January Update

First of all, some of my blog posts have been nominated for a few categories over at Main Street Plaza, yay!: 

Best Deconversion/Exit Story (For "Faith"),
Best Interfaith Interaction (for "The Beginning of the End?"), and
Most Interesting Commentary to Mormonism (for "Stupid Mormon Words")

Please go vote, and thank you so much for your support! It really means a lot.

And you know what? There are so many other amazing posts out there, many of them written by friends of mine. Check out the nominated blogs/posts for all the categories. MSP has really outdone themselves.

Which makes me want to apologize. Here's the thing: lately, I just don't have a hell of a lot to say. Christmas, my grandfather's death, I had my sister over this weekend, school began today for everyone but me, the cars need some attention and I can't get rid of this fucking cough for anything. THEN, I arranged to have some friends over this Saturday until realizing that my grandfather's funeral is this Saturday and on Friday we're headed over to Eric's stepsister's house for the monthly get-together (it's his stepsister's turn to host). And I just realized I missed posting my first post yesterday on books, and I just finished a pretty decent book called "Not That Kind of Girl." Next Sunday? Yes.

So the funeral is at my dad and stepmom's church. Assembly of God. A new one, something about a merge. But these people speak in tongues and treat my sister like shit. I'm dreading this a little, if only for the preaching. And the kids are going. It's like everywhere we turn around there's something about god and heaven and the kids are right there, totally tuned in. We need to engage them in a conversation. I've no desire to indoctrinate them (y'know, like force them to believe and all that shizz) about what we believe and don't believe, but I do want to talk with them about it. But don't get me wrong: they will not go to primary. We won't go to church unless they're curious, and only then just once per church. They're going to learn critical thinking. Religion is just everywhere around here. If we don't talk with them about it, someone will.

Then there's the fact that Abbie is turning 8 in May, the ever magical number. I don't know how the family is going to act. Their reaction or non-reaction will tell us a lot about how they feel about our inactivity. I know enough to know there are inactive members who still have their children baptised, but there are also plenty who do not. We'll see. My nephew has already commented about it to her a few months ago.

We'll see.

In the meantime, I'll try to calm down and organize myself and hopefully get something written here.

And now that I've bitched and apologized about having nothing to say, a few topics will pop-up in my head and I won't be able to do anything until I write it down :D That is, after all, how it works.

The Last Straw

Again, I sat in the chapel with the rest of the youth group at the age of 13 or 14-years-old. This night would prove to be the end of the road for me.

My young, handsome, energetic pastor whom everyone loved stood at the front. My peers and I waited in the front few rows of the pews, listening as he explained that night's particular activity. It went like this:

Two of our peers had been pre-chosen to be the angels of death. How they were chosen still fascinates and confuses me--if I allow my thoughts to dwell here, it angers me. Much about this night does.

Two rooms awaited us in the back of the chapel where the pastors' offices were located. One, representative of Heaven. Another, representative of Hell.

The two angels of death would come and take us randomly (like death often does, natch) and escort us to our proper destination.

I wasn't taken right away, but eventually those spared the pains of this ridiculous exercise silently stood before me with outstretched hands. I stood and followed them.

Led into the back hallway, the "angels" opened a door and invited me inside. I entered and found it to be akin to a janitor's closet--for all I know that's exactly what it was. It was hot and stuffy, small, and pitch black.

I was in Hell.

The realization struck me hard. Was it random? I hardly believed that.

Did the angels not like me?

What the fuck did I do?

As a girl who had felt the cruel impact of not belonging with a group of people who, by all accounts, should've been nicer, this was the harsh rub of salt to the wound.

I still don't know why I was placed here, or if it was intentional. I seem to remember another boy in the closet with me as I unsuccessfully fought like hell to hold back my tears and the embarrassment of muffled sobs that accompanied them. This wasn't about being put in hell so much, but of a complete and direct rejection of me as a person. That they thought so little of me as to find no problem damning me.

(It strikes me as something my 16-year-old sister probably feels often now, especially when her pastor unnecessarily took her aside to inform her she had kept her under the baptismal water just a little bit longer as to wash away her "extra sin" and continually berate her for things most teenagers do--effectively pushing her further away)

I don't remember anyone else joining us in Hell except for the one other person, and unfortunately even he remains nameless and faceless in my memory. Few, if any, words were exchanged between us.

Eventually the closet door opened and the two of us were invited to leave Hell. The object lesson was over. "Come to Heaven," they said.

The light in Heaven blinded our eyes as they had since adjusted to the darkness that was Hell. The room per my memory was as large as it was bright, probably a conference room. And rather empty. And a hell (ha!) of a lot more temperate.


"Have some cookies," they said. I wordlessly took one, hoping nobody would say anything to me. Hoping that the redness and puffiness that surely had to betray my resolve to be steeled and resolute was absent. Anger filled me here as much as did the stabbing pain of rejection. I also found the odd logic of the entire event somewhat amusing--did this mean we'd have a chance to enter heaven after a sufficient time in Hell? Of course it didn't. Not per their official doctrine.

Thankfully everyone left me alone. I didn't belong here. They knew it, I knew it. My years of attending had proven that much. And after this shit I was finished subjecting myself to the abuse.

But perhaps I was too hasty. I was eventually invited into Heaven, and there were cookies.

Wasn't that enough?

Salvation NOW!

I was eleven years old, brand new in the youth group program of my father's Assembly of God church. Our pastor, different from the previous one I've described, took us to the local Catholic cemetery, easily the oldest cemetery in our small town, if not in the vicinity. Full of history. I always wondered, if I was still enough, if I could feel the ghosts of those who had been lain to rest.

But there would be no such reverence this afternoon.

I stood there with my peers on the grass, listening to our pastor's strong and passionate admonishments that went something like this:

"I can't guarantee you that you'll wake up tomorrow. You can't guarantee me that the sun will rise in the morning, that the Earth will still be here. There is no guarantee. You don't know when you will die. If you don't accept Christ now, you will end up in hellfire--period. You cannot wait until the last minute because you may not know when the last minute is. You may not wake up tomorrow. You must accept Christ. Now."

Fear, as you may have noticed by now, is the primary tool in the Assembly of God arsenal. The use of fear is hardly exclusive to Mormonism, but it is certainly a different brand. This is a more violent, in-your-face fear mongering. It is without apology. It is hardly denied even by those who commit it. It is born of fear and perpetuated out of fear. It is a snake that you will pick up to let it bite you because you are unworthy and deserve ever more pain for Christ. You will ask to be bitten and stomped and crucified for and out of your own righteous guilt that, if sincere, will never be satiated.

This particular graveside example is relatively mild, but it remains in my memory.

Eleven-years-old and being told to accept Christ or be consigned to Satan's terrifying grasp to endure an eternity of fire, torture, and misery.

Because I was a sinner.

No matter how hard I tried, how good I was in my heart and in action, I was a sinner.

An eleven. year. old. sinner.

Who needed to be saved.

Have I ever explained to anyone just how hard I tried throughout my lifetime to be good? I haven't because I can't put it into satisfactory words. And it wouldn't matter, because it wasn't ever enough. It just didn't fucking matter because in the end someone would come up to me, for reals, to tell me nothing I ever did would ever be enough. It didn't matter what church I belonged to--Protestant, LDS, didn't matter. The Mormons straight up tell you to aim for perfection even though you'll never get there. To even suggest such a thing in my father's church could be considered blasphemy. Only Christ was and is ever perfect.

Assembly of God is bloody. But it's supposed to be. Therein is humility.

I would never be enough.

Praise Jesus.

I wasn't sure at this moment of my first real call to salvation if I'd been saved. I hadn't said "the prayer" yet--the one where you verbally "accept" Christ as your savior and call yourself an unworthy insect under his feet. But I believed in him. I accepted the story. I wasn't fighting it.

Apparently that wasn't enough.

Some people would tell me that's the point. 

I don't know. It's all bullshit. A part of me knew it, I'm certain, beginning that very day.

Memories: Assembly of God

The following describes one of three major events that led to my rejection of organized religion the minute I hit high school. Other factors were involved, but this--yeah.

I was in junior high, seventh or eighth grade, and sitting in the chapel of my father's Assembly of God church for youth group. Other kids surrounded me, kids I neither knew nor liked and who neither knew nor cared for me. But I was there because it was the week I was staying with my dad and, for some reason, I had agreed to this shit.

My youth group pastor was a young, energetic man, probably in his mid-twenties. His wife was super nice, a woman with big hair, a lot of makeup, and a Louisiana accent I adored. He stood at the front of the chapel and asked us all a question.

"If God offered to tell you where you'd end up after death--Heaven or Hell--would you want to know? Raise your hand."

Of course we all raised our hands.

"If God told you you were going to Hell, would you try your best to go to Heaven instead?"

Uhm, yeah I would. Apparently--and not surprisingly--everyone else felt the same way.

"You can't do that!" he said. "God told you you're going to hell, you're going to hell. There is nothing you can do. Now, who would still try to get into heaven anyways?"

What the fuck is this?! I wondered.

Yet my peers and I insisted, all raising our hands.

Again, he told us we were stupid for even trying because God said it wouldn't happen. Who are we to challenge God?!

So again he asked. And again we all raised our hands except for one kid. He was done with this shit. If he was going to hell, he was going to hell. Fuck it. I couldn't help but admire him for this and also couldn't help but think that it would make life a bit nicer if I could just enjoy it without worrying about the dangling, annoying carrot that was heaven.

Alas, he continued.

"What if God told you you were going to heaven?"

Sigh.