Watch Your Mouth, There Are Men Present!

January 4, 2016January 2, 2016 SJ1 Comment

Once, during the years I was part of my own real-life “Fellowship,” I and several others were being trained to teach a children’s class.

The leader asked if anyone knew a particular story from the Old Testament. I volunteered to tell it, and it was a great moment in my life. I made everyone laugh, then sigh, then grow quiet at the heartbreaking ending. The leader was really impressed, and said so.

The next day, he asked for another story. I volunteered again. The leader gave me a brief smile, then asked, “Any guys want to try?”

Not “anyone else,” but “any guys.”

It was a subtle rebuke to all those guys who didn’t volunteer.

Hang on. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that the leader just wanted participation from the guys as well as the girls?

Not in the world of Christian patriarchy.

Everyone there had been schooled in the same teachings. We all knew that the guys were supposed to be taking the lead — in spiritual matters, in teaching, in marriage, and in life. Girls were supposed to submit to their fathers’ or husbands’ authority. In practice, they were taught to defer to men in general as well.

I was once told, “Where women move in, men move out.” The speaker was talking about the real estate business, which in the late 90s was heavily populated by women. That was why you didn’t want to let women move into professions like piloting, politics, and military. Because men would move away to something else, leaving women in charge. And you know what a disaster that would be.

Wait, you don’t know?

We were assured it was the worst thing that could happen to our churches and our nation. God didn’t want women in charge. All kinds of (unspecified) calamities would result as soon as “feminists” got control.

(Nobody addressed the fact that the world was already in pretty rotten shape with men in charge.)

Every female character in the Bible was forced through the grid of “submissive to authority” or not. One day I’ll devote a post to explaining how Abigail was bad, Esther a compromiser, and Deborah a reluctant leader. Ruth generally came out okay if you glossed over the story enough. But for here, I’ll just say that all of us young people understood the same “truth”: that a woman was always second place to a man.

So when a young woman stood up and did a top-notch job telling a Bible story, the young men in the audience couldn’t just say, “Good job!” and let it go. No, she’d laid down a challenge: someone had to get up there and do it too. Preferably better.

And not just “someone,” either. Some guy.

And please, woman, from now on — keep your gifts and your voice in check when men are present.

Words of Art

December 15, 2015June 24, 2017 SJLeave a comment

“She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom.”

Several years ago, I finally got too tired of being good enough. I gave up. I told God, “If you’re so big, you can handle all this yourself. I’m done.” I did the spiritual equivalent of shrugging off my backpack, peeling off my restrictive clothes, crawling into bed, and pulling the covers up over my head.

And God said, “Good. You just rest. I’ll pick all this up. Do you need anything right now? I’ll check in on you.”

As I lay with that blanket over my head, I gradually realized that I could breathe again. It didn’t hurt as much to move. For the first time since I was a teenager, the fear of punishment and God’s wrath receded. The feeling was both exhilarating and painful, like when you flex your fingers after you put down a strap that’s been biting into your hand.

Sometime during that spiritual sabbath, I discovered JA Photography & Design. Jenn creates and sells letter art, and I was especially caught by this piece:

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I teared up when my print arrived. My faith is a lot wobblier than it was years ago when I knew all the answers. Life is a lot messier. But this word represents the hope that keeps me going.

Deep spiritual moments aside, I just plain love Jenn’s eye for seeing shapes in everyday life and making sense out of them. Since my decorating style is basically, “Hang stuff up on my wall,” art-into-words is pretty much everything I need.

20151215_093953 — Is my S upside down? It routinely gets knocked off the wall.

In a shameless plug for this art, let me also add that it’s inexpensive (about $4 per letter) and easy to customize.

Tired of pre-printed signs urging you to “Live, Laugh, Love”? (I am.) Get in touch with Jenn and create one that spells out your name, a personally-inspiring word, or “Live More, Die Less.” *

Or, you know, “grace” — a word I’ve got up on my wall to remind me of the incredible freedom that comes when you finally let God carry the weight.

*”The more you live, the less you die.” That’s a line in the song “Raise the Roof” by Carbon Leaf, the band whose music got me through the final shattering illusions when the “truths” of my teenage years were revealed for certain as a sham.

Mock-A-Meme 20

December 13, 2015August 24, 2018 SJLeave a comment

Beautiful like me.jpg

Which is entirely inspiring to the rest of us who are not beautiful like her.

Million men.jpg

Seeing as I’m only beautiful like me, I’m willing to give this a shot. I don’t even need a million men to tell me. I’ll settle for, I don’t know, fifty? Okay go!

Oh, hang on, do I have to be in her particular state of undress for the occasion?

And you know who that princess is? Taylor Swift, who made her fortune singing lovelorn songs about men.

Also, in meme-world, there’s no such thing as a confident yet gracious woman. Either you’re a limp noodle or you’re a bitch. And either way, you’d best have a decent figure.

Worrying

So no need to worry about the fact that you’re sitting on an uneven pier, wearing only a towel. You probably won’t fall in till tomorrow.

Man Dream

Friend who sent meme: …And not do stupid stuff. Or at least not lose our balance while doing stupid stuff.

Me: I was trying to think of a comment to follow up yours, but yours just captures the moment so well.

Friend: Moment is right. That fleeting moment where you convinced yourself you are, in fact, the ultimate powerful great dreamer. And then your foot slips.

And in the hustle and bustle of the undreaming city below, nobody even hears your final, gravity-induced scream.

Me: I don’t think you’re going to be hired to write memes.

That finishes up my current supply of memes. Send me more, and I’ll mock ’em.

Breaking Fences, Take 2

December 12, 2015December 17, 2015 SJ2 Comments

“The more commitments you make, the more mature you will be.”

After reading my last post (click here) a friend sent me actual photographic evidence that people really do think that “building fences” will protect you from sinning.

This page is from a “counseling” conference for students (about age 16 to young 20s) held in 2000. The bullet point listed here is just one of probably six or seven; these conferences deluged the attendees with information. It was hard to take it all in, much less judge each point’s validity — even if you had some frame of reference that let you see the problems in the first place.

This was written by the same teacher who wrote this helpful self-motivation checklist right here.*

Let’s take a look at this bit by bit, how about?

Oddly, when I went to my (highly effective) counseling sessions, what I most appreciated was how my counselor listened to me. She occasionally asked questions or suggested a different way to understand God or my past. No explaining or urging took place.

Counseling sessions are very individualized, so I imagine that sometimes a counselor might take a different tack that would look more like explaining and urging. But this teaching seems to assume that if people have problems, those people need to be “fixed.” They need to keep behind the fences and follow the rules. That way God will bless them again.

Two Bible verses! The first one is pretty solid. The second one is from a Psalm, which is poetry, not exactly cause-and-effect promises. And then, in a giant leap for logickind, he explains and urges that in order to get God’s blessings, you have to make commitments to do good things.

Just in case we might think he made up this theology, he gives us proof: an unverifiable story about anonymous people.

(If you’re thinking, “How could people believe this?”, then you don’t understand the force of a leader’s personality, the high-pressure atmosphere, and the reinforcement from the group where everyone else seems to agree without reservation. You should read my novel, The Fellowship.)

I don’t even have to point out what’s wrong with this “example.” But I will anyway.

The story assumes that if the young woman had committed to telling young men to approach her father first, she would be spared Bad Things. We also “know” that she’d be more mature if she made this commitment.

This is one point where he and I agree: this woman was not mature enough to handle a relationship. But turning it over to her dad wouldn’t have helped her in the long run.

After all, she thinks that since she accepted a date in surprise, it’s a binding promise. No, honey. If you’re uncertain about it, email him to say that the day you agreed on wouldn’t work out after all, and you’d really like to think about his offer a little longer. Then, after you’ve thought about it, call him and explain that you have a conflict of faith and you really don’t think it’s a good idea. It will be awkward and he might end up feeling hurt. That’s grown-up life.

But, no, since Daddy isn’t there to rescue her, she goes out with the guy after all and… violates her moral purity? There’s no knowing what that really means in this context. This phrase could refer sex — and if she had sex on the first date despite her conscience, she’s got really serious issues. It could also mean they kissed. Or maybe she wore a low-cut blouse and he complimented her figure. No telling which fence got breached, since breaking any of them counts as sin.

(It’s even possible that it means he forced sexual contact without her consent; since she dated a guy who didn’t have her father’s approval, she’s partly guilty for whatever he did to her. I don’t have the evidence of this logic right here, but it’s definitely part of the thinking.)

The story serves only one purpose: to create fear among his followers so they’ll accept his word as their means of security.

Well, yes, Daniel did. But that showed his strength of character. He knew his own mind. He didn’t need to prop up his sagging judgment with “commitments.”

This whole bullet point (and the rest of the material) is flavored with the pungent stench of Bible verses ripped out of context. Teachers like this demonstrate over and over that their concern isn’t what the Bible says or what God is really like. It’s to reinforce their own authority as teachers of truth, as they trap their followers behind miles of fences that God never created.

Amid all that talk of God and Biblical principles and Bible verses, though, this teacher — like most teachers like him — forgot to add a key verse. I’ll do it for him.

“Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.” Nehemiah 6:8

*The teacher is Bill Gothard of the Institute in Basic Life Principles/Advanced Training Institute. I have no qualms about calling him out by name. But although his material is what I use for my examples, I don’t want to focus solely on him and his teachings. He’s just one of many teachers who peddle legalism, and they all use the same methods.

Breaking Fences

December 11, 2015January 6, 2016 SJ1 Comment

“Why won’t legalists have sex? Because somebody might see them and think they’re dancing.”

While you’re still dying of laughter over that one…

Rules protect us from sinning. That’s the whole spirit behind legalism. Rules about what you wear, what you watch, how you dress, what you eat, where you go — they’re all designed to keep you from ever getting close enough to a sin to commit it. They “fence off” the sin so you can’t get to it. Want to avoid sexual sin? Probably best not to go dancing.

That way, you can be sure that God will bless you instead of punishing you.

The problem is… actually, there are a lot of problems with living life this way. One of the problems is that there are never enough fences. Legalism creates row after row of fences, trying to block off any avenue to that sin. That includes even the good parts of our human nature that might lead us too close to that sin.

And eventually, breaking the “fences” becomes just as great an offense as the sin itself.

These rules vary from one subculture to another. In my own “Fellowship,” (Bill Gothard’s homeschooling program) girls could wear makeup and earrings, but it was a big deal not to listen to “rock” music (which was almost any music other than hymns or classical). In the church my husband grew up in, the music rules were less stringent, but women weren’t allowed to have pierced ears or cut their hair. I read about other cults where members weren’t allowed to attend other churches, or had to log a certain number of hours in prayer every week, or weren’t allowed to eat marshmallows.

And it never works. We still mess up. Legalism just gives us hundreds of extra ways to mess up, without the remedy of God’s grace and mercy to restore us.

It’s a heavy burden of guilt to be credited for a sin you never committed.

In my world, the “fence” progression looked something like this:

Sin: sexual sin

Rule 1: To avoid sexual sin, don’t date until you’re ready for marriage.

New sin: dating

Rule 2: To avoid dating, commit to “courtship” in which the parents make the decision that you’re ready.

New sin: violating courtship commitment

Rule 3: To avoid violating your courtship commitment, don’t let yourself fall in love with someone your parents haven’t approved.

New sin: falling in love

Rule 4: To avoid falling in love, don’t let yourself have crushes.

New sin: crushes

Rule 5: To avoid crushes, don’t interact with the opposite sex on a casual basis.

Therefore:

Interacting with and enjoying the attention of the opposite sex is, in effect, sexual sin.

So back away from the fence and behave. That’s what God said, after all.

Are You a Failure? Y/N

December 8, 2015January 6, 2016 SJ12 Comments

The thing about cults and cult-like systems is that, for the most part, they’re really boring.

Most of the indoctrination takes place day by day, through sermons that carefully redefine Scripture, through lectures that reinforce the group’s beliefs, and through long, dull sessions of filling in blanks and regurgitating the right answers.

The question-and-answer exercises are very simplistic, and all designed to condition you to doubt yourself and feel like a failure. You learn to look to your leader for answers, and you’re afraid to leave the group because you know you’ll crash and burn on your own.

A friend from my own Fellowship* recently shared a snapshot of a worksheet we had to fill out as students in the early 90s. As 14 – 18 year olds, we were separated from our parents at weeks-long conferences, awakened early and kept up late, and bombarded all day with lectures and conditioned group responses. Somewhere in the middle of this exhausting, bewildering, and exhilarating experience, they dropped things like this in our laps:

received_10153698897882180

1. Do you get up early in the morning?

2. Do you get out of bed when you wake up?

3. Are you an “energy-giver” when you get up?

4. Do you decide the night before what to wear the next day?

5. Do you consistently honor a day of rest?

6. Do you make your bed as soon as you get up?

7. Do you have everything in its rightful place?

8. Do you keep your room neat?

9. Are you consistent in your daily Bible reading?

10. Do you have a regular prayer time?

11. Do you regularly memorize Scripture?

12. Do you always wash your hands before meals?

13. Do you practice proper etiquette?

14. Do you sit near the front during a meeting?

15. Do you stand up for your elders?

16. Do you take notes during messages?

17. Do you know how to detect the five types of fools?

18. Do your parents approve of all your friends?

19. Do you fulfill all the promises you make?

20. Do you put yourself to sleep with meditation on Scripture?

An outsider could glance over it and say, “Well, there are a lot of great ideas here. Except what does washing your hands have to do with self-motivation? Just take what’s good and leave the rest.”

An insider knew much better than that. “No” is not an acceptable answer to any of these questions. Notice that”Sometimes” isn’t even an option. We couldn’t take-and-leave. This wasn’t a mere list of ideas. This was a test, and we were set up to fail it.

Unless you’re educated in the culture that it comes from, you probably still miss how loaded some of these questions are. I could spend a dozen blog posts unpacking these questions.

For instance, “Do you get up early in the morning?” Early rising was a mark of Godliness; sleeping late was, therefore, sinful. The next question, “Do you get out of bed when you wake up?” reinforces the idea that staying in bed is a sign of slothfulness. And there was an entire booklet about the dangers of being slothful. So if you answered “no” to questions 1 & 2, you’re already spiritually defective.

Or how about #14? Sitting in the back of a meeting demonstrated apathy (a sin) or rebelliousness (a major sin).

In order to answer #17, you had to remember the extensivelesson on the Five Types of Fools; so that question actually covered an entirely separate session in itself.

Question #18 weighed about a ton. Your parents had the power of God’s disapproval in your life. If they didn’t like a friend of yours, no matter the reason, the only obedient course of action was to get rid of that friend. Also, “friend” here could stand for “friend of the opposite sex” — someone you liked despite the fact that God expected you to keep your emotions pure until He brought you the one you were to marry. It was a reminder that even your emotions were subject to God/your parents.

The entire list, by the way, is pretty easy to master if you happen to be someone exactly like the Venerated Leader who wrote it — a man who didn’t need much sleep, was an extrovert, found memorization easy, didn’t have any real friends, wore basically the same thing every day, and spent thirty years sexually harassing young women that he invited to work for him. Oh, wait, he forgot to add that item, didn’t he?

Twenty years later, when many of us saw the picture of this list, we felt that same oppression we’d lived under as teenagers. “No wonder,” we said. “No wonder I always felt like a failure. No wonder I worked myself into chronic fatigue. No wonder I broke down at age 20.” This list was just one of many others like it. This was how we knew to please God.

This was our spiritual life, one in which choosing your clothes the night before is just as important as keeping the Sabbath (one of the Ten Commandments). No room for mistakes or personality. Just keep your head down, obey, and pretend you aren’t the complete failure you know you are.

And for the record, I have no idea how washing your hands before every meal made it on this list. That’s stupid.

If you need me, I’ll be lying in bed in my comfortably cluttered room, with no memory of the five types of fools, and resting in the grace of God.

*Bill Gothard, IBLP/ATI

Mock-A-Meme 19: Undercuts

December 7, 2015August 24, 2018 SJ3 Comments

One of the most endearing qualities of the meme, especially ones about women’s empowerment, is that their pictures distract from, or sometimes completely undercut, their own message.

They almost always involve women in various states of undress.

I am, therefore, compelled to mock them.

Devil Says

But… she’s not up. It’s an epic takedown by origami paper cranes. “The birds of the air shall peck out your eyes… but, you know, budget cuts. We can afford only paper cranes to chew on your toenails.”

Bitterness

You could even find yourself mostly naked and caught in what looks like a tarp made of spider webs. Count your blessings!

Like Me

Because now I’m looking for my pants. Honey, where’s my pants?

Mama Glue

Heck, if I had been able to lie in a comfy bed with a happy baby and no other kids demanding my attention, I’d have totally rocked that “glue” thing too.

No pants

Nobody said you were weak. We just suggested you might want to sleep on one bed at the time. And nobody said you were giving up! We’re sure you’ll find your pants if you just keep looking.

>> Mock-A-Meme #20

For previous Mock-A-Memes, go here.

O the Deep, Deep Love of Journals

December 6, 2015December 7, 2015 SJLeave a comment

Recently I found out that my friend Toni at RedPenTravelers.com “made journals.”

I love pretty much all journals. It was a a mark of virtue in my own “Fellowship” to keep a regular diary, and it was something I could actually do, unlike sew my own clothes or get up early to meditate on Scripture.

At some point, our Venerated Teacher came up with the idea that we shouldn’t keep “diaries” that recorded personal stories and weren’t meant to be read; we instead should keep “journals” that were written for the edification of others. So much for my natural advantage; I was being all worldly and sinful after all.

Although I struggled to conform to this godly (ahem, ridiculous) standard, and still managed to fill up several books. And all these years later, I don’t know anybody who would want to slog through the overblown prose of a Southern girl who read too much Jane Austen and developed crushes on her own fictional heroes.

All that to say that when I found out about Toni’s journals, I rushed over to see them. Because, you know, journals. What I found was absolute fabulousness.

A handmade leather journal cover, customized according to my choice of color and state. My hometown marked with a heart, and the front cover stamped with my initials. It all fit in my purse. It fit in my life. I needed that journal cover like my teenage self needed a real boyfriend.

The travel journals are designed to accommodate inserts that you can buy. I folded and trimmed paper to fit mine. You might notice that the paper is blank. These days I don’t fill up journals like I used to. But my love for them is undiminished.

Toni and I weren’t exactly at school together, but we were in the same cult, which makes a way better story. She and I met as teenagers at the big annual conference, when we both wore long skirts and she had long hair (I never could grow my hair to a godly length). We wrote letters for years, then fell out of touch until Facebook dawned, Recovering Grace was launched, and we all worked through the tangles of our past together.

As Miss Red Pen, Toni proofread my novel. As RedPenTravelers, she’s offering a discount for everyone who shows up saying I sent them.

So, be ye sent. Click here to check out her site. Use the coupon code FELLOWSHIP for 10% off your order through this December.

Seriously, why are you even still here? You could be a few minutes closer to holding your own handmade customized leather journal in your hand. And say hi to Toni for me while you’re over there.

*****

The Fellowship is available on Kindle and in print.

Dear Cindy

December 4, 2015December 4, 2015 SJLeave a comment

Today I contacted the local newspaper about a press release announcing my novel. The email exchange progressed like this:

Dear Ms. Ames,
I’m a local author. Included is a press release announcing the publication of my new novel. Thank you!
— Sara R. Jones

*
Dear Sara,
Do you have any book signings scheduled for the near future that we could include in the article?
— Cynthia G. Ames, editor

*
Dear Cynthia,
I have one scheduled:

Book Signing
Friday, December 4
Patrick Henry College, Barbara Hodel Center
Purcellville, Virginia
5:30-7:00 pm

There will be others, but they aren’t yet confirmed.
— Sara.

*
Dear Sara,
That’s fine! I’ll put you on the list to call you and set up a time to talk to you and get some pictures.
— Cindy

*
Dear Cindy,
Sounds great! Your new BFF,
— Sara.

*
Okay, no, I didn’t actually say that last part. But we did go from formal titles to casual nicknames within five emails. If we’d kept going, I might have been invited to the family Christmas dinner and possibly asked to be in her daughter’s wedding.

As mentioned, I am signing books tomorrow. Follow me on Facebook (Sara Roberts Jones Author) to keep up to date.

(Note: actual names and actual emails altered. Consider this a fictionalized version. It’s what I do.)

Mock-A-Meme 18

November 28, 2015August 24, 2018 SJ1 Comment

Turns out there are a lot of memes needing to be mocked, and I guess it’s up to me to do it.

But what is Mock-A-Meme, why is it on this page, and what happened to #’s 1-17?

Here’s the deal. About a year ago, I ran a regular series on another blog in which I would collect memes and make fun of them. It was like a big party every Monday. Or, you know, like a mildly amusing text from a friend.

Then The Fellowship took up most of my online energy, and I wrapped up the series.

Still, friends have continued to send me mockable memes. I went through my files today and found a significant backlog. It’s the holidays, I thought. A time for frivolity, joy, and mocking stuff. (I made up that last part.)

I started a new post, only to discover that I’d uploaded all the pictures onto this blog instead of my other one. Faced with the prospect of moving all those files again via my slow netbook, I made a decision: Mock-A-Meme would work just fine on my author blog.

So here you go. Some good old-school Mock-A-Memes until I use up my current supply. Enjoy!

Falling Off Shirt

And honey, that even includes the person who stole your shirt and your bra and left you with only a resuable grocery bag to wear to the beach.

Dragon Scale Ring

You can tell she’s strong-minded because she’s wearing a dragon-scale ring, which is the universal symbol for “strong-minded woman.” Either that or “I have no need to bend my third finger.”

WomanWalkingAway

But walking away is hard to do, people. First you’ve got to get a dynamite figure, then you’ve got to buy a filmy white dress, and then you have to go to a beach and practice mincing. (And… is that an elf ear she’s got?)

Also, in meme-world, social conventions dictate that you have to bare one shoulder at the beach. It’s really embarrassing to show up fully dressed.

Brunette Friends