Straight and Narrow |
I grew up in a narrow-minded world. There was one right way to do life... one right religion, one right way to behave, one right way to think and live and be. There was no room for variation... no room for individuality... no room to ask questions or create possibilities. It didn't seem oppressive at the time... it seemed normal. It was my life. But there was oppression on all sides. A beautiful child with joy and expression inside her was not allowed to dance... because dancing was sinful. A beautiful child who loved fantasy was not allowed to see Sleeping Beauty... because movies were evil. A beautiful child who sought a large, joyful, loving God was instead offered a God who was petty, vindictive, vengeful and puny. A beautiful child who longed for her father's love was instead given the worst kind of betrayal... and when she tried to express the pain of that betrayal, she was allowed no voice... no voice at all.
I grew up in a narrow-minded world. Our life revolved around church meetings... Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night. Vacation Bible School in the summer; first at home, and then at Granny's church when we went to visit. I could spout the names of all the Books of the Bible by the time I was six, and won a flight over the city in a Piper Cub for bringing the most visitors to V.B.S. Revival meetings came twice a year... or more, if the people were particularly rebellious.
Sometimes the church came to us. When I was six, our pastor was a short, round man who I suppose looked fairly innocuous to most people. But as a young, gentle-spirited child, his screaming, yelling and pulpit-pounding made me terrified to have him in my dining room. What if Pastor started yelling and screaming and pounding on the dinner table? What if he found out about the things that Daddy sometimes did to me when Mommy was gone away to the hospital? Wouldn't Pastor take one look at me and know what an evil child I was?
I grew up in a narrow-minded world. I was a good girl, doing what I was told most of the time and not making many waves. School offered escape from the pain of a sick mother and an obsessed father, and I proved to be a gifted student. I read voraciously, disappearing into the fantasy world of books at every opportunity. In those moments, I became Laura Ingles, living with Carrie, Mary, Pa and Ma in our little house in Walnut Grove. Sometimes I was Nancy Drew, whose parents never argued or yelled. I could escape with Alex on the Black Stallion or travel with young King Arthur when Merlin tuned him into a squirming fish or a soaring hawk. Books were wonderful, safe, and sometimes my only salvation. Books were also an acceptable part of my parent's narrow world. I suppose that in the late 50's and early 60's, it never occurred to Mommy and Daddy that Satan might have already gotten into the publishing business.
I grew up in a narrow-minded world. Why do so many people choose to believe that God is an oppressive monster waiting to catch us in the act of being bad? Doesn't it seem that someone as intelligent as God would understand that human beings can only be who they are? Wouldn't you think that the One who created us would have some clue as to how we would behave in a given situation? And does it make sense that when we behave exactly the way God knows we will, He then condemns us to eternal damnation for being the very humans He created us to be? Those questions never occurred to me as a child. In fact, it never occurred to me to question anything except my own worth. It was never the belief that was disputable... only the believer.
I use to be a cynic. Now I'm a realist. Someday I hope I'll advance to idealism. God is not altered just because some people attempt to make Him into something He is not. Petty Christian hypocrisy didn't drag God down to my father's level. It couldn't. It could only pull my father further and further down into an ugly, fearful, paranoid view of life. Me too, for most of my life. Because the people I trusted the most in the world were obsessed with their own abusive religious agenda, I assumed it was my duty to be similarly obsessed. But it never seemed to work for me. I was never satisfied... never content... always wondering what was wrong with me that I didn't fit in. Now I know I didn't fit because the space into which I was trying to force myself wasn't even close to my shape and size. An oppressive, mean-spirited God seemed impossible to me, and I could not make myself embrace that belief, no matter how hard I tried. But it was impossible to acknowledge this truth when I was enclosed in a casing of puritanical fundamentalism. I actually had to go a little insane and end up in a secular personal growth group in order to meet people who were not enslaved to oppressive Christian dogma. These "heathens" were more Christ-like in their beliefs and behaviors than any pastor, elder or deacon I had ever met in church. My circle of friends expanded at that point, and although the unraveling of my spiritual programming took many years, I eventually began to see that the truth could be found by asking questions... questions I was never allowed to ask before.
For thirty-seven years I was encased in fundamentalist Christianity of the worst kind. Fifteen years later, I still suffer whip-lash from all those years of dogma. I'm still confused about exactly who God is and what He (or She) wants from me. Life is not easy, and growing up in such a narrow-minded world has left many scars. But now I am a searcher, and I'm gaining awarenesses that are making life much easier to bear. As I hesitantly embrace a less vindictive and more loving God, I am better able to embrace myself with love and accept the person I was created to be. To quote an old Carpenter's song, "It's gonna take some time this time, to get myself in shape...” But I'm beginning to learn that God's love is the most powerful force in the Universe, and it is helping me to discover a world that is expansive, creative and filled with joy.
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