Category: Lancient History

Lancient History

Youts

the outside lane

BODY { BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN: 4% 10%; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; DIRECTION: ltr; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.2; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff } TABLE { FONT-SIZE: 10pt }

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words…  When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly [disrespectful] and impatient with restraint."  Hesiod

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders…. They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."  Socrates

                                    
"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have
no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all
restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes
for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are
forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."  Peter the Hermit, A.D. 1274

Whether by good fortune or bad luck, I found myself on television regularly between the ages of eleven and twenty.  At least once a year, (and for a couple of years, every month or so) I was either giving an interview about my volunteer work (the most interesting to Walker Raley, who was later accused of attempting to murder his wife), appearing in a broadcast or a PSA, or something.  And I want you to know that I said some mind-blowingly ignorant things.  Mind-blowingly ignorant.

I thank God there was no internet when I was doing my teenaged bloviating.  Listen, it’s out there somewhere and if you can find it, bully for you, but I gave an interview and talked about body image and I said such moronic, stupid, just egregiously dumb things that I would have been the laughingstock of Jezebel.com and you would probably be linking the clip to your Facebook pages with captions like, "WTF?!  Is she high?!"  (I wasn’t.  I was just full of myself.)  Worse, when I knew the camera was coming in close and profile, I was giving 3/4 Serious Actress face, like I was Olivier doing Hamlet.  So embarrassing.  If I could go back in time and talk to myself, I would land five minutes before this interview took place.

There is another interview out there with me talking about style, sniffing over it not being my fault if people wanted to stare.  I cringe, people, cringe thinking about that.  Teenagers are rotten to begin with.  Teenagers who have been led to believe they are special are worse.  Precocious teenagers who have been led to believe they are special, and who are given a platform for their not yet fully formed ideologies are insufferable.  Take my word for it that they can hardly stand themselves.

Miley Cyrus.  Lord have mercy.  That child…  When she’s not taking cell phone pictures of herself, posing in a bedsheet, getting tattooed, or running around in her underwear, she is frequently giving good soundbite in the form of ridiculous, moronic, teenaged commentary.  I shudder and quake, thanking my lucky stars that my parents were never interested in hitching their wagon to me and driving me to Hollywood (or Disney studios, though that nearly happened by accident, just like the rest of my "career" did) because every word out of that little girl’s overly-glossed mouth sounds like an echo from my youth.  Had there been cell phones, had Annie Leibovitz been interested, had I been allowed, I would have made Miley Cyrus look like Dakota Fanning.

Every generation thinks the next one is heading for hell in a handbasket.  I think it’s because we are so humiliated by our own youthful doings that we block them from memory.  We only remember studying, doing our homework, and the occasional gaffe.  Or maybe the hormones driving us as teens burn away our memory of ourselves.  Whatever, it’s a kindness that we can’t remember, but it means an endless, repeated loop from recorded history to now, adults howling and gnashing their teeth over teens and tweens.

My personal favorite comes from William Shakespeare:   I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the anciently, stealing, fighting.
                                                                              

He’s right, you know. 


 

Howling Sea Lane, Lancient History

With Frenemies Like These, Who Needs Anything?

the outside lane

One of the most effective displays of mean-girling I’ve ever been party to happened at a wedding.  I was sitting with a group of women, some of whom were good to casual friends of mine, all of us mutually acquainted and all of us having spent time together at some point or other.  One of the women suggested a group photo of “all the girls”, then handed me the camera and asked me to do the honors.

She looked me right in the eye and smiled, and oh…I had to smile back.  It was startling and vicious, and an elegantly driven knife.  Of course I was crushed, but at the same time I was impressed.  If I had to be socially murdered, at least it was done artistically.  We held each others eyes a little longer than necessary, acknowledging what had happened.  I nodded to her, then I snapped the picture.

I also did my best to cut her head off in the photo, and might have even put my finger over the lens of the other few pictures I was asked to take in rapid succession.

Now, I don’t pretend to think I am an easy person to enjoy.  I give myself a very harsh review.  I am a strange combination of shy and social, and an even stranger mix of confident and insecure.  I think I laugh too loudly, talk too animatedly, have a weird sense of humor, and know I tend toward arch sarcasm when I am nervous.  Most of the time I am in a group setting I am nervous as a Chihuahua.  I have strong opinions, high standards, and do not suffer fools well. 

Taking all that into consideration, I am never surprised to find myself on the outside.  I don’t like being on the outside, but I never really blame anyone for leaving me there.  My feelings might be hurt by it, but I’m not offended.  I realize that I might be an acquired taste.  Besides, I’m an only child.  Only children are born outsiders–we have no ready made peer group, so we learn to exist on the fringes. 

We also learn to entertain ourselves.  Shut me outside the candy store, and I’ll Little Princess myself into happy fantasy. 

I had occasion to run into this woman recently, and I did my best to avoid her.  Funnily, I had been feeling my outsider status keenly until I saw her eyebrows wagging above someone else’s head.  That was all it took.  If that’s what was inside, I was exactly where I belonged.

I turned happily off to my attic grate.  Better to be friends with someone’s pet monkey than Miss Minchin.

Although…I am still grudgingly impressed by her artistic hostility.  No, not even grudgingly.  I’m just impressed.  That was a masterful play and it had its full, desired effect.  Three years later and the blood still drains out of my cheeks thinking about it.  Impressive.

Lancient History, Religion

Wholly Holy? Not Bloody Likely.

the outside lane

A commenter made me realize that if I am going to be posting about religion, I ought to give you some idea of my background on the topic.  That way, you can form more informed opinions regarding my sanctimonious harpings.

I said to the commenter, “I admit that I am in a limbo concerning where I fall as far as Christian denominations go. I went from zero to sixty in my conversion, going from having been nothing to being part of a charismatic congregation. From there, I went into the Baptist church, and the Methodist. I’ve been very cranky about churches since the 10+ years I spent with the charismatic group. That has led me to a very bare bones way of looking at things right now, which is to say, if it isn’t in the Gospels, and if Jesus didn’t address it directly, I am wary and skeptical. I feel like, right now, the way to keep my heart pure is to rest it on the shelf of the message Jesus taught. Paul was a great writer, and no doubt a great leader, but after the abuse of power I watched in three different major ministries, I just can’t build my focus around what he, or any other minister says he heard from God.”

You see, I spent a decade in a church where men and women were appointed prophets, and what they heard from god became gospel.  I even spent a couple of years writing the style manual for that ministry (which was copied and used by three major international ministries that I know of, and heaven only knows how many others reproduced it without permission), including keeping up with the list of words we were not allowed to say because “God said so.” 

I graduated from Bible school after finishing my degree in English, completing 72 hours worth of credit and somewhere around 180 hours of volunteer work in childrens ministry.  I went on to act as a lay singles minister, taught Sunday school, and lead three devotional-based Bible study classes. 

From 1993 through late 1997, of my own volition, with the exception of the Spice Girls whose allure was undeniable, I tuned out of secular radio, film, and television.  I watched Christian broadcasting, listened to Christian radio programming (usually actual ministers because no matter how saved you are, Christian music is still awful), read Christian books, and immersed myself in Bible study.  I think it is telling that I went back to secular entertainment after I started working for the ministry in 1998.  I would not have survived that place without my internet friends.

I am obviously not just some book thumping yokel.  I am educated and I’ve done my homework, and I am proud of that.  However, I realize that I know less and less with every passing year, and I also realize that my education is lop-sided, weighted to doctrines of my own former denominations.  There are more things about God in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in my philosophizing.   

I would tell you this about me regarding my faith, and my discussion of it:  I will always be frank when it comes to religion because I have a heavy respect for it.  I respect mine, yours, and those other guys’, and I respect those who choose not to believe in a god at all.  I don’t take anyone’s religion lightly.  I have laughed about space clams and peep-stones in the past, but I realize that I hang my eternal hat on a virgin birth, a resurrection, and an ascension, so I don’t have much room to talk about the whickety-whack.  That doesn’t mean I won’t call out doctrines that seem patently absurd to me.  I can respect your faith and still think it is nuts that you married a dead guy.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.  And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.

I believe He descended into hell.  On the third day He rose again from the dead. That He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father.

I believe that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

And I need you to understand that I am aware of the difference between using the words “I believe” and “I know.” 

I could be wrong.  There’s only one way to find out, and I’m not in any hurry to do that.  In the meantime, I have chosen a faith that informs my worldview that every person is worth salvation, and so worth my patience, kindness, humility, politeness, forgiveness and consideration over self.  Actually, that might come more from being raised Southern…  I kid.  I’m also still not good at living that way.  If you keep reading this blog, your sure to find easy evidence of that.

I don’t care what color you are, where you are from, who you want to sleep with (as long as it isn’t my husband, a child, or someone/thing unwilling or unable to consent, or else all bets are off–and if it is my child, I will skin you  and wear your hide to church and dare the preacher to say a word to me about it), what god you worship, or if you worship one at all.  You’re fine by me.  Vive le difference, vive et vivant, laisser le bon temps roulez and all that jazz.

And now, no more religion for the day.

Howling Sea Lane, Lancient History, Religion

Father Where Art Thou?

the outside lane

By now you’ve probably all seen the AP news report about a Massachusetts third grader, who has been denied access to a local parochial school due to his parents’ sexuality.  Since I was on religion yesterday, I thought I would pick up the thread and share my opinion here. 

Prefacing all of this with the understanding that it is entirely legal for the school to refuse entry to any child, I want to talk about why I have a personal problem with the decision.  First, let’s go back to Matthew. 

Matthew 19:13-15 (King James Version)

 13Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. 

 14But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 

 15And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence. 

Jesus did not ask his disciples to do a background check on the adults bringing the children to him.  He did not ask if little Ezekiel’s parents were his followers, or if Elizabeth’s mother was still smoking crack, or if Alpheus’ fathers were still gay, or if Delphine was still being raised by her aunt because her mother was in prison and they weren’t sure who her father was.  And if he was aware of each child’s individual situation, he did not look over them with a finger against the side of his mouth, tapping away the ones who weren’t good enough until he found the ones whose parents lived up to his idea of pre-Christian standards.  No.  He touched each and every one of them, loved them individually, and then went on his way.  Such is the King of Heaven. 

More to the point, when Jesus taught he didn’t require your holiness before you were allowed to listen and learn.  He didn’t ask that you pass a test of righteousness, or be without sin.  He didn’t even ask that you be attempting to live according to Levitical law.  He asked nothing of you, and gave everything of himself.  

Jesus did not ask you for money.  He gave you fishes and loaves. 

Jesus did not ask you for your righteousness.  He gave you his own. 

I get so angry and so aggravated at the Church universal, and how exclusive and exclusionary it is.  You can’t come inside unless you fit the standard mold. 

There is a local christian (and I am always being purposefully distinctive about upper- or lower-case letters) radio station that advertises with the slogan, “Safe for the whole family.”  You would be hard pressed to find a piece of their marketing that would not lead you to believe the slogan ought to be, “Safe for the whole straight, white family, which includes at least two children.” 

I worked for an international religious organization for years.  Some things they got very, very wrong, but other things they got right.  One of the things they got right was that everyone was accepted into the church*.  Liars, cheats, drug addicts, fornicators, adulterers, gay, domestic abusers, gang bangers, strippers, abortionists and anything else you could want to shake a finger at, they were there sitting next to me.  The only things that required background checks or agreements regarding lifestyle choices were teaching positions–and that’s as it should be. 

How do people learn if they can’t be taught?  Imagine if the public school system was able to turn away a child because of the color of his skin.  How could that child learn, and grow into a man who could earn a living and participate as a citizen?  We aren’t so far away from that time in our secular history, and we all agree that it is wrong.  So why are we still shutting the church doors on people?  “I’m so sorry,” we say, with a prim little smile on our lips and sorrowful eyebrows, “but we just can’t have you in here.  When you stop drinking, you’ll be welcome.  But until then…  Tsk.  I’m sorry.  We just can’t.  Think of the children.” 

Yes.  Think of the children.  Please, for the love of God, think of the children. 

I attended Catholic school as a non-Catholic, and I am grateful for the education I received.  I am also grateful for having been forced to actually read the Bible in its entirety, and for having Mrs. Cardenas and Sister Sue Ann there to try and decipher it for me.  Though I did not make a decision for Christ until I was in my twenties, those ladies laid a foundation for me.  And isn’t that the whole point of having a religious school?  Even if I had chosen to continue in an agnostic existence, I am a better person for having learned the philosophies taught by Jesus.  

Aren’t religious schools intended to be places to instruct children on what your religion believes are the right and proper ways to live?  In that case, wouldn’t you be welcoming the ones whose backgrounds were contrary to your own with wide arms?  Aren’t those the children who need you the most?  Aren’t those the parents you want to win over with love?  Aren’t you in the business of saving souls through education?  And isn’t your god strong enough to overcome any taint that some poor heathen child might bring into your camp?  Aren’t you called to be a light unto the world? 

One of the things the ministry I worked for got wrong was money.  Money money money.  Toward the end of my time there, it was all about getting money.  We were in a meeting one morning, discussing just that.  We were instructed to pray that God would cause something to happen that would deliver over to our ministry the finances of wicked men and women based on this scripture: 

Proverbs 13:22 (King James Version)

 22A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. 

I’ll save my full Old Testament/New Testament rant for another time, and just say this:  Either you believe Jesus fulfilled the OT or you don’t.  You shouldn’t be mixing and matching Levitical law and the commandments of the Christ to build your doctrines.  That said, I asked in the meeting, “Shouldn’t we be praying that God [being no respecter of persons, who would do for anyone what he did for Paul] rescue the wicked, and turn their eyes from darkness to light, so that they turn to Christ?  And that way, doesn’t the wealth of the wicked become the wealth of the just?” 

If looks could kill.  They didn’t like my idea.  

Because even when you are righteous it is easier to pray for someone’s destruction than someone’s salvation.  And even when you are righteous it is easier to judge someone else’s lifestyle and avoid them than to share a cup.  (I am thinking of my grandmother spraying down furniture with Lysol in front of him when an openly gay friend of my cousin would visit her house.  Embarrassing!)  And even when you are righteous it is easier to say no to one child than have to explain to however many other children that even though your religion does not condone the lifestyle that this child’s parents lead, your god still loves that family and sees them as part of his family.  And, in fact, loves that family so much that he sent his son to die for them, just like he did for you. 

Do you see?  I get so angry!  God loves gays and God loves druggies.  God loves prodigal sons.  And do you know what?  God loves the ones who never love him back.  

I am a mother first and foremost and I want you to know that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate my son from the love I have for him.  Nothing he does could make me stop loving him.  Nothing could make me give up on him.  He doesn’t have to be anything other than mine, and I birthed him, so that will never change.  He could deny me all he wanted.  He could change his name.  He could run to Timbuktu.  I am still his mother, and I would still love him.  And I would never, ever give up on him. 

God feels that way about you, about me, about Hitler, about Tom Cruise, about Rick James, about Betty Ford, about Marc Jacobs, about Ellen Degeneres, about that guy who lives next door to you, about your 7th grade science teacher, about that homeless man, about every single child in his creation.  That love doesn’t go away.  That love doesn’t die.  That love is perfect. 

The religious school is upset because the little boy in question only has mothers, and has no father.  I’ve got news for them.  That child has a Father, and it would serve them well to talk to Him about admission requirements.

*After Amy, who worked and sat in the congregation with me at this institution, read the post she reminded me:  I agree completely, except that I would say “that church” wasn’t accepting of everyone. You commit any crime known to man and be accepted but I dare you to be a divorcee in that church. Even though every gosh darn person in leadership was divorced [and they had created a whole new doctrine to allow divorce of ministers], you’ll be
treated like an outcast.

Lancient History

Teenaged Girls

the outside lane

Wednesday, October 26, 1988 was a big day for me.  It was the first concert I had ever attended without a parent.  It was the night the boy who I had dated since 1985 and I broke up.  It was the night I met the boy I would moon after for the following four years.  And, it was the night when I met Trinette. 

That was my senior year, which was godawful in so many ways, I’m surprised I made it out with most of my sanity.  Trinette was one of the reasons I did.

She was a freshman at the local university, and already an expert on Soviet and Eastern European history and culture.  I had a dabbling interest in the USSR at the time, and she provided a catalyst that would propel me into Soviet Studies during my own time at the university.  We also shared very similar tastes in music, and would sit in her apartment listening to Berlin and Erasure ad nauseum.

We were inseparable almost from the moment we met.  I spent all the free time with her that I could, and we would write each other pages of notes during the day to exchange at our next meeting.  I had forgotten about the notes until just now.  Teenaged girls are exhausting, aren’t they?  Especially the drama kids.  I’m tired just thinking of how much emotional energy it took to be me.  I’ll take wrinkles, saggy tatas and 40, over 17 any day of the week.

We were friend-soulmates and I adored her.  Only we understood the depth of each other’s feelings.  Only we knew how it felt to be such special, unique snowflakes.  Every word we spoke was heavy with the honied angst that leaks from teenaged pores.  We were serious artists, and serious lovers of history, and serious about fashion and style, and Trinette was very serious about hating brown eyeshadow and Christian Dior.  “Brown looks like you’ve rubbed dirt on your eyes,” she told me. 

She was my lifeline out of high school, the light at the end of the tunnel that said things were going to be okay.  Her presence in my life meant that one day I could get out of the world I was living in, that I would survive my parents and algebra, and maybe I could even grow out my hair to be as pretty as hers.

Trinette had beautiful hair.  Just saying.

Our friendship flamed out spectacularly in the summer between my senior year of high school, and freshman year of college.  One day we were still thick as thieves, and the next?  Poof.  Gone.  There were plenty of reasons for it, all silly, all sad, and all very 18-years-old.  I think I was mostly to blame.  I usually think I am mostly to blame, but in this case, I really do believe I was.

I went through formal Rush that August, having to face Trinette and her sorority sisters in a ballroom full of hurt for me.  Hilariously (now, 20 years later, not so much then), my high school guidance counselor, the ditzy Mrs. Moneybags, had forgotten to add back into my GPA two courses she had removed to change to Advanced Placement status, leaving me with the 1.8 she mailed in as transcript for my Rush application.  I was cut from the Rush process after the first day of parties, and had no idea why.  All I knew was that I had faced Trinette in that ballroom, she hadn’t spoken a word to me, and the next morning my Rho Chi was phoning to tell me that she had never had anything like this happen, but that I was no longer welcome to any parties.  Not even Phi Mu wanted me.

Mass rejection.  Mass humiliation. 

I pestered people about it, and someone finally came back with the story that Trinette may have said I had committed a Rush infraction.  Of course she hadn’t, but it was enough to embitter me for a couple of semesters.  It would be a couple of years, after I pledged Delta Zeta, before I found out exactly what had happened.  Thanks a lot, Mrs. Moneybags!

Trinette and I ran into each other in the Bursar’s office in my senior year.  She was working on her graduate degree, and had just come back from Romania.  I happened to be wearing a pair of amethyst earrings she had left in my car prior to our flameout.  When she hadn’t returned my phone calls, I had kept the trinkets left in the little plastic soap container she’d used for her overnight jewelry box.  Those earrings were the only thing of value, having been a gift from her grandmother. 

I realized it as soon as she looked at me, and started taking them out to hand them over.  I will never forget the look on her face.  She bade me keep them, but I insisted, pressing them on her.

It had been five years since we had last spoken, and I asked for her phone number.  I wanted to apologize to her for having been 18 and dramatic.  She let me do that, but then no more.

I regret a few things in my life.  Losing Trinette’s friendship is one.  She was an interesting, driven girl, and my Google-stalking tells me that she has overachieved what she set out to do.  I found her on Facebook and have been hesitating pulling the trigger on requesting friendship there.  I guess it couldn’t hurt anything but my pride.