Our Courtship Story: Holding Pattern

Continued from Silenced

August-September 2000


As our final week of SIL came to a close, it was time to say goodbyes. My memories of pitiable handshakes with Chris helped me follow my gut. I knew I'd regret repeating that scenario. When Paul *took off for the long drive home, I gave him a hug. It was brief, it was public, it was probably a side-hug, but it was a hug. And it felt right.

As I was getting ready to leave for the airport on Saturday morning, I was aware of Jed* stalking me. He followed me to the car and told me, "I know that you're not the woman I'm going to marry."

"I know it, too," I replied with a nod. He closed my car door and off I went.

I don't remember the flights home. I'm sure I thought about Chris. As I explained to my journal, "I never expected to be pursued by someone I had not already marked as a "possibility"." He had taken me by surprise in April, and I had not handled the shock well. Maybe now we could start all over. I hoped to leave for Manila in mid-September and be gone for a few months. Surely that would be long enough for Dad and Chris to complete "negotiations".

Back in Michigan, I braced for culture shock, which I managed mostly by getting busy. I put away the new jeans, the shorts, the swimsuit. I stacked my linguistics textbooks on the shelf.

On Monday morning we went to the lake, and I wore my homemade split-skirt jumpsuit in the water. The next day I did the family ironing, gave haircuts, and taught piano to three of the younger children. I baked bread, made meals, played hymns on the piano for church, and returned to my part-time job in town. I also made what serious preparations I could for my trip to the Philippines: paying my health insurance premiums, getting a perm, renewing my driver's license early, and shopping for items that might not be available in Asia.

While Chris had wanted to sponsor my overseas trip, Dad had decided it didn't make sense considering that I had rejected him as a suitor. Chris sent a generous check to my dad anyway. When it arrived, Dad called Chris's dad. Together they decided that Dad should tear it up. Dad told Chris he had torn up his check. Thanks, but no thanks. 

Chris was indignant and mailed another check. Dad sent it back. Chris insisted that he wanted to pay for my trip, whether I wanted to court him or not. (He had asked to be anonymous from the beginning, but Dad had blown his cover before I left for North Dakota.)

Dad finally told Chris he could send the money to my dad's pastor. That way the gift would be going through the "authority" of the church. By now, Chris was annoyed. "Only if I can ask your pastor's permission to court your daughter," he said.

So there I was back in Michigan, trying to earn enough money to buy my ticket and pay for my stay. I was close, but I would need to postpone my trip by a few weeks. The SIL-Wycliffe office in Manila inquired about my plans, and I explained the situation. I would not be able to come in September, but I would arrive just as soon as I could. Privately, I determined not to celebrate my 25th birthday at home. I would be in Asia before that date.

In the meantime, I was moody and depressed. I made a list of all the ways I had "rebelled" against fundamentalism over the summer--making it sound more dramatic than reality warranted. Dad became aware of it--I think I left the list out when I was working in his office--and looked sober.

"I would not have recommended that," he said, when I told him I had worn pants and watched a Star Wars film.

Strangely, I did not feel guilty.

Within weeks of my return, I received an email from Jed. I lost no time forwarding it to Dad. If he wanted to be my protector, he could get rid of that guy!

I babysat the six or seven kids at home while my parents went away for their anniversary. I cried at church. The trees were pulling out their autumn colors, but I was distracted. I gave more music lessons. I worked, and watched my brothers chat with Chris over AOL Instant Messenger.

I got sick. I could scarcely pray. I couldn't sleep.

Andraste* got sick, too. She spent two days in ICU while I cared for sick kids at home, exchanged emails with the Manila SIL office, and thought about Chris in Colorado at a WILDS retreat.

That week, I tried to articulate to Dad how my feelings toward Chris had changed. Afterward, I wrote in my journal:

...I may be falling in love with Chris, but there is no need to find out yet.... The waiting is tedious when I want to be gone. And it is sometimes very hard not be angry with Dad...

...It is a very good thing that Dad does not 'have' my heart, for I feel he is unequal to such a trust. If I did not believe that the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, or shadow of turning, is supreme over all, I should lose all hope of things ever being untangled.

And then, an anonymous gift, channeled through my parents' church.

The check, though less than Chris had offered, was more than enough to supply what I was lacking. I could leave two weeks before my birthday, and I could stay in the Philippines for four months. When I bought my round-trip tickets, I was feeling optimistic.

In an Anne-of-Green-Gables moment of melodrama, I booked my return flight for Valentine's Day. If things went well, I imagined Chris meeting my plane to welcome me back to the U.S., snow on his boots and arms full of roses.


Continued at Heart to Heart

*Names are pseudonyms.

One More Day!

You may have heard that tomorrow is Election Day.

Which means there are twenty-four more hours for political phone calls to make a difference. And since Chris and I are currently registered with different parties, and we still have an old-fashioned landline, we get ALL the calls. Yay, us!

I have taken to answering the phone with a cheerful tune: "Would you like to build a snowman?" (they never do) or a long pause followed by a low, breathy whisper: "Whaaaat?" This usually causes the caller to hang up. Other times we just let it go to voice mail.

The real fun begins when our voice mail service sends me a helpful transcript of the recorded message. I will share a few below for your enjoyment. Good times!

(787) 108-7710 emerging you over public on Tuesday the politicians deserve your vote maybe not that you deserve to see barack obama chris when we were able to work together and depressed like every read packing want to see obama here's enjoying. The doctor Milton Wilsonville republican on Tuesday. 

Hi this is Curt around call. I am calling on behalf of independent women voice to respectfully ask for your vote for my friend pat wallace like me how long distance. I am a lot of us out with some other and have not ... the sign the pledge to do everything and not only to repeal obama care for to minimisse his car ... watching people now cleaning want to fix about care. They want to go to the Democrats been blocked every obama here fixing even getting a boat regardless of whether it was a solution to help with frankie Doctor Networks or lost job or canceled plans or increased call Curly's call because what the mall in a hurry. We remain for Jordi. We are at all today. The only way to get those on the fixes to about like irish to change the party the control center building for Pat Robert stills Washington you want to keep your doctor and fire Harry week. So please for the sake of this crazy country bar. So it's about almost on Tuesday was paid for by independent woman's voice is not authorize for any candidate or candidates committee. You can call (202) 857-3293. 

Hi this is Synergetic cruise. I am calling on behalf of the Tea Party Patriots. I am calling her to come out boat on Tuesday for my friend has brought the last six years. Kerry. Reid has been Rocco mama's best friend in congress blocking every piece of good legislation that house republicans. We have a chance on Tuesday to retake the Usa to retire kerry. We can finally order dell palma repeal bill on press steps. We can decide to lie to block in Misty for you legal immigrants from president obama's executive. We stand up to stop the out of control spending in out of control there but we can do that without Robert a descent Kansas he's ground zero in the battle retake the senate and to retire here I understand. Thank frustrated with Washington. I promise nobody's more frustrated with Washington ... the survey's not stay home for those for anybody else other than her because doing so since we keep scary reasons but Jordi instead please vote Tuesday for pat robertson send a message to washington keep your doctor and fire harry ricci. This is paid for by the Tea Party Patriots. This is not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee find out more at Citizens funds dot org. Thank you and God bless. 

Of course, since we voted by mail, none of these calls makes a whit of difference either way.

November 5th cannot come too soon!

Library Shelf: Parenthood Reading List

Much of my personal reading this year has focused on healing the effects of my childhood. It began inadvertently a few years ago with a library book about mothering, and led further and further down the rabbit hole, as it were.

I share this list in hope that it will help someone else--to recover a lost or damaged childhood, or simply to be a better parent.

The Mom Factor by Henry Cloud and John Townsend (authors of the Boundaries books)

This book really set me on my journey to figure out the role we call motherhood. Incidentally, it is also the only one of Cloud & Townsend's books that I've really appreciated. The authors examine what a child needs from a mother, and then look at how five different types of mothers fail to adequately meet those needs. Overall, The Mom Factor motivated and inspired me. It gave me hope that I could repair the gaps my mom was unable to fill and become the mom my kids need.

As I was reading, I really wished I'd found this book before becoming a mother myself. As it was, I found myself processing the information at three different levels at once: what my mother missed out in her childhood, how my mom was unable to give me what she didn't have, and what my daughter needed me to be for her. It was rather overwhelming!

(I should probably note that this is the only book on my list that uses the Bible as a reference. However, it was not difficult to separate the counseling parts of the book from the parts that read like a sermon.)


You're Wearing That? by Deborah Tannen

As a linguist, Tannen is primarily interested in how conversation reflects social relationships. Here, she turns the spotlight on conversational interaction between mothers and daughters. The sociological implications build on Tannen's other fascinating work, but frankly, communication with my mother has never been primarily about words, so I didn't find this book very helpful in a therapeutic sense. It probably did influence my relationships with my girls, though, in that it provided an outside reference point for mother-daughter communication.


Complex PTSD by Pete Walker

Since this book came out in January, it has been my bible. My copy is dog-eared and highlighted throughout. Seriously, if you are struggling to overcome the effects of abuse or neglect in your childhood, this is a must-read.

Walker writes with compassion and understanding, having spent many years on his own recovery. Many times, I would dissolve into tears after just a page. All year, I've intended to write a proper review of this book, but words fail me.

Through these chapters, Walker has been my mentor and friend, offering courage and encouragement at every step and especially when I feel I am making no progress at all. The sections on grief, on managing flashbacks, and on silencing what Walker terms "the inner critic" deserve particular mention.

While this book builds on the work of many others (check out the extensive bibliography for further reading), it stands alone as a self-help manual or as a supplement to help you get the most out of your therapy experience.

Toxic Parents by Susan Forward

From the author of Emotional Blackmail, another extremely accessible and straightforward therapy book!

The first part of the book covered ground that was already familiar to me from other sources, but the second half was invaluable. Forward offers very specific advice on confronting toxic parents--not in the hope of changing them, but in order to recover one's autonomous self. She outlines clear goals and milestones on the road to emotional health. It did me good to see how much progress I have already made! There is also a forthright chapter on handling relationships that involved incest.

While each author I read discussed the concept of forgiveness, I found the thoughts in this book most helpful to my situation.


Difficult Mothers by Terri Apter

A good overview book. Like Cloud and Townsend, Apter categorizes five different types of difficult mothers. Unfortunately, they all sounded familiar, so I had to read the whole book! Very readable, but not as practical as some of the rest.


Surviving a Borderline Parent by Kimberlee Roth and Freda Friedman

Though written to adult children of a parent with Borderline Personality Disorder, the authors emphasize that the tools described here are useful whether or not a difficult parent has actually been diagnosed with BDP. (Diagnosis may not even be possible, since narcissistic or borderline individuals may not be open to getting psychological help from professionals.) A very educational and informative book.


Understanding the Borderline Mother by Christine Lawson

Using a fairy tale metaphor, Lawson describes various types of borderline mothers and gives specific advice for understanding and interacting with each. I learned so much about BDP while reading this book. For example, that borderline individuals may be high-functioning or low-functioning. The many possible variations make understanding a borderline mother extra-challenging.

Ultimately, Lawson benefited me by removing my fear that I, too, might be a "borderline mother" and by helping me realize that a borderline mother can be truly incapable of parenting. In other words, she may really have done "the best she could".


Adult Children of Abusive Parents by Steven Farmer

If PTSD is not a factor, this book would be a fine place to begin. Farmer uses slightly different terminology, but his explanations of psychology are otherwise very similar to Walker's. Farmer uses a more linear approach that is very easy to follow. Also, throughout each chapter, Farmer assigns short, specific exercises for healing and recovery, and encourages extensive journaling. If you are looking for do-it-yourself "therapy", this is the book for you.

I have spent many reading sessions in tears over this book--perhaps not surprising since Farmer highlights the healing importance of both grief and anger. But he is not content to resolve the past, he moves on to chapters on "Growing Up Again" and on becoming the parent you wish you'd had.

* * *

In addition to the above self-help genre, these novels and memoirs have been healing and enlightening in their own way:

Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas--A recent novel about a charming but psychopathic mother and the havoc she wreaks on her children.

A Spell on the Water by Marjorie Cole--Poignantly set in northwestern lower Michigan in the 1960's, the mother in this novel struggles to raise five children without succumbing to her own grief. Themes include addiction, fear, and loneliness.

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls--The author's first novel. Short, but meaningful.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls--A shocking memoir; I think it permanently rearranged my brain. Walls is an inspiration and a guiding star.

Under Magnolia by Frances Mayes--My book club read this southern memoir, and it generated lively discussion!

Mom and Me and Mom by Maya Angelou--The fascinating story of two incredibly resilient women.

From There to Here

On a long drive home the other night, I was pondering our journey away from the IBLP cult. The further we get from it chronologically and ideologically, the greater the gulf between us and our associates (fewer in number all the time!) who still defend Gothard, his teachings, or his organization. It also becomes increasingly difficult to explain, or even remember, how we reached the conclusions that shape our thinking now.

We used to identify with the Institute in Basic Life Principles, after all. We supported it, sacrificed for the vision of its founder. Even today, many of our closest friends are fellow survivors of the cult. Even when we meet for the first time, there is an instant connection of shared experience. We have traveled to the same places. Our teen photos match. We find ourselves lapsing into the familiar old vocabulary we can't use with anyone else. We were shaped by the same influences and like military veterans, they bond us decades later.

I am always interested in hearing others describe the various paths they took out of that "ministry". Some jumped away suddenly, not looking back. Others got snared by other controlling groups after leaving IBLP. Some got stuck for years in abusive relationships. Some were re-socialized in the military, or in college, or working overseas.

When people ask me, "How did you get out?", I am often unsure how to answer.

"Well, that's a long story..."?

The truth is, we moved away ever so slowly. We were genuinely afraid of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In our over-analytical way, we spent nearly a decade evaluating each teaching, each experience. Just as we had always understood why we adopted the beliefs we held, we had to be reasonably certain before we rejected them.

For me, tendrils of disillusionment had long intertwined my loyalty. Because even as a homeschooled young adult, I had reason to doubt Bill Gothard's truthfulness. For a time, I truly believed that he wanted to share God's truth with his followers, but numerous situations cast doubtful shadows on that premise. Yet even as the evidence mounted that Gothard himself valued expediency over transparency, I still assumed the best about the rest of his staff. I believed that, like me, they meant well. All the church leaders I'd ever heard of had feet of clay, after all. And since I accepted most of his teachings as Biblically-based, his personal character flaws did not seem a reason to challenge the rest. Besides, IBLP was my ticket to adventure, and certainly the only place I was likely to meet a man my parents would approve for me.

But at last Bill fired me from his organization, evicting me from my rented room overnight. Later we learned about the sex scandal where Gothard's director of the ATI department left his eight kids and ran off with his secretary. If I was jaded before, that really didn't help. The affair bothered me less than the hypocrisy. Character, my ass! I realized I hadn't known about a lot of what was really going on behind the facade around me.

Still, all my friends were connected to the Institute in some way. I had no close connections on "the outside". Even if I had no more loyalty to the 'Tute, I was not prepared for life without it.

Chris left Gothard's employ (on good terms), but the cult teachings ran deep in both of us. The legalism bothered us a lot. We wanted our faith to be more authentic and less austere. Above all, we did not want to base our life choices on fear. We began experimenting personally with jettisoning certain "standards", to see if our relationship with Jesus was affected by, say, listening to Christian rock, or cautiously watching R-rated films.

When we started courting, we compared notes. Our standards were still much stricter than our peers', but we were growing as individuals, daring to make a few of our own choices. When we married, we chose a church without obvious fundamentalist leanings. We stopped following Gothard's financial "principles". We still visited the IBLP campus when we drove through Chicago, stopping to say hello to people we still considered friends.

Not being sure what denomination of Christianity we belonged to anymore, we visited different churches in town. Each had a unique flavor, but it was not obvious where we fit.

It wasn't long before our pursuit led us to examine the richness of older traditions: we visited a Catholic Mass, we read a book by a married couple who'd converted from Protestantism to Popery, and we paid $20 a session for abstinence counseling. (For real!) At the same time, we were taking a Bible class at a conservative Lutheran church (their doctrinal covenant specified that the Pope was the antiChrist). While the study influenced our view of eschatology and we even considered having our babies baptized, we concluded that deep down, we were neither Lutheran nor Catholic. And, after spending years in interdenominational settings, we didn't want to belong to any club whose members all agreed on exactly what the Bible meant.

Chris became partial to Pontius Pilate's line in the Gospel of John, "What is truth?" For his thirtieth birthday, we shared our first bottle of wine.

I joined a ladies' Bible study at an evangelical megachurch. We took the kids to Awana there and taught them lots of Bible verses. I sang them hymns when I rocked them at bedtime. I sang solos at our church, and filled in for the pianist sometimes. We were Mary and Joseph in the Christmas cantata, our infant the Baby Jesus.

During this time, we devoured Philip Yancey's books about grace and the mysterious sovereignty of God. His writing felt edgy and real. He wasn't afraid to wonder aloud, and he became our hero.

We watched several seasons of Law & Order while I was pregnant, and each episode sparked discussion about some social issue. We read Shane Claiborne's book about helping the poor in Philadelphia, and we read Jim Wallis' book about poverty and politics, and our worldview shifted some more. It seemed that heartfelt Christianity simply had to have a humanist side. Voting for white male Republicans was no longer a given.

We began researching how cults operate. And we recognized way too much. It took years to accept the term, but we finally began referring to IBLP as a cult. I read numerous memoirs about people leaving cults and cultish religious groups.

And strangely, no matter how normal we tried to be, we found connections to our past all over the city. The church library had a horrid Rod & Staff storybook my sisters used to read. ATI acquaintances worked at the tea shop. We ran into them at the farm market. A couple at our church were zealous supporters of Gothard, annually recruiting attendees for the Basic Seminar, which was held at the church where our kids later attended AWANA in the classrooms where an ATI dad ran a Christian school. I tried seeing a Christian counselor there, but couldn't get past the fact that my issues stemmed largely from teaching the church itself was promoting.

Our midwife had been recommended to us by Dr. Dean Youngberg, an IBLP Board member who attended church with my in-laws. In a strange twist, we later ended up in a Sunday School class led by her ex-husband, studying Philip Yancey's book on grace. In a discussion about legalism, Mr. Brace brought up the Institute as an example and our eyes got big. So much for finding a place where no one knew of Gothard!

Brace kept talking about how he'd tried to rescue his kids from this religious cult. It wasn't till we got home that I figured out who he was. "Chris, we've met the people that man was talking about. His ex-wife delivered our babies!"

When I shopped for educational materials at the Wichita homeschoolers book fair, numerous booths were promoting IBLP-affiliated resources: ALERT, the Seminars, books on courtship, "Godly" music, S.M. Davis DVDs. Teenagers were teaching character songs to a conference of children. When I found myself wanting to scream, I went out to my car and listened to ABBA songs while I ate my sack lunch. When I went back in, I found A Matter of Basic Principles at the used bookseller's booth. Gothard's face on the front creeped me out, but I bought it anyway.

That book clinched it for us. Gothard was a hypocrite and a mountebank. We recognized enough of the names and events the authors included, and we could fill in more stories of our own. It wasn't just in our heads anymore--it was in print! This was incredibly validating. I didn't even care about Gothard's doctrine anymore. He claimed to teach us, his followers, the ways of God, then violated his own principles at every turn. And we wouldn't even learn of the groping scandals for a few more years. We had no respect at all left for the man, or for his organization. We regretted the time we'd devoted to building it.

By this time Chris was working on the college degree he had been told was a waste of time. I began to read voraciously about science: astronomy, biology, geology... I wanted to fill in the sizeable gaps in my knowledge so I could teach my children with confidence. I ended up unlearning a whole lot of young earth creationism along the way.

I kept reading books on theology and philosophy, and began questioning patriarchy. Did God endorse it? Was misogyny a corruption of his intent? What if the genders could be equal? And while we're thinking daring thoughts--what about people attracted to people of the same sex, anyway? Was it a sin to be gay? Did God make people that way? Flannery O'Connor's stories didn't make me feel better, but they did help me ask more questions.

The church that had once seemed moderate to us was veering to the right, and we felt ourselves moving in a different direction. We resettled at a big, compassionate, liberal Methodist church and tried to look at the Bible in fresh ways that didn't trigger cult flashbacks. The kids dressed up for their first real Halloween party and Chris joined the pastor's weekly discipleship Bible study. I asked our female associate pastor to recommend a therapist. We got involved in the church choirs.

We still couldn't shake the triggers, though. I recall breathing through a panic attack even while the hip young musicians on stage performed a gentle, harmonious rendition of the Beatitudes. Had the most poetic lines of the Sermon on the Mount been ruined for me? The lyrics were of comfort and hope, but I sat in the pew quaking. Would my ATI past ever stop haunting me?

Maybe Halloween brought it up, I don't remember. But what began as a study of the Bible's teaching on the devil ended up challenging monotheism in a big way. In one weekend, I lost my fear of Satan. I doubted his very existence. I viewed him as a human construct, an explanation added to make the other pieces fit. And if there was no Satan, well, as it turned out, that changed everything.

My reading of ex-fundamentalist memoirs led me to an ethnology about private church schools. It challenged many of my assumptions about education. Suddenly we could see how our experience being homeschooled had made us more vulnerable to being "brainwashed" by Gothard. We wanted to give our children a better chance than we'd had.

Now that we no longer feared our kids learning about evolution, sexuality, or swear words, and because we now had a radically different view of socialization, it wasn't long before I stopped at the elementary school down the street. I met the principal and she gave me a tour. That fall, our fourth-grader took her first step into the pool of public education. Despite the anxieties we all had absorbed, it turned out to be a good experience! Two years later, I was no longer a homeschooling mom.

Our kids were old enough to ask questions now. And their take on the Bible amazed me. I had become calloused to the cruelty and bloodshed. The stories that had been my comic books as a kid (murders, rapes, genocide, and more!), they found genuinely disturbing. But by this time, I had stopped defending God. Like the Methodists, I saw the Bible as an ancient collection of composite literature. Unlike them, I could no longer admire the God it described.

Even as our daughter was an acolyte and we took communion and recited the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, we felt our faith slipping away. At Christmastime, I tried to rehearse a song with the choir, but ended up sobbing when the lyrics described what a good mother Mary was. It seemed unfair for the Baby Jesus, who had such a lousy human experience otherwise, to get a good mother. More than anything, I wanted to be a good mother.

We kept our Christianity on life support (oh, that marvelous pipe organ!) for a few more months, but it was brain dead when we pulled the plug one Easter Sunday.

Our progress was so gradual, it was almost undetectable to many of our acquaintances. We more or less looked and behaved the same as ever. I started writing here as a private way to process the changes, because I knew no one who would understand.

Eventually, we did try to drop clues to a few people. Maybe they would want to join us on the journey. We left book titles out in the open, offered wine at dinner, invited them to visit the Methodist church with us. But it was too far a leap. Unlike us, they were content where they were. They did not suffer from questions the way we did. We had to keep moving without their company.

 We've found other companions at this stage of our life. Our dearest friends are scattered around the globe. Our cohort are other homeschool graduates who have fought to reclaim their lives, wherever we find them.

For a long time, I wondered if I had lost my tribe, if I didn't belong anywhere anymore. But now I am finding it ever so slowly.

My tribe are brave truth-speakers and wise story-tellers, healing themselves with art and with beauty. They are curious, passionate, and introspective. They color outside the lines. They love across borders. They stare down adversity every single day, then wake up and do it again. Their scars give them depth. They thirst for justice, and hunger for understanding.

It may have taken us longer than most to discover our agency in this wonderfully diverse world, but now that we have, we want to use it to leave the world a happier, safer place than we found it.

The Mask of Modesty

When I was a girl, my mother made modesty a top priority. She discarded all my shorts, all my pants. God had made me female, so I needed to look like the woman on the restroom sign. Dresses it would be from then on.

I was never quite sure if Mom reached this conclusion on her own, or if it was Dad's decision for us, or if they worked it out together. I wasn't happy about it, but then, I wasn't consulted.

There were no more pajama outfits, only nightgowns. The sunsuit that had replaced my swimsuit was now replaced with a calico dress. Yes, I wore a dress in the lake. A dress on my bike. A dress in the sandbox and on the swings. I wore a dress in the garden, to the orchard, on a hike. When I went sledding, I wore a long flared wool coat over my snowpants. Later, I wore snowpants or sweatpants under a long, loose, flapping skirt. After a few runs down the hill, the snowy skirt would stiffen around me like a bell.

For warmth, I wore cable tights.

For modesty, I wore homemade knee-length bloomers over the tights.

They were usually white, longer than shorts, and they had eyelet ruffles below the elastic cuffs. The woman who first showed my mom how to make them called them "pettipants". We quickly shortened that to petties. The petties were so modest that I would often strut around my bedroom in them.

"I could go out like this and most people would think I was already fully dressed," I must have said to my sister a hundred times as a teen--before pulling a skirt or jumper over my loose-fitting shirt. No way would I leave my room in just my petties. They were a secondary undergarment, like a camisole. They should never be missing, but they weren't meant to be seen.

If Mom told it once, she told it a hundred times--the story about an evil man who had tried to molest a young girl in her neighborhood. "He asked if he could see her underwear!" The girl had refused him, she said, but the situation had been traumatizing. Knowing that such predators existed was motivation for us to stay covered.

Once at a hotel, Mom was anxious that we close the drapes because some of the girls were already in their nightgowns. "Bad men might see me?" my little sister inquired sweetly.

Over the years, I spent many hours sewing dresses and petties. Mom bought elastic by the yard and I fished it through the casings with a safety pin. Those little girls' diapers and underpants must never show, no matter how hard they played. My brothers must never see how their sisters' bodies were different. (We girls could change diapers of either sex, a privilege not permitted to the boys.)

By two years old, my sisters were no longer dressed in rompers--they wore dresses and jumpers and pinafores. When they went outside in the snow, we shoved the handfuls of fabric down the legs until the girls looked like pink or green marshmallow people. But the downside of dresses was the risk of accidental exposure. So petties were ubiquitous. Rarely visible, but ubiquitous, nevertheless.

My sex education was spotty at best, but one message I got loud and clear was, "Keep men away from your underwear." 

Whether playing outdoors or sitting on church pews, our bodies were kept hidden under layers of cotton. At IBLP training centers, we joked about boys not knowing that girls' legs separated before the knee. When I started wearing shorts on occasion as an adult, I felt a twinge of betrayal, pondering whether God intended for my thighs to be displayed in public. Would they, as my friend's grandma warned her, "make men think bad thoughts"?

Even when I married, I took my petties with me, accustomed to the secure and familiar feeling of soft cotton wrapped around my legs. And as Mom and I sewed dresses for the four sisters who were flower girls in my wedding, I never questioned that coordinating petties were an essential part of the ensemble.

And yet...

What I didn't realize then was that there was one glaring exception to the inviolable rule of modesty:

Spankings.

I have many memories of being spread across Dad's lap and struck with a belt or stick of wood. But my memories are always fully clothed. It was bad enough (and much more painful) when Mom hit me, but as the modesty rules tightened, something felt increasingly dissonant about a part of my body that was never supposed to be seen or talked about suddenly becoming a man's target. (The last time he hit me, I was about 13. I had the body of a young woman and was wearing a long wool skirt. Being ordered to lie across his legs, I felt violated. Since it never happened again, I assumed it made him uncomfortable, too.)

However... when my father took one of his younger daughters into a bedroom and closed the bedroom or bathroom door, many times he would lift that modest dress. He would pull down her petties, exposing her panties. (I am uncertain when my parents adopted this invasive approach to "discipline", but their pastor, also an ATI dad and a certified character coach, taught it in detail during a Sunday service years ago.) Sometimes Dad would pray aloud for "Satan to be bound".

Only then would he raise the wooden spoon that was the implement of choice, bringing it down hard against her thinly-clad flesh again and again. I heard the cries of anger and pain, and later saw the dark bruise lines when I bathed the girls and helped wash their hair. I didn't like the reminder of my own younger experiences, but I believed it was necessary. I had survived spanking, and now I was a responsible young lady. It never once occurred to me that our patriarch, the "priest of our home", might be looking at his little girls backsides in their knickers.

The petties protected us all, didn't they? They were a kind of magical garment, shielding us from prurient men and guarding men from lustful thoughts. Allowed too close to the natural shape of our bodies, any male might be overwhelmed with desire sufficient to become a pedophile. That was what we feared.

Though Dad slowly relented on parts of the family dress code, permitting his daughters to wear slacks, pajamas, and modified swimsuits, I had already absorbed the modesty mantra into the warp and woof of my being. So much so that it took a decade to silence my mother's voice in my head every time I went shopping or opened my closet door.

But these days, I think very differently about those who would dictate how females dress.

I also think differently about inflicting intentional pain on children's bodies to root evil out of their hearts.

And I feel more strongly than ever that if parent-teachers, in the sanctity of a child's home, are permitted to remove her clothing at their whim for the purpose of making her good, they put a hurdle in the way of her learning self-respect.

Let me take a moment to unpack all the harm I see in this scenario.

1) Our parents rigidly defined our roles as females. We were subject to rules and dangers that didn't apply to our brothers. 

2) In our home, everything was sexualized. Books, from our encyclopedia set to our Bible storybooks, had white stickers covering illustrations that were deemed indecent. We left the beach if a bikini showed up. The dining room seating was arranged so that the boys would not see the teen girls across the street washing their car.

3) Threats of physical violence by adults against young children were normalized in our home. We called it "spanking". It involved a weapon, and it left marks. 

4) As if being painfully punished on the bottom with a stick was not enough, having one's required covering forcibly removed was a special humiliation. 

5) We were told constantly to be "modest", but as soon as we were perceived as "independent", "rebellious" or "talking back", our modesty was no longer valued. Indeed, our value as females was directly linked to our obedient, submissive, and chaste spirits.

6)  That my father, in our insular world, had the privilege of exposing his own daughter's panties underscored his tremendous authority. He was the top dog. The rules that applied to others did not apply to him, at least not when we had been defiant or lazy, or had spoken out of turn. 

7) On occasion, my parents also spanked their daughters on bare buttocks. When Mom was particularly upset (she was often very cool while she beat us), she threatened to call Dad in to spank a girl's already-bare bottom. That girl still remembers the horrible threat. 

So tell me,

If a young child is made to feel dirty when she says "no",

Or if her resistance to pain is met with threats of something worse, 

How can she be expected to enforce healthy boundaries in relationships when she is grown?


In Mom's story, the would-be molester asked a young girl to show herself to him. But our parents made this sound shameful, and then demanded it of their own daughters.

Sorry, Mom and Dad, you can't have it both ways. You abused the "blessings" that filled your quiver. And you wonder why we struggle to respect ourselves now.



Related post:
Spanking

On Life, Death, and Family Values

I haven't been up to writing lately. Taking care of myself and my family has been enough to manage.

Last month, my therapist and I talked about coming out of the atheist "closet". I haven't told my in-laws that I don't believe in their god anymore, and she thought it would do me good. Because honesty is one of my cherished values.

But then so is kindness. If transparency is likely to cause someone else emotional distress, is it kind to be transparent? Or am I really just hiding from my fear of being rejected as a "disappointment"?

Not long after my conversation with my counselor, we buried Chris's grandmother.

The obituary said she "went home to be with Jesus".

...

What does an atheist do at a very Christian funeral?

The officiant keeps stating that all the children and grandchildren of the deceased have been "saved". (He is too polite to say what they have been saved from--it would be harsh to talk about hell when people are already crying. Does he believe in hell, I wonder? Some of his listeners have lived it.)

I still know all the words to all the hymns, and find myself recalling the stories behind their writing as well. Memories sweep over me with every chord. The verse written by a rabbi. Singing in four-part harmony with my team in Russia. I was introduced to one of the songs when I visited IBLP Headquarters in my late teens. It became my personal "courtship" theme song; I even wrote my own tune for it. Chris sings along with some of the songs, but then he stops. In my head, I add a soaring soprano note to the final stanza though my voice remains silent.

This pastor never knew Grandma before her recent stroke. He has taken his cues from stories the family told him over the weekend, and from the notes in her Bible. Someone has told him that in her final hours, Grandma whispered a three-word phrase found in St. Paul's writing, so he uses that text as the springboard for a sermon. Perhaps some listening find it comforting. Afterward, another devout family member tells me that Grandma was unable to communicate--that it's not possible she was able to form those words.

I understand. Telling stories to make ourselves, or others, feel better is what humans do. I decide that is the primary purpose of this gathering, a coming together to listen to stories that are supposed to make us all feel better. The stories about Grandma make us laugh. The ones about God not so much.

It's been years since I attended a church service. Several more since I attended a funeral. A lot of things have changed in the interim. These people don't know that my faith in God and an afterlife has melted away. "You haven't changed at all!" they say. I smile pleasantly and glance sideways at Chris. They are his relatives, after all.

They talk about the pictures hanging on the walls at Grandma's house. I recall our cult leader's materials framed in her dining room and the bathroom and get mentally stuck. I look at my sexy new boots and feel more grounded. The blue dress reveals my knees. My hair is the shortest it's been since kindergarten. I look nothing like the girl my husband married thirteen years ago. In fact, I look years younger.

My eyes stay open during the prayers, scanning the bowed heads in front of me. I stopped closing my eyes before I lost my faith. It's a slippery slope.

We silently file out of the auditorium to a room where cold cuts have been set out on long tables. The only thing that appeals to me is the homemade chocolate cake, baked by a kindly Mennonite lady no doubt. Sandwiches I can make at home, but no one ever bakes cake for me! Chris and I sit with cousins we haven't seen in years. We talk about kids and school and therapy while we fork the comforting cake into our mouths and sip coffee out of styrofoam cups.

Somebody is asking why So-and-so A isn't here. Someone else wonders why So-and-so B is here. I'm glad we took our kids to school today. They don't know most of these people. They would have found the homilies cloying. The great-grandma they remember was just showing signs of dementia. She may not have been certain who they were, but they knew she loved her cats, and her feisty Chihuahua.

This gathering of family members is beginning to fray at the edges. The young children are restless. The older people are tired, and worn with emotion. I have smiled with what I hope is compassion. I have been friendly to people who are almost perfect strangers. I have held in my secret.

Now I need real food. The cake was a momentary comfort, but not nourishing in the long-term. Rather like the sacred texts I used to repeat to myself, or those hymns I used to sing. They got me through some painful times, but eventually I still got shaky.

We hug Chris's mother and exit the church. A door  just inside the foyer says "Prayer Room" and we think of the Indianapolis Training Center. But here no one is locked inside. I give Chris directions to my favorite restaurant where we order gourmet sandwiches and debrief each other.

Were we kind? Were we true to ourselves? Even as atheists, we are as introspective as ever.

And someday soon, we will explain to Chris's parents that we are not waiting for heaven. We are trying to live, intentionally, right now.

Why I Write

Yesterday I received this comment from a reader:

"Thank you for sharing your story. I found it searching for the testimonies of those who have been through the ATI program. After watching the Duggar show, I started considering whether I should homeschoool and use the curriculums they recommend for my child. Reading this and your other insider accounts of life in ATI and the Gothard circle have put a real face on the smiling Duggar children as seen on TV. I will not in any way become involved with ATI or Gothard."

There will always be those who think we should be silent, that we should "move on", that we should forgive and forget, that the good outweighs the bad, that we should be grateful for what we gained and ignore the rest. But the paragraph above explains what compels some of us to keep speaking.

Because though we escaped the IBLP/ATI cult, the cult lives on, making parents a deal that is good to be true, offering them a magical solution to a problem they may not have even known they had. "Commit yourself to this lifestyle and you too can have smiling and obedient offspring!" 

The radiant young people the Institute dressed in navy suits and paraded on stage at seminar after seminar to testify to the wonders of the "Life Principles"--they were real people, but we were often only permitted to see the mask. The obedient smiles and the testimonies scripted according to Bill's four-point formula covered up the messy humanity of us all. 

Our parents saw the smiles and the articulate, clean-cut teenagers and they wanted that outcome for their families, too. 

Of course they did. 

How could they have known... That a girl teaching attentiveness ("Showing the worth of a person by giving undivided attention...") had been molested by her father the week before? That a young man teaching English to Russian teens had been exiled from his home with no recognition of his high school graduation? That a bright-faced teenager harmonizing "Holy Father, Grant Us Peace" was being savagely beaten at home? That a young woman's IBLP paycheck was paying the mortgage for her deadbeat stepdad?  That children in some ATI families were getting no education but what they taught themselves, and no adults were checking on hundreds more? That those fresh-faced children were being hit on by the very adults on the Institute staff who kept talking about "moral freedom"? That since only one sexual orientation was acknowledged, a request not to be assigned to share a hotel room with a crush would be denied? That their guru himself was a pervert and shyster, making up rules for his followers to keep, while obsessively indulging his own lusts--not unlike the hypocrites Jesus denounced in Luke 11:46?

"Alas too for you expounders of the Law!" replied Jesus, "for you load men with cumbrous burdens which you yourselves will not touch with one of your fingers." 

Gothard knew some of the families he led were dysfunctional, yet in his twisted mind, it was more important to protect his "ministry" from being discredited than to protect children from physical, verbal, or sexual abuse in their own homes. So he encouraged mothers to stay with abusive husbands, and teens to submit to abusive parents. He even paraded some of those same families at conferences and ATI training centers. Those who dared tell the "emperor" (Gothard) that he had no clothes were quickly sent where they would not be a threat to his institution.

Our parents were sold a glossy lie. There was no real magic, only plenty of sleight-of-hand. And even as we their sons and daughters began to notice the fetid mold under the facade, it sometimes took years for us to find words to express how what we experienced left invisible bruises deep inside.

Sociologist Janja Lalich found the words,

When you discover one day that your guru is a fraud, that the "miracles" are no more than magic tricks, that the group's victories and accomplishments are fabrications of an internal public relations system, that your holy teacher is breaking his avowed celibacy with every young disciple, that the group's connections to people of import are nonexistent when awarenesses such as these come upon you, you are faced with what many have called a "spiritual rape". 

As attractive as it sounds to simply "move on", it does not solve the nightmares or insomnia, the fatigue, the flashbacks triggered by the most ordinary activities, the days of trembling or numbness, the brittle relationships. It doesn't heal our damaged bodies or our wounded hearts. Recovery becomes a sometimes daily challenge, a long-term investment for our selves and for the people who love us. 

There are too many of us survivors already. I want to do all I can to keep that number from growing.

Mixed Messages

I have written before about how spankings were used in my family, and how I regret using spanking even in a more limited way on my own children.

In this talk, Robbyn Peters Bennett succinctly explains the damaging side effects of using physical violence to modify children's behavior.

In a 1978 speech, children's author Astrid Lindgren told a story about a little boy whose mother announced her intention to switch him. 

The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, "Mama, I couldn't find a switch, but here's a rock that you can throw at me."

Indeed, when I was a young person, I read this Bible passage of "God's Law" at least once a year, in which parents are enjoined to stone disobedient children as a last resort:

"If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother, even though they punish him, then his father and mother shall take him before the elders of the city and declare, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and won’t obey; he is a worthless drunkard.' Then the men of the city shall stone him to death. In this way you shall put away this evil from among you, and all the young men of Israel will hear about what happened and will be afraid."      Deut. 21:18-21 (TLB)

The reason our parents were not obligated by this particular passage was that God himself had had his own perfectly obedient son killed, resulting in a surplus sufficient to cover all of our stubborn rebellion till the end of time. But that was small comfort when the wooden spoon came out and we were ordered to lean over Mom and Dad's mattress for being "disrespectful", "strong-willed", or "a bad example".

Once a month we read aloud, "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying." My parents took the verse literally, and it was a rare week when one of us did not bear the evidence on thighs or buttocks.

The morality of attacking one's offspring with sticks was not open for debate in our home. Had not God himself said, "If you are not disciplined...then you are not legitimate"? The beloved maternal role model of my childhood was Marmee in Little Women. Her bold declaration, "I don't approve of corporal punishment, especially for girls", made me think I was reading very subversive thoughts indeed!

When a child is struck by those on whom he depends for safety, his young brain struggles to comprehend the mixed signals of danger and love, kindness and abuse, to say nothing of the twisted sexual component. Sometimes the task of untangling those threads lasts far longer than his childhood did.

Our Courtship Story: Silenced

Continued from Uncertainty and a Breakthrough

Jeri early in the summer at SIL

"That's the first positive signal I've gotten from you," typed Chris.

He was more than ready to initiate "courtship" again. But our imaginations painted the process very differently. In my mind (influenced by the handful of courtship "testimonies" I had read), Dad would give Chris pages of questionnaires to fill out. They would have regular phone conversations talking about me, my strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. It might drag on for months, and I did not want to be living in my parents' crowded house waiting for it to unfold without being allowed to say anything myself. When the time was right, Dad would either give Chris his stamp of approval and turn him loose to "win my heart", or maybe he would help Chris plan a romantic surprise to launch the new with-marriage-in-mind phase of our friendship.

As far as Chris was concerned, my dad had already told him he approved of him. He was well-liked by my whole family, in fact. Asking for Dad's blessing (again) would be a formality, but he anticipated no trouble. He wanted me to be happy, so if I wanted him to wait quietly while I got ready for my trip, that was fine with him.  

Eight hundred miles north, I smiled from my seat in the computer lab. The summer semester was fast coming to a close. My visa for the Philippines had been approved. I would purchase my ticket when I got home. Meanwhile, I would focus on my Mandarin grammar project, prepare for final exams (my first ever!), and just enjoy my last weeks of independence with all my new friends. 

And then... I got mail. A card from my mom, to be exact. I had been emailing home throughout the summer, telling about my classes and my tamer adventures. Since I had no intention of being a "sneak" or of "rebelling" (a sin frequently compared to sorcery), I had mentioned my AIM chats with Chris in an e-missive from late July. And now Mom was concerned.

We had not gotten permission to communicate directly, she said. If I was having second thoughts about Chris as a suitor, we needed to go back to start and begin again on the right foot.

Oh...shit. If the word had been part of my mental vocabulary in those days, I would certainly have used it. As it was, it was as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of my atmosphere. My breath shortened and my heart raced. Notes from Mom often carried a punch, but this one was particularly upsetting. Mom hadn't even been involved in the situation up to this point. I may have signed my name next to Scott's with our pastor as witness, but I had never made any promises to let her guide my selection of a life partner. Mom was someone I alternately feared, assisted, or took care of. I was not prepared to let my present or future happiness depend on her whims.

Still, she was my parent, and obedience to parents was of paramount importance in our paradigm. Dishonoring a parent's wish could result in God removing his physical or spiritual protection from one's life. And I needed all the guidance and safety I could get. It would do no good to travel to a island nation across the globe only to be hammered by Satan's henchmen!

The answer, I decided, lay with Scott. Nothing in Mom's note suggested that Dad even knew about what she'd written, much less agreed with her assessment of the situation. As her husband, he was both her "head" and mine, and he possessed the authority to undo her orders. Heck, he'd done that before, coming along behind her to mop up confusing or anxiety-inducing restrictions. I would call Dad, let him know what Mom had said, and ask him to clear it up.

Cell phones still being luxuries, I squeezed into one of the phone booths at one end of the student lounge in the common area below my dorm room and began dialing the string of numbers on my long-distance phone card.

Dad listened while I explained. Though Mom's instructions seemed to be news to him, to my surprise he supported her. Regarding Chris, he said that more interest on my part should signal the need for more distance between us. I was incredulous. As long as I was actively opposed to Chris as a suitor, our friendship was no big deal, but once I began to consider him as a possible mate, I should avoid him? I don't think I had much to say after that.

I hung up the phone and exited the booth feeling both sad and angry and fighting not to let the tears spill over. I was nearly twenty-five years old and I was pretty sure not one of my classmates or even my missionary instructors would be able to understand how utterly controlled I felt. How could I be a marionette with strings my parents could pull from three states and one Great Lake away?

Well, there was only one week of the course left. If that was how it was going to be, I might as well enjoy it! So knowing a guy might be a good match meant I should ignore him. What if you knew a guy didn't have a chance?

The next time Chris tried to engage me on AIM, I told him I wasn't allowed to talk to him. But that weekend I played ping-pong with Paul. We went, with a small group, to Shakespeare-in-the-Park and "ended up" sharing a quilt on the grass. On Sunday, he complimented my appearance, even noticing the clip-on earrings I almost never bothered to wear. We ate meals together. I savored his attention. Paul even dared to inquire about how courtship worked in my family. I told him the truth, implicitly warning him off. Sweet man that he was, I was certain he could never win my parents' endorsement. At least Chris had a chance. But I still felt bad comparing my two gentle and dark-haired friends: one I had known just two months and another I had shared significant life experiences with over two years.

Days before I left the university campus, I wrote in my journal about "our bloody version of chivalry":

"If I were to refer Paul to Dad, it would prove what I have said about Chris: I have not given him my affections. My heart is free...  

I am willing for Chris to resume communication with Dad. Whether I am ever included or not, they should part as friends and clear up the judgments they have passed on each other over the summer. I love them both, and want them to be friends.

...If I have been a ray of brightness for Paul, here, I am content." 

Continued at Holding Pattern

Our Courtship Story: Uncertainty and a Breakthrough

Continued from Breaking Up With Fundamentalism


July-August 2000     Grand Forks, ND


I was studying hard, playing hard, and wringing as many fun new experiences out my summer as I could. 

Jed* continued to follow me everywhere. Sometimes I humored him. When it rained, I took advantage of his eagerness to keep me dry under his big umbrella. When I wanted exercise but didn't want to stroll around campus alone, I tolerated his company. Other times I got my friends to run interference. One gregarious young Canadian was particularly adept at intercepting Jed while I made my escape from the cafeteria, the chapel, or the classroom. Though I was not particularly flattered by Jed's attentions and dodging them became a sort of game, the idea that some men did actually find me attractive gave me a sense of power and vulnerability I'd never felt before.

One evening after we'd finished studying, Paul* asked if I wanted to get ice cream. I was getting to like Paul more every week and I did want ice cream, but the invitation put me on guard. I had made so many promises not to date. Going off-campus for ice cream after dark sounded suspiciously date-like. (Chris's dad's definition of a date--"when the girl doesn't pay"--came to mind, but I doubted my own dad would be convinced.)

"I'll go if it's a group."

Paul's big brown eyes held a puzzled expression.

I tried to explain that I did want to go with him. Just not alone.

"If you can find someone else to go, too, I'll go!"

Paul started knocking on doors in the girls' dorm hallway, recruiting other seekers of ice cream. As I watched him, I felt self-righteous and silly at the same time. In the end, I can't remember how many of us went, or if I even rode in his car. Any romantic warmth that may or may not have existed at the moment of his invitation had been effectively quenched.

I wasn't sure how to feel afterward. My "Commitment to Courtship" had been tested--for the first time, perhaps. Had I turned down a date? Or kept it from becoming a date? Had I been rude, or read too much into the simple offer?

The next day I told Chris about the incident while I watched him on the webcam. "Did I do the right thing? Do you think I confused Paul? He's such a nice guy. What should I have done?"

Chris patiently did his best, from his lack of experience, to reassure me, while Jed played solitaire at my elbow. I was comfortable talking to Chris about anything, but we danced around discussions of our own relationship. I didn't want to flirt with him. He described me once as "indifferent". But as we had more conversations that lasted into the wee morning hours, I knew I was not "indifferent". I was uncertain. I Uncertain about my purpose as well as my desires.

Every time I admired something I liked about Paul, I found myself comparing him to Chris. I appreciated Paul for being Paul, but he was continually reminding me of Chris. And I began to ask myself, if Chris was the rule by which I measured other men, what did that say about him?

"Do you want to be a mom?" A group of us were walking back from the cafeteria one night and this question from the sweet young student from Moody Bible Institute beside me took me by surprise. 

"Yes, I do," I answered, honestly.

"You'll be a great one." He smiled softly at me, but I knew he was also dreaming of his girlfriend and the family he was looking forward to starting in the not-too-distant future. It had been a long summer apart.

I was touched by his compliment. But it was the question that etched me deeply. What kind of person asked girls if they wanted to be moms? In my culture, one was not deemed ready for marriage until one was also prepared for the challenges of parenthood. I was certain that if I expressed any misgivings about maternity, my parents would never give their consent to my marrying. My reproductive instincts were primed and ready, but then, I had always considered them inextricably tied to my sexuality.

One morning in my dorm room late in July, a luminous new thought dawned on me.

Chris wants to marry you! I told myself.

Marry me? My self was dumbfounded.

That was why he wrote a letter to Dad! I'd interpreted his attempt to initiate contact as a mere "signal of interest". I had not truly absorbed the depth of his intentions. Marriage! He didn't want to merely get to know me, he wanted to start a family--with me! I had expected, from the books and stories I'd read, that I would just know when a man was interested in me. That I would be thrilled when he finally asked my dad for his endorsement. I had never pictured this out-of-the-blue interest from someone I had not already marked as a "possibility". I had to rearrange my fantasies to fit this new reality.

I was, and am, a terrible secret-keeper. The next time Chris and I were online, I told him what had begun to sink in. "I know I should have figured out that that's what courtship is for, but... I just realized that you want to marry me."

At his desk in his west Wichita basement, Chris sighed. This was going to be a long process!

"If you still want to, after I leave for the Philippines, it's okay with me if you resume communication with my dad," I told Chris. "I don't want to be around while you guys are working things out. But I won't interfere this time. Just wait till I'm in Asia."


Continued at Silenced


*Names are pseudonyms.

Food for Body and Soul

When my confidence fades elsewhere, there is always my kitchen.

Check out my other blog to see what I've been concocting in there this summer.

Our Courtship Story: Breaking Up With Fundamentalism

Continued from Instant Messenger and Little Women


Summer 2000,  Grand Forks, ND


I left fundamentalism behind that summer.

We'd grown apart, fundamentalism and I, but I made the decisive break almost as soon as I set foot on the University of North Dakota campus. It's ironic to remember now, because that summer turned out, unexpectedly, to be my first secular college experience. I had not realized we would actually be, for the summer term, students of the university, taking real courses for real credit. I was completely bewildered as the SIL staff helped me sign up for classes, as I stood in line at the registrar's office, as I got my official student ID card that gave me access to the amazing cafeteria as well as the Olympic-sized indoor pool.

My peers were a zany, brainy assortment of mostly evangelicals (missionary kids, missionaries-in-training, grad students, undergrads from Christian colleges), a few fundamentalists, and one middle-aged agnostic anthropologist. And unlike an IBLP training center, the males were not afraid of the females! Right from the start I made new friends easily. Paul* was one of the first people I met. He was short, dark, handsome, and smart, with soulful eyes and a gift for music. He was emotionally intelligent and easy to talk to. We took the same classes and sometimes studied together in our small group. I enjoyed his company, but took pains to make sure nothing we did could be construed as the evil Dating.

I hadn't been long in North Dakota when I found the computer lab. I went in to print off an assignment, but could not resist logging in to AOL's Instant Messenger website. And lo, and behold, Chris was online and we talked. I was still adjusting to being away from home, and it felt so cozy to talk to a familiar old friend. Knowing that he was paying for my coming trip to the Philippines made me feel special, too. I began checking online regularly when my homework was done, telling Chris about the things I was doing and the people I was meeting. I didn't contact my family nearly as often as I talked to Chris.

Linguistics delighted me. Syntax and morphology made me giddy with pleasure. The instructors impressed me. Also to my surprise, I had a dorm room to myself, so I had plenty of time alone to think, pray, and read. After the last months at home, I needed that time. This summer on my own was a rare opportunity, and I was not going to squander it.

I threw myself into the social world of SIL. The daily chapel service. Volleyball. The choral ensemble. The sacred classical harmonies we sang together were sheer delight. When tornadoes threatened, I joined the rest sitting in the basement hallway in our pj's--a new experience. And when I swam at the university center, the locker room was a new experience, too!

Oh, that silent married guy in the aisle seat on my flight from Minneapolis? He turned out to be a classmate, too, but he was an exception to the rest. Though we saw each other every day, he never said a word to me (and after our wordless flight together, I was too shy to say hello now!) until...one morning when he came up to me and thanked me for always dressing "modestly". Apparently I was special among the group because my jumpers, long skirts, and loose blouses did not cause him to stumble. I felt sorry for him and at the same time a little guilty. I didn't deserve his "praise". What could I say, knowing I was already planning to expand my wardrobe at the earliest opportunity?

Though I still looked the part of the ingénue, I was losing my innocence and naivete at an alarming pace. A book I borrowed from the little SIL library in the corner of our student lounge opened my eyes to horrors I'd never heard of, like female genital mutilation. I was horrified. At the same time, the story fed my budding feminism--condemning patriarchy in its most hideous excesses and celebrating a young woman bucking the system by making choices for herself instead of staying under the "protection" of her father or husband.

Daily I learned more about our needy and messed-up world and wondered, did God intend me to help fix it? Or, was I meant to be a mommy? Could I, should I, be both? Would I be a contented single missionary linguist, like the elderly translator who regaled us with snacks and Winnie-the-Pooh readings on Friday nights? Or was one of these fine young men destined to be my partner in God's work? I puzzled over the question while I pondered how I wanted to live.

A friend was going to the mall for a haircut and I went along. I got my hair bobbed and found, on a clearance rack, a marked-down pair of loose-legged, pleated denim trousers that almost passed for jeans, in a size bigger than I wear today. I rolled up the cuffs and cinched the waist with a belt and self-consciously walked to breakfast on Monday, certain that all eyes were now on my ass. That was what Jim and Fay Sammons had warned us about in the Financial Freedom Seminar, after all! Later, at a thrift store, I found an outmoded pair of long light-wash Cherokee denim shorts. I even bought an SIL t-shirt, with words on the front! Move over jumpers, there's a new look in town!

I still wore dresses on Sundays, and sometimes a hat, when I visited churches of different flavors. Now instead of rejecting the enthusiastic beat of the music, I let it resonate inside me. I found a  friendly charismatic fellowship where I danced and sang, and hugged strangers and prayed in tongues. I could feel my heart healing from the wound it had received at IBLP Headquarters.

Jed*, a fellow student, was a brilliant guy, but sadly lacking in social skills. He apparently thought I was cute, jeans or jumpers, a concept I didn't grasp at first because no one had ever been so forward before. I began to feel like he was following me around campus, to class, to chapel, to lunch, back from lunch, even to church! And he seemed to always turn up in the computer lab when I was in there. I kept chatting with Chris, waiting for Jed to leave first, but Jed would patiently play solitaire--for hours.

Being the nerd that he was and is, Chris set up a webcam at home. When I opened a webpage, I could see whether he was at his desk or not, and while we chatted, I could watch his facial expressions. As time went by and I kept finding Jed at the computer next to me, I kept the webcam window open as a way of putting Jed on notice. Surely if I made it clear that I was locked in typed conversation with another guy for hours, Jed would take the hint and disappear? It didn't seem to make any difference, though, unless to encourage his interest. I talked to Chris about Jed. I felt as naive as a middle-schooler and needed a guy's perspective on the situation. What should I do?

And then there was Paul. I told Chris all about Paul. "Oh, he likes you," Chris told me.

"What should I do?" I asked. "How should I treat him?"

It was the blind leading the blind. Chris had never been on a date. I'd sworn off dating ten years past, before I was old enough to try it. But we chatted about relationships till the wee hours of the morning.

On a day we had no classes, one of the missionary women announced she would be watching the entire "Pride & Prejudice" miniseries from A&E in the TV lounge. A group of us girls, plus my stalker, joined her. That was my first introduction to Jane Austen. I ignored Jed, but wondered if he was there to watch me or all the actresses in low-cut gowns.

Another day I was invited to play a game called Mao, which proved hopelessly impossible because I didn't know spades from clubs, who trumped whom, or the names of the Beatles! Other introductions that summer included, in no particular order: Star Wars (I don't even remember which episode, but I knew Chris loved the series). Mr. Bean. Star Trek. Veggie Tales (I laughed so hard!). Thai food. Indian food. My first sips of wine (at a Lutheran communion service on campus) and beer (from a friend's bottle at a Chinese restaurant). Laser tag.

When a group of friends invited me to the cinema to see a movie, I didn't even care what was playing. I had not been in a theater since I was six years old, and who knew if I'd ever have the chance again! I could have chosen a gentler introduction than Erin Brockovich, but had to admire the title character. In the dorm bathroom the next morning, my friends were concerned, and curious. I was 24, and they'd just helped me lose my R-rated film "virginity". How did I feel about the experience?

I laughed them off. "I didn't learn any new words," I said.

I didn't mention that I'd looked away during all the scenes when I suspected the undressed bodies tangled in blankets on the enormous screen might be acting out something like...Sex?? The noises were strange, as I studied the haircut of the teenage missionary kid sitting in the row in front of me and wondered how such a nice boy could be watching such shameless goings-on. Would his parents be disappointed if they knew?

Later, the same boy was swimming laps at the pool the day I decided to ditch the sleeveless button-down shirt I wore over my swimsuit. It was fading from the chlorine anyway. I kept the loose cotton shorts on, though. And when I lost my eyeglasses afterward, I felt divinely chastened. Not for watching the movie, but for venturing too close to indecency at the pool. During our mirth-filled skit night, I sat squinting on the front row, but thanked God that he would not let me stray too far from the path of righteousness. And when my glasses turned up again, I felt that God had forgiven my independent spirit. The next time I swam, I wore the shirt over the modest swimsuit.


Continued at Uncertainty and a Breakthrough


*Names are pseudonyms.

Back-to-School

I'm back--sort of. The kids returned to school last week (whoever said public education is free hasn't visited our district!), we've heartily celebrated summer and birthdays, and I have some exciting projects percolating.

This week I am packing lunches, keeping up with laundry (we have a finite supply of school uniforms!), finishing library books that are almost due, and shopping for those last-minute supplies the kids' teachers say are required.

This is the first time all three kids had the "back-to-school" experience. No one started at a new school this year, they have friends from last year, and they all have some of the same teachers. I find it rewarding to see how much they have grown and adapted, how they have navigate socially, and how they are learning self-care along with us, their parents. No matter how the day went, we all enjoy regrouping around a Netflix episode of Star Trek before bedtime!

And one of these days I will write up the next chapter in our courtship story...

A happy school year to you!

Voices From My Closet

I am silken, draping, flowing, smooth.

I am sheer. I am light. I shimmer and glow.

I am quiet, casual but observant. I am earth tones and freckles, amber and wood, paisleys and plaids.

I am unpolished and nubbly, knitted, twisted, layered, ruched, ruffled, fringed. I am leather and wool, sweaters and corduroy. I am soft. And warm. And deep.

I am bold and loud. I am colors bright and prints writ large. I emphasize and contrast. Black as night, I show you as fair; white as clouds in a summer sky, I turn your ivory skin to honey.

I am unpredictable and inconsistent and sometimes rebellious. I am horizontal stripes. I am skinny jeans hugging your curves. I am white shoes in winter. I am youthful yet sage, and retro with a dash of vintage. I am square buttons. I am hats, beads, gloves, and the occasional rhinestone.

I am swinging, loose, in motion. I sway to comfort. I sway to entice. I sway because I feel life’s beating pulse and want to dance while I can.

I am shapely, secure, self-aware. I am attractive. Inviting. Flirtatious. Daring.

          Garbed, I must choose from among these voices.

          But disrobed, I reverberate with all of them and more.