Library Shelf: Trauma and Recovery

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
by Dr. Judith L. Herman

This comprehensive work examines the causes, symptoms, and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and the related condition Complex PTSD. I started reading it over Christmas break and ended up with twelve pages of handwritten notes! Here I will highlight some excerpts that meant so much to me that I find myself bringing them with me to other texts.

This paragraph encapsulates the mental gymnastics that harm an abused child's developing brain:

She must find a way to develop a sense of basic trust and safety with caretakers who are untrustworthy or unsafe.... She will go to any lengths to construct an explanation for her fate that absolves her parents of all blame and responsibility. (p. 101)

Turns out all those psychological contortions serve a useful purpose, even if they have to be repaired later:

Double think and a double self are ingenious childhood adaptations to a familial climate of coercive control, but they are worse than useless in a climate of freedom and adult responsibility. (p. 114)

I gained a lot of hope from Herman's analysis and experience, but the most cheerful part was reading this:

Survivors of childhood abuse are far more likely to be victimized or to harm themselves than to victimize other people. 

...Contrary to the popular notion of a "generational cycle of abuse", however, the great majority of survivors neither abuse nor neglect their children.  (pp. 113-114, emphasis added)

From the time I got married, I was so afraid of repeating some kind of "cycle"--a concept the IBLP cult strongly promoted and mainstream culture continues to accept. My dear husband used to reassure me that I would not become [someone from my abusive past], but it helped to read this again. And again.

Hearing this from an expert did me so much good:

Since mourning is so difficult, resistance to mourning is probably the most common cause of stagnation in the second stage of recovery. Resistance to mourning can take on numerous disguises. Most frequently it appears as a fantasy of magical resolution through revenge, forgiveness, or compensation.

…Some survivors attempt to bypass their outrage altogether through a fantasy of forgiveness…. The survivor imagines that she can transcend her rage and erase the impact of the trauma through a willed, defiant act of love. But it is not possible to exorcise the trauma, through either hatred or love. Like revenge, the fantasy of forgiveness often becomes a cruel torture, because it remains out of reach for most ordinary human beings…. True forgiveness cannot be granted until the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession, repentance, and restitution.

...Fortunately, the survivor does not need to wait for [a perpetrator’s contrition]. Her healing depends on the discovery of restorative love in her own life; it does not require that this love be extended to the perpetrator. Once the survivor has mourned the traumatic event, she may be surprised to discover how uninteresting the perpetrator has become to her…

Mourning is the only way to give due honor to loss; there is no adequate compensation.  (pp. 189-190, emphasis added)

Grieving was not a process I learned about as a kid. We never really grieved losses, because we were always looking forward to getting everything back better at an unspecified time in the future.  Our goal was to be able to say like Job in the Bible: "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away... blessed be His Name." We "yielded our rights" to things both tangible and intangible so that we wouldn't be upset if we weren't allowed to keep them.

In the film "The Bells of St. Mary's", the doctor asks Bing Crosby's character, "Don't you people more or less go where you're told, without question?"

Bing, as the priest Father O'Malley, replies, "Yes, we're supposed to have the stamina to take it."

As a young adult, that was the kind of stamina I expected of myself. Job lost everything, but refused to despair and got twice as much of everything at the end of the story. He even got new children! All loss was merely temporary deprivation, and would be made right eventually in a perfect afterlife.

When I first learned about grief in the context of managing life transitions, it was the very beginning of my healing and recovery. (Thank you, George Hires, for insisting I should attend that workshop in the Philippines. I had no idea how much it would mean!) The notion of acknowledging the emotional pain of loss was new and life-changing. I find myself returning to that concept again and again as life moves forward.

Finally, this paragraph from a chapter on recovery well describes the challenge of adjusting to life under "normal" parameters, even while learning what those parameters are:

Survivors whose personality has been shaped in the traumatic environment often feel at this stage of recovery as though they are refugees entering a new country…. Michael Stone, drawing on his work with incest survivors, describes the immensity of this adaptive task: “Re-education is often indicated, pertaining to what is typical, average, wholesome, and ‘normal’ in the intimate life of ordinary people.”  (p. 196)

I so appreciate Judith Herman's work putting all this information together in one place. Even though her book is twenty years old now, the first chapters are great for putting the study of "shell-shock", "hysteria", and domestic abuse into a sociological human rights perspective. She makes some some sadly fascinating observations about Freud's early work with victims of sexual abuse, showing how he later chose "the path of least resistance" in adopting a philosophy that shamed victims and denied the truth of their own accounts.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has survived trauma or abuse of any kind, or who loves someone who has! Depending on what stage of recovery you are at, it may not be a quick or easy read, but I found the effort quite rewarding.

Recovering from Trauma: Moving Forward!

It has been nearly a year since my therapist first used "post-traumatic reaction" to describe my overwhelming stress/anxiety symptoms. Last February I looked forward and knew climbing out of that awful place would take time and a lot of work. And it has. 

But I've made it to 2014, and it's starting to feel really good. 

I quit the college class that was the last straw for my nervous system, and, with my therapist's help, got a refund from the school. But I completed the biology course, breathing through the horrid panic attacks, chewing gum so hard and so long that my jaw ached for days, sipping Snapple through the lectures to keep myself grounded. I learned to do some yoga, and walked, and took my colored pencils with me to the park. 

I worked on building positive social relationships and minimized the unhealthy ones. I participated in a wonderful book club. I made new friends and had lunch dates with old friends, even when driving across town gave me panic attacks, even when my muscles would contract so tightly it was painful. I was always fine once I got there. Recovery itself often seemed an unwelcome extension of the trauma of the past. Why is it necessary to go through so much to be shed of what you never asked for in the first place?

Instead of taking more classes over the summer, I rested up. PTSD can complicate the simplest tasks, so I was careful to take on only the most manageable of projects. I had fun with my kids, enjoyed the outdoors, gave my daughter some cooking lessons. I read several memoirs (all by women), and half a dozen stories by Margaret Atwood. We skipped our big summer vacation and took a few shorter trips instead. Each success at meeting a goal helped restore my confidence a little more.

I kept writing, and reading, and talking to my therapist about the things too vulnerable, too wordless, to express here. Because what you get here has been processed. It seems there is always more raw material, though. If it bleeds when I touch it, it goes to my counselor, not here! 

My husband and I attended numerous local theatrical productions over the last year. We find theater to be so much more intimate than cinema (making it that much more rewarding, but psychologically wearing, at the same time). Each play showed me a little more about myself, sometimes triggering panic attacks in the process. I remember working hard to "ground" myself through several performances that hit painfully close to home, particularly "Other Desert Cities" (about painful family secrets and telling the truth), "Radiating Like a Stone" (about misogyny and women fighting for equality in Kansas), and parts of "How the World Began" (about faith, education, and human resilience, with a terrific scene of a post-traumatic fear response). We both had to ground ourselves hard to make it through the opening scene of "Doubt", even though we'd seen the film and already knew the story. 

When the kids went back to school, all three of them for the first time, and the house was quieter than it had ever been, I pulled out my old journals and started processing pieces of the past, bit by bit. Sometimes the entries there jog memories or questions that turn into blog posts. Sometimes I have to take time off afterward to reorient myself with another activity. I pace myself, stopping if my body reacts, so it's been slow going.

I have learned ever so much about PTSD, and especially Complex PTSD. I don't like it, but at least it doesn't scare me anymore. I feel hopeful again, like the worst is over and I survived it. I never want to go back there, but now I have tools for handling triggers and managing symptoms. I'm getting better at recognizing flashbacks and observing boundaries. And I am less afraid of people--perhaps less afraid than I've ever been. 

(Of course, it's still scary to write boldly and vulnerably like this. What if I have a panic attack tomorrow when I read a comment a stranger's left on one of my posts? Can I be sure my regained hope is not really braggadocio? It feels uncomfortably like giving a "testimony" in church about how you believe God's healed your cancer, and then having to start chemo the next month.)

I saw Disney's Frozen last month. Saw it twice, in fact. Elsa's song "Let It Go" instantly became my theme song for this stage of my life. The lyrics so well describe these months of liberating self-discovery. Here are some of my favorite lines:

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried

Don’t let them in, don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know
Well, now they know

Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door

It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all

It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through

I’m never going back,
The past is in the past

Chris and I been leaving the past for a long time, but it's been gradual. We have gained momentum now. Our values are becoming clearer. The dynamics of our marriage are evolving. We have dramatically altered our parenting. The adjustments aren't over yet. But we'll get to where we want to be. And discover where that is!

In some ways I feel like a teenager, gazing at a vast array of possibilities, uncertain which path to choose. I just know I want to keep moving forward. After taking last semester off to focus on myself, recovery, and blogging, I'm excited to be dipping my foot into the pool of education again. Getting back into life, not holding back out of fear of being unable to keep commitments.

It is time to try new things again. Meet new people. Explore new places. Now that I understand who I was and why, it's time to find out who I am.

Jonathan Edwards & John Piper: Sour Stomach

We were all still recovering from a sermon by Charles Finney at the beginning of Wisdom Booklet #4, when we moved on to the subject of history. Where we were assaulted by another sermon.

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is one of the most famous sermons in American history. But if there were such a sin as blasphemy, this sermon would be a fine example. From a Massachusetts pulpit in 1741, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards described the Almighty as an arbitrary monster and his creation as loathsome.

Here are some excerpts:

...Whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction.

There are the black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you.

 The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep.

But when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away of God, as to any regard to your welfare. God will have no other use to put you to, but to suffer misery; you shall be continued in being to no other end; for you will be a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel, but to be filled full of wrath. God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that it is said he will only "laugh and mock"…

Though horrified by Edwards' God, I was transfixed by the vivid imagery. Our family also had a dramatized biography of Jonathan Edwards ("Puritan Preacher and Philosopher") on cassette from Moody Bible Institute. Not only did the story cover the theological controversies of Edwards' time, it did not shy away from describing the aftermath of the Great Awakening--including a man in Edwards' congregation who committed suicide in despair after too many similar "revival" sermons. Between the audio version and the traumatizing Wisdom Booklet, spiders and hellfire became forever associated in my brain.

When Walt Disney needed lines for this over-the-top "hellfire & brimstone" sermon in the film Pollyanna (1960), writers tapped "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". In the movie, the preacher uses his pulpit to manipulate the town with fear and guilt. No one commits suicide (it's a children's movie, after all), but one character declares with passionate resentment, "Sundays around here give folks sour stomach for the whole rest of the week!" Though not delivered in Edwards' characteristic monotone, many of the lines are lifted directly from Jonathan Edwards famous message.

Jonathan Edwards has been John Piper's hero for decades, ever since Piper encountered Edwards' essays as a seminarian. Piper told a conference in 1988: "Alongside the Bible, Edwards became the compass of my theological studies." In 2006, Piper reprinted one of Edwards' books in a volume of his own: God's Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards. In the preface, Piper writes, "Jonathan Edwards is in a class by himself in American history, perhaps in the history of Christendom....I take my stand on his shoulders... It is an honor to be associated with an Institute devoted to exalting the God of Jonathan Edwards..." And so on.

This is the same John Piper who pastors a church in Minneapolis. The same Piper who posted these thoughts on the evening following the 2007 highway bridge collapse that killed thirteen people in his city and injured or traumatized hundreds of others:

The meaning of the collapse of this bridge is that John Piper is a sinner and should repent or forfeit his life forever. That means I should turn from the silly preoccupations of my life and focus my mind’s attention and my heart’s affection on God and embrace Jesus Christ as my only hope for the forgiveness of my sins and for the hope of eternal life. That is God’s message in the collapse of this bridge. That is his most merciful message: there is still time to turn from sin and unbelief and destruction for those of us who live. If we could see the eternal calamity from which he is offering escape we would hear this as the most precious message in the world.

...During our family devotions...Talitha prayed “Please don’t let anyone blame God for this but give thanks that they were saved.” When I sat on her bed and tucked her in and blessed her and sang over her a few minutes ago, I said, “You know, Talitha, that was a good prayer, because when people ‘blame’ God for something, they are angry with him, and they are saying that he has done something wrong. That’s what “blame” means: accuse somebody of wrongdoing. But you and I know that God did not do anything wrong. God always does what is wise. And you and I know that God could have held up that bridge with one hand.” Talitha said, “With his pinky.” “Yes,” I said, “with his pinky. Which means that God had a purpose for not holding up that bridge, knowing all that would happen, and he is infinitely wise in all that he wills.”

Talitha said, “Maybe he let it fall because he wanted all the people of Minneapolis to fear him.” “Yes, Talitha,” I said, “I am sure that is one of the reasons God let the bridge fall.”

I wonder how Jonathan Edwards would react to Piper's post today. I think it would give him "sour stomach". But I also like to think that the melancholic Edwards would preach quite differently if he could return to Northampton today.

Edwards was a thoughtful man, after all--trapped in the 18th-century, yet daring to test innovation. He was unafraid of change, of shaking up the status quo by implementing new ideas, of attempting to reconcile old ways of thinking with new understanding. He kept up with scientific advances, even submitting to smallpox inoculation as an example to the Princeton student body to risk the experimental new procedure. He died of complications, a sacrifice to the cause of science as well as to "the will of God".

The Jonathan Edwards of the 1700's would never make it as a preacher of the gospel today. For one thing, he purchased and owned Negro slaves, including a man and his wife who were sold by the executors of Edwards' will. I wonder what they thought of their master's god? But Edwards gave his sermon long before David Livingstone explored the African continent. Before William Wilberforce campaigned to bring down the slave trade. Before ex-slaver John Newton wrote "Amazing Grace". Before the Founding Fathers revolted against England. Even before the first performance of Handel's Messiah, which opened in Europe the following year (1742) with the words of a very different God:

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.

Little wonder I developed anxiety issues after growing up with Jonathan Edwards' voice in my ear. Little wonder I was so relieved to find other theological viewpoints and to discover that others, as uncomfortable as I was, were asking the same questions!

Somehow, in my combined fright and abhorrence of a god who holds people over hell and lets bridges collapse, I had never considered (though Mark Twain had) the possibility of humans choosing hell for humanity's sake, or of turning down the invitation of heaven (as Desmond Tutu suggests) in solidarity with the world God is said to have loved. If hell is a place of hate, but one can choose it out of a heart of love, then is fear truly vanquished. Sour stomach must surrender!

Chapter 5: Cognitive Dissonance

Continued from Chapter 4: The Lord's Song in a Strange Land

I kept playing the piano for the itty-bitty Baptist church until the pastor (another ATI dad, who was abusive to his family though I didn't realize it then) kicked us out. Our doctrine allowed us some flexibility regarding denominations, but we weren't Mennonite and already knew no other local churches would meet our exacting musical standards.

We visited farther afield for months, finally settling on a small fellowship of families that met in a school library in a neighboring county. The pastor was also an ATI dad, but he was gentle and kind and helped heal our wounds of rejection. So many years before, I had roller skated to Michael W. Smith tracks with his daughter, and I had taken my birthday Walkman to their house.

Indianapolis Training Center

I often played the piano for Sunday morning services. I taught myself to sing harmony. Now in my twenties but still living under my father's authority, I traveled to IBLP's Indianapolis campus to take several courses in music. I even composed a few sacred songs of my own.

One Sunday a nice older man in our church group led the "worship". During "communion", he started quietly singing in the back of of the room with an accompaniment track he'd brought along. It was mellow by contemporary standards and should have created a peaceful mood, but I was highly sensitized. I started shaking and weeping. I went up to him and asked him to please turn off the tape. Seeing the state I was in, he was quick to oblige. A click of the tape player and the room went silent. Poor man wasn't even a Gothard follower; he just got broadsided. He must have been so confused.

* * * * * * * *

I went away to work for Gothard's organization: first in Oklahoma City, then in Indianapolis, and finally at the IBLP headquarters offices in Oak Brook, Illinois. Spunky, casual, curious, and tenacious, I wasn't Gothard's type. The aging stature-challenged bachelor with a penchant for bluegrass, who dyed what was left of his pompadour, had a decided preference for quiet willowy brunettes or blondes who looked good in blazers. Being neither, I only saw him at staff meals and staff meetings I couldn't avoid. (Oh, and I rode with his entourage on one road trip, during which I assured him I would never grow a beard.)

I thrived on the camaraderie at IBLP, especially at the more relaxed Oklahoma campus. I sang all the time, added to my personal hymnal collection, and joined the staff handbell choir. My new friends introduced me to all kinds of fun music--Broadway show tunes, Celtic folk melodies, Hollywood soundtracks, and even gentle jazz--but we dutifully skipped the tracks that were at all questionable, particularly when certain people might overhear.

I played the piano for fun, for staff meetings, and sometimes for a retirement home. Gothard's brother-in-law even took a group of us to Pacific Garden Mission, where I sang 19th-century Gospel hymns to the "lonely, empty, sin-twisted, neurotic" men on Chicago's Skid Row, just like the Unshackled broadcasts, or a scene lifted from In His Steps.

And then, on a warm night in June, Gothard called my parents to collect me and my things and take me home. I was gone by noon, with little explanation and few goodbyes.

After a few months of aimlessness, I finally applied for part-time office job in town. At the interview, I explained to the owner that the radio kept on low volume in the office area would be a problem. If they wanted to hire me, the radio would have to be kept off on the days I worked. A pious Catholic himself, he agreed.

* * * * * * * *

I drove my parents' truck to work. It was a 20-minute drive through familiar territory. With ten siblings at home, I wasn't used to being alone, especially in a vehicle. To keep myself company, or to drown out my thoughts, I sometimes listened to cassettes. Stopping at the Christian book store on an errand one day, I picked up an instrumental praise album that offered to connect the dots between the church songs I sang as child and the musical style I embraced as a teen. The sound was as shimmeringly beautiful as an Impressionist painting, but my antennae stood up when I detected, even through the background noise of the V-8 engine, the slightest backbeat. Oh, no!

That tape caused me so much consternation over the following weeks. I loved it, I was ashamed of it. It soothed me, I needed to be rid of it. I thought about throwing it away, but I didn't want my parents to know about it (thanks to my little brothers, there were no secrets in our garbage!). By now I was a 24-year-old woman and this was a decision I would make for myself.

I stuffed the tape in my purse and took it with me to work. Then I would stand indecisively in front of the trash can in the ladies' room, holding the cassette over the opening. To drop, or not to drop? The tape always made its way back into my purse, as if protected by otherworldly forces, its fate postponed until my next scheduled work day when I would repeat this bizarre bathroom behavior.

One morning I turned the radio on instead. I hadn't turned on a radio in ages, not since Mom coerced me into signing a paper that said I wouldn't. I was only familiar with two or three stations. Would it be secular public radio, or Christian WLJN? I was already breaking a promise, or disobeying an authority, or stepping out from under my umbrella of protection, no matter how you looked at it. I flipped on WLJN.

And caught my breath.

The song was familiar. It was the beautiful new one we'd recently learned at church. But it sounded so different with the rich orchestration, the drums keeping time, the soloist belting the lyrics out effortlessly. I shut it off. I would have to think about this. It was the horrible music that Gothard and David Noebel and Inge Cannon and Peter Peters all said was "music from hell", a weapon of Satan. He wanted nothing but to steal, kill, and destroy. If I allowed myself to "vibrate in sympathy" with this sound, I would be vulnerable to his attacks, no longer protected by my spiritual "umbrella". I might even have a car accident this morning!

I switched the song back on, to be sure, and then back off to ponder some more. Yes, it was the same song I had sung many times with a simple piano accompaniment, and yes, the original version had an unmistakable rock beat. Listening to it would violate all kinds of rules and commitments. On the other hand, the lyrics were praise to God. The artist could be described as a modern-day David. Could a fountain yield both salt water and fresh?

Determined to tease out the truth, I commenced an experiment. I would listen to WLJN, or even the adulterated praise album on my way to work. Only for a few minutes at first, as my anxieties would get the better of me. Then for longer periods, and nothing bad happened. I arrived just as safe and sound as when I conscientiously stayed under the umbrella of protection. I began to suspect that things were not quite as I had believed.


Read Chapter 6: Finding Harmony

Chapter 1: The Composition of Anxiety

"When all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of musick, all the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up."                                                                                                                                                                   Daniel 3:7

On a chilly autumn day in 1989, a little country girl turned fourteen. She blew out the candles on her apple-spice cake and eagerly took her birthday money to Kmart to buy a flannel-lined denim jacket with pleated sleeve caps. She had been eyeing the latest portable cassette player/radios behind the counter at the drug store, but her mother was not keen on a teenager listening to who-knows-what under her headphones.

The girl's uncle knew what she really wanted, however, and he mailed her a birthday surprise: a Sony Walkman.

The girl was so excited!

The next day she wore the new jacket to a sleepover at her best friend's house, accompanied by the new Walkman, of course. The two girls talked about prayer and boys and periods and their mothers and listened to [religious] music together till six in the morning.

Days later the birthday girl's mother confiscated the Walkman.


* * * * * * * *

Despite being a small town, Traverse City boasted its own Moody-affiliated Christian radio station, WLJN. Since we had gotten rid of our television, we took great pleasure in listening to the children's shows on Saturday mornings and dramatized history or adventure stories at night. We grew familiar with all the actors' voices from MBI in Chicago and it was a great treat to attend a live Children's Bible Hour rally in Grand Rapids, or when their tour reached our part of the state. During the day, Mom liked to listen to "Unshackled" and "Focus on the Family", and I would listen along with her. The tale of faith, forgiveness, diligence, and kindness overcoming abuse, injustice, and bad luck always thrilled me.

When the weather was right, we could sometimes tune the car radio to Christian station from farther away. One spring they were broadcasting a dramatization of the Easter story throughout Passion Week (still winter in northern Michigan). Dad would help us bundle up in our coats and then we all sat together in his car in the driveway while he carefully adjusted the tuner so we could hear every episode.

Moody Church
Photo by David DeJong

As I grew out of the single digits, I began to appreciate music as well as stories and gradually grew to appreciate adult vocalists over Sunday school marches. I would crank up Carey Landry's Catholic folk or an acapella Mennonite quartet covering Amy Grant on a beat-up boombox while I roller skated for hours in our basement workshop. My chore list lengthened as I hit my teen; I would tune in to WLJN while working at solitary, time-consuming tasks like ironing or sewing. The Moody Broadcasting Network played a mix of boring old choral pieces and current new solo artists on Saturday afternoons. The "Friday Night Sing" was a live concert from Chicago's historic Moody Church. The featured musicians were the popular "easy listening" Christian singers my parents' friends listened to: Steve Green, Steve & Annie Chapman, Annie Herring, Christine Wyrtzen, Larnelle Harris, Michael Card. Sometimes I would listen to my parents' record collection: mostly the evangelical Swedish sweetheart Evie.

By then my girlfriends (all from strict religious homes) had introduced me to Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, and Petra. I knew those performers were too "hard" for my parents' taste so it seemed prudent not to mention them at home. And then--my very own Walkman, so I could listen to whatever I chose, "clandestinely", my uncle wrote in the card. Since I was the firstborn, I should have expected this step toward independence would make my mother anxious.

I was listening to WLJN on the Saturday after Mom took my Walkman when this song came on. Mom objected to the sound and made me shut it off. I was quiet, but vented my exasperation in my journal later. On Monday, I heard from my penpal--our parents had been Bible study friends when we were babies. Rach wrote about the musicians she enjoyed, including Amy Grant. Mom was very concerned. She announced that in order to get my Walkman back, I would have to go through a "music evaluation course" she and Dad had purchased from IBLP.

"Striving for Excellence: How to Evaluate Music", consisted of two audio cassettes and a booklet. No author's name appears on the booklet but the audio material is presented by Inge & Ron Cannon. (ATI families are encouraged to use this course as an education resource, along with Frank Garlock's book Music in the Balance, formerly available from Bob Jones University Press.) So, after tucking the the younger kids into bed, my parents and I settled into the sofa in front of the cassette player. Inge Pohl Cannon, enunciated her lines of the script with clipped precision while her husband read alternating sections in his soft, lazy Southern drawl.

The Cannons began with some music theory that was way over our heads. I looked at my parents and raised my eyebrows. They shrugged back and we returned to following along in the booklet. Then there were some odd bits and pieces about rhythms causing riots or neural damage in mice and a Wichita newspaper article from 1977 that quoted a kinesiologist denouncing the rock beat as the "most serious form of pollution we have". We didn't really know what kinesiology was, but with a name like Dr. Diamond it must be legit, right? (Diamond's website was unavailable at the time of this writing.)

Another doctor translated DNA into musical scores. (Don't ask me how.) He described how cancer genes sounded different from enzymes and antibodies and compared the scores to the music of his favorite classical composers. That was followed by a titillating paragraph by Frank Zappa (whom I'd never heard of). He said the Beatles didn't just want to hold your hand and compared Jimi Hendrix' musical sounds to "orgasmic grunts, tortured squeals, lascivious moans..." I had no idea whom or what he was talking about, but I felt very grown up just reading all those fascinating phrases!

Now we came to the heart of the argument: rock music, the very beat itself, was equated with rebellion and unbridled sensuality. It would make listeners want to take drugs and have sex. (Yes, I shared this handy fact with my daughter this morning and she looked at me like I'd lost my mind.)

Ron & Inge Cannon

And if we still weren't convinced, the Cannons explained that rock songs were imbalanced, like asymmetrical architecture. The best forms of art or music were those from the Age of Classicism: a definite beginning, a climax point, and a satisfying conclusion. With echoes of David Noebel's publications against rock music, this one deprecated Impressionism and Cubism while celebrating the Baroque and the Classical periods. "Rock isn't music, it's sound....Rock coarsens all it touches," they intoned gravely, oblivious to the fact that those words were penned by a humor columnist and entertainment critic with his tongue in his cheek.

We were then warned about an unseen danger that could have mysterious evil effects: "Undiscernible [sic] to the conscious mind, this technique, called backmasking, is able to influence a person through subliminal persuasion. The only way to determine the content of such messages is to play the recordings in reverse, a practice not recommended because of its ability to open a person's spirit to demonic oppression."

And the world of Christian music was no safe haven. Backbeat or not, there could be other hidden dangers lurking in the songs, what with the deceptively humanistic lyrics, treating the Lord with the familiarity of a friend, all while breathing seductively into the microphone. They played audio excerpts of popular "sacred" artists to illustrate these corruptions: I recognized Sandi Patti, and Michael Card. We enjoyed cassettes by each of them in our home: a Christmas album, and a collection of gentle lullabies. We had certainly never before linked their music to the [supposedly] blasphemous film The Last Temptation of Christ!

The course concluded with a prayer of commitment:

"Heavenly Father, I desire to excel for You and Your Kingdom, and thus, I yield to You my rights to music. I purpose now to cleanse my life and home of any music which violates Your principles and replace it with music which is consistent with the "new song" You want to develop in my life. I ask for Your blessing on my life as I obey You. In Jesus' Name, Amen." 

* * * * * * * *

The girl sat in the cozy living room and listened quietly to the "Striving for Excellence" audio presentation, keeping most of her thoughts to herself. When the cassette player clicked off, she took a pen and scrawled her teenage signature on the commitment line at the end of the booklet, under the prayer. Her cooperation was rewarded: she went to bed that night restored to parental favor and with her Walkman back in her possession.

And the brainwashing went on.


Read Chapter 2: Musical Chairs

Film Favorites: The Village

An isolated community.

An older generation hiding from past pain and present fear.

A younger generation raised in ignorance and taught superstition.

Trusting children exploited, sacrificed to appease their parents' anxieties, reared in a tiny culture bubble, guarded against outside influences that would endanger or enlighten them. All significant choices made for them by their authorities.

Secrets. Control. Manipulation. Lies. Fear. Facades. All in the guise of protection and love.

But ultimately, the same evil that lurked outside the borders could not be kept out. It arises from within, threatening the security the community "authorities" had labored so hard to create.

M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village".

I don't watch horror films. But this didn't seem at all like horror to me in 2004; it seemed terrifyingly true to life. And when my husband and I first watched The Village, we wanted to shout from the rooftops. 

Finally, I had an image I could refer people to! Just as the Duggars' 19 Kids and Counting offers a narrow glimpse into the world of Quiverfull homeschooling, this film illustrates the emotional experience of growing up in an isolated Christian fundamentalist subculture: "Have you seen The Village? It's like I grew up there."

And like Ivy Walker, I walked away with fear and trembling, only to be amazed at the world outside that was so very different than I'd been told.

"There is kindness in your voice. I did not expect that."