Free to Discriminate?

I support gay rights.  It breaks my heart to see other human beings bullied, stigmatized, shamed, frowned upon or otherwise discriminated against, especially when the source of belief that supports such behavior comes from a work of literary fiction.

When I first heard the story of the gay couple who were refused service by a bakery (a custom wedding cake) for religious reasons, and the ensuing lawsuit claiming discrimination, I stood with the business owner.  I imagined myself as a business owner and I wouldn’t want someone telling me I had to serve someone whose behavior or values were so offensive to me.  I probably wouldn’t rent space to or design a website for the KKK.  If a customer was causing a disturbance or shoplifting I would refuse them service.  I used to be religious, so I can even imagine the dilemma of being in the position of having to reject the things God rejects.  I think that falls under religious freedom.  As much as I think the religious have far too many privileges that the rest of us don’t have, at this point in time our country does grant religious freedoms.

This right to refuse service to gays thing has gone viral.  People are pushing for it, trying to pass laws in every state to protect business owners.  But, I’m a gay rights supporter now.  And the folks on that side are screaming "discrimination," saying this is no different than the race issue, that America is reverting, that if we allow discrimination against homosexuals then we will also have to allow businesses to refuse service to blacks again.  

I see that side, too.

And I’m still in the place, so close to my religiosity, struggling to shimmy free of it, that I now assume my first gut reaction is the wrong one, the inherently Christian one, and that the other side is right.  I gotta learn to trust myself more.  Slow down, think it through.  I don’t feel too bad ‘cause this is a hella crazy social issue.  There may be no right answer.

I empathize with the discriminated.  It’s sad that there are people in our varied American culture who continue to condemn others in such a fashion.  I generally support the gay community in their plight for equality.  I’m just not sure if fighting these “right to refuse” bills is going to change anything.  It puts a lot of non-gays unnecessarily on the defensive, opens a whole other can of worms (business owner’s freedoms across the board), and for what?  So you can do business with those who would chose to refuse you service if they could?  Why would you give these people your business?

I’m thinking maybe just let this one go.  Winning this one isn’t going to gain you the respect and equality that you want.  Give them what they want.  They want the right to refuse service to whomever they choose?  Fine, but under one condition: they post it.  It must be clearly posted whom they are discriminating against.  Now consider this for a moment… They must tell the world that they are haters.  With their freedom to discriminate also comes a customer’s freedom to discriminate.  With their hard-earned cash.  The gay community and their many supporters can take their business elsewhere.  I personally wouldn’t give a dime to a discriminating business and I would politely let them know this.  Maybe they will see that discrimination isn’t good business sense.  Maybe eventually they will see it doesn’t make sense in our society.

Is there a better solution?  Is there any good solution in a situation where one party chooses to hate another?

I have seven children.  I can make my children play with each other, but sometimes they just don’t want to.  (We never have hate issues, just an occasional bad mood.)  If I force the situation they never play nicely.  Usually the best approach is to let it work itself out (maybe with just a little observational instruction from Momma).  It’s made clear to the child with the bad attitude that the other children don't want to play with him or her unless he or she is playing nicely.  This child then plays alone in another part of the same room.  It never fails that between loneliness and the combined laughter and enjoyment of the other children, he or she is lured out of the corner to join pleasant society.

Maybe we should revisit Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten:

Most of what I really need
To know about how to live
And what to do and how to be
I learned in kindergarten.
Wisdom was not at the top
Of the graduate school mountain,
But there in the sandpile at Sunday school.

These are the things I learned:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life -
Learn some and think some
And draw and paint and sing and dance
And play and work everyday some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world,
Watch out for traffic,
Hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.

Dream On, School Bus Driver

       7 a.m.  The grandmother clock above the mantle chimes the hour as the school bus barrels by our quiet house.  The sweet faces of my children flicker before my mind’s eye and I am painfully glad that they are not on that school bus.  How I would miss them!  How my life would change with them merely coming and going from our home early in the morning and late in afternoon (4 p.m.), visiting for awhile on the weekends and holidays.  No Royal or Blue to sit and chat with me after breakfast, learning their lessons and planning our day.  No Atira or Farra with whom to share the interesting bits of my day as it’s happening.  No Seth to quietly enter the room to show me his latest creation with a shy smile.  Limiting our working together on all-day-long projects, dancing together, laughing together, deciding to eat popcorn and have a Cosmos marathon all afternoon or randomly building paper maché volcanos.  Limiting the time they spend with each other when their interactions and affections are the most precious commodities our family has.

         Nope.  I’m too jealous of my children’s awesomeness to give their childhoods away for someone else to enjoy.

I Survived Driving Near St. Louis

          I recently read some inspiring articles about writing.  One mentions comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his habit of writing every day, even if it’s just one line.  I like this idea (except I don’t know how to write only one line).  Keep the habit up.  I’m trying to do this.  I’m going to begin blogging some of this random stuff.  

          The other was a superbly enjoyable article by author Patrick Hone.  Be yourself, he says.  Just sit down and write, get yourself out there.  Write not for money but because writing is creative and begin creative every day is important for growth.  It’s part of you.  That sort of thing.  So encouraging!

         Hone suggests writing about every day things, being observant and reflective.  Oh, I usually have plenty to write about!  But often I don’t make writing a priority, so the time gap between something interesting observed and me actually sitting down to write is larger than it should be for maximum freshness.

         I drove on a six-lane highway for the first time today.  I was doing great.  (Unfortunately, this was one of those cases where I couldn't stop to write about it.  Life is against me, I tell you.)  Then another lane snuck in there somehow.  I assume there was a matching lane on the other side of the median, going the opposite direction, making it an 8-lane highway.  (I’ve never been sure if it’s accurate to call it an 8-lane highway—I’m only concerned with one direction at a time, so maybe I should only consider those 4 lanes relevant to me at the moment?  But I think most people count both directions, and it does sound more impressive, so I’m going with that.)  Well, wouldn’t you know it, another lane snuck up on my right.  Ten lanes!  Was I ever nervous!  Without having changed lanes I found myself in the centermost lane, poking along at 58 MPH in our little green Hyundai Accent.  Eek!  So much for my rule—stay in the far right lane and just watch out for merging traffic.   Then again, even in that far right lane I worry that it will turn into an exit without warning and I will end up lost in downtown St. Louis or, worse, Illinois.  I think I managed to look cool and collected, but I could feel the tension in my neck and shoulders.  (I think I deserve a massage after today’s adventures.  Where’d I put that Denny guy?)  

         When I got my drivers license at the age of eighteen I often drove in nearby Springfield, Missouri.  The good shopping (Home Depot and the head shop Cosmic Fish), hangouts (The Juke Joint, Moon City Cafe and Park Central Square), and many of my friends (what was that guy’s name again?) were in Springfield.  I think the population at the time was around 120,000.  Lots of people.  Crazy traffic.  I survived.  I learned the main roads and some of the back ones.

         The last several years I have lived in the Madison County seat, population hovering around 4,000.  I am a homebody.  Most of what I can’t buy in town I order from Amazon.  Sunday after-church traffic in Fredericktown is what you want to avoid around here.  And the school bus traffic around 8am and 3pm.  Occasionally we will make the trip to Farmington (pop. 17,200) to the north of us, or Cape Girardeau (pop. 38,500) to the east, nestled on the Mississippi river an hour away.  Those are big cities, let me tell ya.  Maneuvering my 12-passenger van around those places stresses me out.

        We live two hours south of St. Louis.  I do not drive in St. Louis.  Today I drove near it.  Fenton was close enough.  I survived.  Only because it was around 10am and the traffic was light.  I would rather have my fingernails pulled out than try to drive anywhere near that city during rush hour.  I can’t believe how many people commute from so far outside of the city!  I personally know people who drive from Fredericktown to St. Louis and back every working day of the week.  I can think of only one reason to do this—grade A insanity.

       What, oh what, could persuade me to run such a terrible risk with my life and my cute little green car?  Denny, of course.  Though I suppose he’s more of a who than a what.  Denny can persuade me to do just about anything, I think.  Don’t tell him I said that.  He’s a dangerous man with mad skills.

        Farra is getting braces on her teeth.  We have state health insurance and the only orthodontist in Missouri that takes the insurance is in Fenton.  The only one.  I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong.  I’m thrilled my daughter can have her teeth taken care of this way, ‘cause I’d never be able to afford it otherwise.  But the reality is that we have signed up for weekly trips near St. Louis; just for a few weeks, then every few weeks for adjustments after that for about two years, barring unforeseen complications.  Denny agreed to do the driving, but as the parent I have to be present for appointments.  Last time we went up I realized that the drive really isn’t that bad, so when Denny asked me to drive today so he could work on the laptop, I agreed.  I hope I will become comfortable enough with this drive that Denny won’t always have to come along.  I love his company, but I’m not comfortable leaving Atira (age 12) in charge at home for hours, so before these appointments we have to shuffle the other six children in the van to my parents’ house 30 minutes away, then take the car (which gets 3 times the gas mileage the van gets) to—near St. Louis from there, then pick up the kids and the van afterward.  It makes for a long day!  

         But it is all so worth it.  It feels so good to finally be able to take care of important things like the children’s teeth (and mine—Denny insists I go in soon for the first adult dental care I’ve ever had).   It’s nice to have a steady sort of life with a partner who cares about me and the children and wants to take care of us.  

Chapter 2 -- Dissolution of Marriage -- Introduction

I made some good progress on the book last night.  Though I'm mostly just editing what I've already written, Denny and I agreed that something more was needed to tie in the section about my failed marriage.  I'm so thankful for Denny's gentle challenges and constant encouragement.  I pushed myself and improved the introduction to this chapter.  Thought I'd share it here.

Dissolution of Marriage

In January of 2013 I began to journal about my marriage with what I believe was more honesty than I'd ever expressed before.  I guess I needed to write to see it clearly.  I'd never wanted to speak disrespectfully of Bobby, so I often wasn't completely open with others.  I could be strong, I thought.  I could just think positively.  But, I was experiencing so much freedom in other areas of my life, I needed a place I could be open about my frustrating, one-sided marriage, about the pain I experienced when Bobby began sleeping outside in a hammock full time, about the loneliness; about the fear I operated under, wondering if he would get his way and drag us into his unrealistic fantasies of "living easy" in an bus, all nine of us, traveling from free parking space to free parking space, being "tied down" to nothing.
In hindsight it is clear to me that my marriage was just as binding as my relationship to God.  I had been thoroughly steeped in the doctrine that a Christian wife is to serve her husband, to consider him above all things in her life, because woman was created solely to be man’s helper.  Once, several years ago, I spoke with an older female friend about this.  She was the pastor’s wife, in fact.
“We wives are just glorified slaves, aren’t we?” I mused.  “We belong completely to our husbands, to serve them alone, and have little say regarding ourselves, our family, our homes, our entire lives.  It’s God’s will that we yield entirely to our husbands.  But we can be their treasures, their most preferred, and if we are valued by them they will ask our opinions occasionally and treat us well.”   She wholeheartedly agreed and was pleased that, young as I was, I was so quickly discovering the key to my happiness: knowing my place.   And this is truly the position I believe the Bible supports.
  So, for one, the grounds of my relationship with Bobby were faulty.  I tried to submit to him as my head (master), and mostly I succeeded, but sometimes I resented it.  More than I would have admitted it at the time.  I resented that we were not equals, that my thoughts and my desires and my words had less weight than his.  It pained me to see the effect his “leadership” had on the children.  I found creative ways (that I hoped were respectful) to intervene on their behalf when I felt he was being unreasonable.  And I felt he was unreasonable often.  Not just unreasonable, but uninterested, uninvolved.  Why should someone who is uninvolved and uninterested have the final say in the lives of others?  But I loved God.  I knew God’s ways were higher than my ways and I wanted to please him, so I choked down my opinions and yielded, trusting that God would bless my children, myself and my marriage for my obedience to his will.
The Bible teaches a wife is to respect her husband, not based on whether he deserves respect, but because his position as head of the wife demands it.  I tried with all my heart for many years, but found it very difficult to show respect toward someone for whom I had little respect.
This is a recipe for disaster.  The whole idea of headship warps the thinking and identity of women and men alike.  Women are people, too.  We have brains, hearts, voices.  Women need to know this.  Men need to know this.  Marriage should be a partnership.  I think the most beautiful partnerships occur when each party considers him or herself neither above nor beneath the other, but balances deference to the other with respect for oneself.  Each understands and draws on the other’s strengths and strengthens the other’s weaknesses for the benefit of the partnership and the family.
“He who loses his life for my sake will find it,” promises Jesus, hinting at eternal life.  Well, I lost my life.  My life was Bobby’s and it never should have been.  I have found it again, no thanks to Jesus.
Couldn’t Bobby and I have stayed together and found another way to relate?  Some couples could, sure.  I even personally know some who have left religion and are doing swell, but my faith in God was the main reason Bobby and I had stayed together.  Divorce was a sin.  My life was forfeit, no longer my own because Jesus had bought me with his blood.  What I wanted didn't matter.  So, when reverence for God went out the window, when I broke free of those other bonds in my life, I realized I was equally unnecessarily bound by marriage to a man whom I could not respect and whom did not respect me.  

But hindsight is, as they say, 2o/20.  The following journal entries will put you right into the murky waters of my marriage, when things were not so clear, when I was just beginning to recognize and exercise my right to the pursuit of happiness.  Read along as I fight my way to the surface and to liberty.

(For more about surviving spiritual abuse, visit the Spiritual Abuse Survivors Blog Network)

Considering Life

January 23, 2013

I’m feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd cause these words are my diary screaming out loud and I know that you’ll use them however you want to

But you can’t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable and life’s like an hourglass glued to the table.  No one can find the rewind button now. Sing it if you understand. And breathe, just breathe.

       -- Anna Nalick, Breathe (2am)

      I’ve spent the last several days savoring the sweetness of the realization that my life is fragile and fleeting, so tiny in the grand scheme of things. There is such freedom in the knowledge. It makes the day-to-day things less significant, less pressing. And yet the pendulum swings back, always, and today I am in a state of melancholy and frustration. I know I am living a sweet life, rich and full and lovely, but my heart gets tangled up in the details. I feel anxious. I feel like there are things I should be doing that I’m not doing. Who puts this pressure on me? Me. Mostly just me. So I should be able to talk myself around, right?
      I get so worked up, feeling like I am failing my children by neglecting their education, not socializing them enough, not adequately preparing them for adulthood. The amount of schoolwork we do in a week is pathetic. The amount of academic work I require of them is so light yet I always feel behind. I can’t imagine what it would take to give them the education I’d like for them to have. I feel like a hypocrite. I promote homeschooling yet I can’t cut it myself.
      But I still think that the experience I give them at home exceeds the value of the public school experience. I don’t like most public school kids that I meet. I adore my kids. Other people adore my kids. They are remarkable human beings. They are thoughtful, kind, interesting, witty, clever, capable. They are skilled, hard workers. They love to read and learn and they often take the initiative. Yesterday Atira and Seth were in the kitchen performing science experiments on their own because they found them in a library book and thought they looked fun. There’s still a glass on the kitchen counter with an egg in it, suspended between salt water and freshwater because "salt water is more dense than the egg, while fresh water is less dense.” They want to see how long it will stay that way and are tracking it on the kitchen calendar.
       Farra, Atira and Seth are all excellent, if somewhat reluctant writers. They all have amazing imaginations. I assume their grasp of the language comes from their extensive reading. This is what I like to see. The desire and ability to learn, to communicate. They will forget the math formulas they are learning, forget a few grammar rules and how to spell certain words. They will forget how to convert U.S. measurements to metric, what is a hypotenuse, and how many light years across is our solar system. But they will know how to find these things out when and if they need to. I hope that they will foster desires and skills that will help them make their way in this world. I think they have a good start. I cannot teach them everything. More than anything I just keep thinking, they are amazing people. And everyone who knows them has wonderful things to say about them. In spite of my numerous failings as a mother I am doing something right. If I do nothing more than what I have been doing for 14 years, it will be okay. This is me consoling myself.
       I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Our world is going to hell in a hand basket. A significant portion of the human race, though capable of such greatness, is foolishly, selfishly, acting as though what they are doing has no effect on the planet, as though there is no tomorrow. Day in and day out I consider my family’s part of this. How do Denny and I guide our family into a more sustainable lifestyle? We rail against the factories polluting the environment, then haul our monthly carload of trash and recyclables to town to dump it off, counting on someone else to put it safely and conveniently out of our sight. We consume so little, yet the majority of the things we consume are still not things we produce ourselves. We have such excess in our country.
       Our government grows increasingly rich and disgusting. Every day it feels less and less like we common people have any say in what’s going on in our country. We are so busy scraping by it’s difficult to know how and when to fight. The thought nags at me that this is the way “they” want it. But who are “they”?
       Do we prepare the children to find their place in this system where they can be somewhat comfortable; well fed, warm in the winter and cool in the summer, or do we prepare them for economic disaster, the downfall of civilization as we know it? How do you do either? Both? And what’s the point of it all, anyway?
       Being a responsible and concerned citizen is exhausting. Too much pressure makes life unbearable. Yes, the little things that I do day in and day out make a difference in the world, but ultimately none of it matters. Whether we take care of our planet or not, it will eventually fry before an ever-expanding sun or be blasted apart by an asteroid. Our solar system will dissolve into star dust, from whence it came.
       I get worked up over the knowledge that my species is destroying our planet, ushering the next major mass extinction. Here’s a species capable of such greatness; look at our many amazing inventions, our artwork, our music. Look at what the human body and mind are capable of! We have imagined and experimented until we can view and catalog the tiniest molecular cells and the farthest galaxies. We’ve taken pictures of our universe moments after its birth (look up WMAP). We can cure formerly fatal illnesses with a shot in the arm or a course of tablets. There is no end to the things we have invented to make our lives easier, simpler, more enjoyable, longer-lasting. We are driven by creativity (albeit some more than others), replicating and creating beauty for no reason except… beauty. We communicate ideas through written word, spoken word, body language, music, images photographed and drawn and painted and scratched in the sand. We are master storytellers. We revel in our most base instincts—eating, sex--and regularly transcend our mental limitations. So, why can’t we, as a species, find the balance we need to survive? How did we get to the place where we are slowly cooking all of earth’s inhabitants? 
      Climate scientists say we’re past the point where we can stop it. It's too late.  We could delay it by half a century or so if we pulled the plug now and stopped our mad consumption. It won’t happen. Sadly, it’s such a small portion of humanity, us 1st-worlders, Americans in particular, who are responsible. I don’t even know how to do it myself, how to stop it. It feels like I’m on my grade-school playground, trying to run up the tall metal slide in stockinged feet.
       It’s been interesting for me, considering evolution. One of the arguments I heard as a creationist was, “Where is your evidence? Where are the species currently evolving?” The Missing Link argument. The way I see it now... I look in the mirror. I’m evolving. My species is evolving, as are most species around us. The faulty thinking of the creationist prevents him from grasping just how slooooowly it’s all happening. When I consider my species as a whole, even with my limited view I see patterns, I see giant leaps of progress, I see pitfalls large and small. We are learning. Unfortunately, it seems we haven’t yet learned this lesson of sustainability. I repeat, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I like to think that some of us will survive, will have learned, will carefully rebuild parts of our civilization in a better, more sustainable way. I hope there will be chameleons. I like chameleons. And giraffes. And good story-telling. I hope my descendants will tell wise, honest stories of “the way things were” and that their children will heed them and have a better go of things the next time around.
       Ultimately, our time is limited. Our time as individuals and as a species. Our planet’s time is limited. When I study the night sky and consider the universe, I can’t help but come away with a sense of humble insignificance. It blends with the thoughts about the way humanity is living and our inevitable end. I don’t know if it can be called balance, but the resulting feeling is peace. I shrug. It is what it is. I might overuse that phrase, but it’s so perfectly fitting. We’re just complex combinations of stardust on earth, existing for no reason, and everything will play out eventually, no matter what I do.
       I think the mere thought sends chills up the spines of some folks. "You mean there’s no purpose?!" I don’t know why I find the idea comforting, but I do. It’s freeing. It’s something I can plug into when my days get clogged with details and feelings of failure. All I have is this life, right here, right now. I don’t want to waste a moment stressing about stuff that isn’t going to matter. And since none of it is ultimately going to matter, it leaves me pretty open to relax and enjoy my life. A handful of things have worked together to help me relax about life; no longer having to answer to God, gaining a cosmic perspective, escaping a hopeless marriage, forming a delicious romantic partnership.
       Interestingly, relaxing is something I have always struggled with. I can read back through my journals, letters and blog entries from the past 15 years and see a common thread of struggling to find peace in the here and now. Even as a Christian I never seemed to find peace in the idea of an afterlife; only when I could let go of my concerns and enjoy life in the moment was I content. I’m finding that with the changes in my life over the last year and a half the peace is easier to tap into. Broader perspective, happier days, more hope for a fulfilling life. I feel like I have a new lease on life. A second chance. You just don’t know how desperately hopeless I was before. I’m not sure I even knew how bad it was. The further removed from it I am, the more clearly I see it. I daren’t take my new life and happiness for granted. All I have to do is remember my former despair and I weep tears of joy and gratitude, I laugh and dance and embrace my loved ones. Life is too damned short now, the time so precious. I hate to waste a moment on anything that isn’t wholesome and satisfying.