance, it was offensive for a woman to sing any hymn that featured the word “men” in the title. Obviously, these hymns were written for men only. Duh. So when, in a mixed assembly, we were told to stand and sing “Rise Up, O Men of God,” I did so, and while singing out with gusto, a girl tugged on my skirt and said, “Sit down, this is not for us.” I was embarrassed to notice that out of the 300 boys and girls there, I was the only girl standing. It didn’t seem right. With each passing day of that week, I became more and more aware that the brothers I had been equal to my whole life were no longer my equals. I was a lesser individual who had to surround myself with rules and personal sacrifice to make their world easier. While the boys were learning survival skills and repelling from water towers, I was stuck learning how to make ugly multi-colored braid belts that no one in their right minds would ever wear, and being forced to memorize Proverbs 31 with the Gothard interpretation. His interpretation went something like this. The part where she buys land and her husband trusts her to run everything is always skipped over. The focal point is always the making clothes, the women’s work, and the sacrifice that the woman must make. And really, as a 12 year old girl, this was my interpretation of what I heard. “The Proverbs 31 woman is basically a glorified slave who does everything (without complaining) so that her husband has a great reputation at the gate and can hang out all day doing whatever he wants with his buddies.” That was the first time in my life, where I felt an anger that I couldn’t understand or put into words until many years later.

The more my family delved into Gothard theology, in the nifty little “wisdom booklets,” the more a seed of anger grew. I couldn’t explain it and I constantly repented for it, but the more we became entrenched, and the more rules I was told to live by (as a girl), the more obstinate I became. I’ll never forget reading in the wisdom booklet the interpretation of Tamar’s rape. According to Gothard, the rape was her fault: she was leading Amnon on. Another time, the whole last 10 pages of the booklet were pictures and detailed descriptions about how long a woman’s hair and skirt should be, and how applying too much makeup led men to stumble. And college, was out of the question for a woman because that would mean that she would be out from under the authority and protection of a man. Thankfully, my parents, although many times idealizing other “perfect” ATI families, never made me wear skirts (except on Sunday), and thought that the whole no college bit was overkill.

When I dressed up on Sunday’s, I only wore dresses that were extremely modest. I was never embarrassed by my body like many women are, but I believed that somehow my body was inherently evil. I was just about the cover child for modesty. When my mom allowed me to wear a skirt that had a slit up to my knees one Sunday, I kept trying to sit so that no one could tell how immodest I was. Long baggy shirts, long shorts (if I wore shorts), and once I was in high school, I wore mostly men’s clothing. I was afraid that I might lead a man into sin accidentally.

At home, I was held to a different standard than my brothers. I was expected to do the women’s work and my brothers were not. Whenever I did something (usually fun and) immature, my Dad would say, “I’m disappointed in you, Anna. You acted like the boys today.” Being the kid who wanted to please my parents more than anything in the world, this was always a blow. I would vow to myself that I would try harder.

As a kid and a teenager, I wanted to join the military and thinking that my Dad might be proud, I told him. “No you won’t. The military is no place for a girl. I won’t allow it.” As it turns out, because of a health issue, I wouldn’t have been eligible anyway, but it was the difference between the encouragement of my brothers doing it and me not being allowed that made it memorable.

At one point in college, I found myself being the only girl playing a football-type game with all guys. That wasn’t too uncommon in high school, but when one of the guys took me aside and told me that it was inappropriate for me to be the only girl playing such a rough game with about 20 guys, he asked me to leave and, being completely embarrassed, I did. I look back now and wish I’d ignored him and kept on playing, but I didn’t.

When I married Ethan, I started to believe that for the first time in my life, I was beautiful and that I didn’t need to go out of my way to cover up my body. He liked when I wore skirts that were above my knees and tops that weren’t burgeoning on high Victorian collars.

My next step in the process came when we were trying to find a church to attend. There was one church (Crossway), and for some reason, each Sunday that we attended, I would get the same angry feeling that I did in ATI. So instead of praying it away or dismissing it, I began to take note. First, I saw that on the Sunday’s where I attended church and Ethan was not with me, they did not hand me a bulletin because they only ever handed the bulletins to the men. Then, I noticed that men would avoid looking at me or talking to me. In fact, there was one conversation that stuck out in my mind. A man came up to Ethan to ask if he would lead a small group discussion. I stood directly beside Ethan and the man asked Ethan, “Would your wife be interested in assisting you?” Ethan laughed, not giving it any thought. “She’s right here, ask her.”

He turned to me and asked and I said I’d think about it. I was already a little burned by the fact that not only are women not allowed to lead any sort of Bible study where there might be men or boys over the age of 12 (is that the age of manhood?), but the guy had to have permission from my husband to talk to me. There were other comments about the place of a woman from the pulpit, usually along the lines of if you’re married, you should be having and raising children. I had no children, and thus, I was likely viewed as a threat by the men of the church.

The most obvious example of the gender segregation was the Men’s prayer breakfast and the church workday afterwards. Ethan went to the men’s prayer breakfast where the women made, served, and cleaned up after the men’s breakfast. Afterwards, Ethan brought me back with him to work. Out of the 500 people in the congregation, how many women do you think were there for the work day? One. Me. So the whole time, I got comments like, “You work like a man,” and “Wow, you look like you’ve done this before,” and my favorite, “you know your outdoor work, but can you cook?” At that point, and with my hands covered in wood chips and mud, I refrained from slapping the man. Before that point, all of the things that I had noticed had gone unnoticed by Ethan. It wasn’t happening to him, so he was oblivious to it. I told him about these things that I was noticing, and slowly, he was starting to see things for what they really were for himself. It was not long after the church workday that we left that church.

Is this what Christian fellowship is supposed to look like? Is it supposed to be driven by fear of our sin natures? I should hope not.

Not long ago, a Christian speaker asked, “How do I teach men how to be men?” I would ask instead, what does it mean to be a man? Most father seminars run along the lines of teaching men to “lead their families,” using words like “leadership, decisive, strong, protection, etc…” Is that really what a man should be? What about the men who are nothing like that? Perhaps they have no desire to “lead” their women. Great. What if the man and woman fall naturally into those prescribed roles? Great.

What would happen if that concept was to change? What if men were held to the same standards as women? What would the world look like if men were taught to be kind, generous, thoughtful, loving, and serving? What if women were taught to love themselves for who they are, tomboy or girly girl? Would it be so wrong to embrace every part of each human? And would we then be able to view gender roles as safety nets for our sinful natures?

Filed Under: Faith and Religion, Personal Tagged With: ATI, Bill Gothard, Christian fear, Crossway, Elizabeth Esther, fundamentalism, Girl at the End of the World

The Jars…

June 28, 2014 by anna 1 Comment

This summer, I decided to do an experiment. I’m calling it the “jars of truth.” One is a jar with a label stating “Jar of Thankfulness” and underneath there is a verse “Give thanks in all things…” (1 Thess. 5:18). Above the verse is a smiley face. On the second jar, the “Jar of Ungratefulness” (frowny face), the verse “Out of the heart the mouth speaks…” (Luke 6:45) is written. For the Thankfulness jar, there is a dish of white stones in front of it. For the Ungratefulness jar, there are black stones (we got them for some sort of Chinese board game that we never learned how to play). One stone for each noticed thought or word that is thankful or not.

There are several reasons for these jars. The most important being, there was far too much complaining going on in the house. In my family of origin, complaining is its own art form. It goes hand in hand with the other practiced family traits of pessimism, skepticism, criticism and cynicism. Negativity central. And having two brothers here for the summer and my own self, I knew that ungratefulness would rob us of a truly enjoyable summer. I was also noticing a trend of what I like to call “pre-complaining.” That is complaining about something before it’s actually occurred.

Example:

Me: We’re going camping this weekend.

Brother who shall not be named: *whine* It’s going to be hot and I don’t like sleeping outside, etc…

Reality: It was chilly and he slept on an air mattress in the truck.

The next reason for having these jars is to see that being thankful makes us see the good that God has for us in everything. Giving thanks not only helps us to see the good things, but also builds trust that God wants to give us these things. Complaining robs us of joy and the actual experience itself. Negativity taints the perception of reality. Not that there isn’t a time to admit that everything is not ideal or perfect, but it takes more work to notice the good sometimes—and that is work worth learning to do.

At first, I thought of just having a thankfulness jar, but that didn’t seem enough. I wanted us to be aware of reality. And being mostly boys (or a tomboy in my case), I knew we needed to make it a sort of competition. So, at the end of each week, we look to see which jar outweighs which. So far, there has been much less complaining. Even though I contributed several black stones last night for my attitude, this week’s thankfulness jar still won out. Yay us!

The personal why of the jars…

Earlier this year, I was (finally) diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and this practice of mindfulness in thankfulness really goes hand-in-hand with other things that I’m working to learn: setting firm boundaries for what I will and won’t do for others, admitting that I can’t always accomplish something physically or mentally (depending on the day or week or month), and that I need to be fine with just being and not always doing. This is tough since most of my life, I’ve been completely reliant on myself and accomplishing goals is how I’ve defined both myself and success. And yet, if God had not forcefully slowed me down from my sprinting through life, I would not have learned many of these important lessons. Thankfully, because I’ve tried to be very careful with how much I extend myself this year, I am (physically) feeling like a different person than the one I was a year ago 🙂

So I suppose that these jars are a physical extension of what I’m trying to learn: to notice and be grateful for the moment instead of always looking to the next thing.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: Teaching children gratefulness, Thanksgiving everyday