Saturday, October 27, 2012

For New Readers

A couple of older links and "Joke" series links seem to have made their way around social media over the last few days, resulting in a significant uptick in readers. And with that, quite a few emails from new readers. Just a couple of quick notes to you guys...

First of all, welcome, especially those of you who survived the movements I write about, carry a heavy load, and have felt alone. The number of you just like that who've emailed over the last couple of days had me taken back a bit. Know that you guys AREN'T alone, and there's a whole community of young people just like you. This blog has been one of several gathering places of sorts for people just like you, and here, we only ask you to rest. Breathe a while. Know that you're accepted and cared for - without qualification. You'll also find similar places of rest within my sidebar. I encourage you to check those sites out. A pretty wide spectrum of belief and opinion there to choose from - which is exactly what I feel you deserve. 

I'm not super-religious (at least as compared to a few years ago), and recoil from Christianese and much of Christian tradition (having seen what it actually does to many), so you won't find much here that delves into theology or comes from a traditional Christian perspective, especially over the last 18 months or so of posts. One of my personal standards in my writing is "people must always be of more value than paradigm", so you'll see no religious, sociopolitical, cultural, or movement-driven favoritism from me.

Some of the material here, and at those other places, may push you to the edge of your comfort levels. I ask you to understand that I write what I write in real-time - raw, emotionally, and with the goal of provoking thought. I also ask you to understand that I'm very much a work in progress, my own faith and perspectives having evolved enormously over the last couple of years, evidence of which you may have already noticed in my writing. I'm still in my own healing and growing process (likely a life-long endeavor), and I've come to embrace the ups and downs of it and let it spill into what I write here. You may not always like what you see of me. I don't always, frankly, but I hope to make something good out of the bad I experienced. While I don't publish as much material as in the past (for a number of reasons), I still write when inspired, and only when inspired.

For those curious about the "The Joke Was On Me" series, as of now, I have no immediate plans to write more of it. I began writing it with the goal to educate people about how these belief systems render people expendable, what these beliefs do to the heart and soul, and I've bared much of those parts of me in the installments I've written. As I became aware that many (not specifically you new guys) were reading it strictly for entertainment purposes, I felt less compelled to continue writing it. While I may understand it to a degree, it's something I'm not really comfortable with, at least not yet, that anyone would find entertainment in vulnerability. I liken it to my own distaste for most reality TV shows. When I watch them, I feel like a voyeur being entertained by the weaknesses and vulnerabilities (even when they ask for it) of other people, and I have to change the channel. Couple that with the difficulty of having to mentally, and to a degree emotionally, relive the events I'm writing about, and I hope you'll understand why it's on the back-burner.

I want to reiterate how welcome here you guys are, and my hope is that you'll find MUCH here that's beneficial to you.

24 comments:

  1. Go gently and travel safely Lewis. Your series was one of the first I encountered when being drawn into the QF movement. thanks to yourself and others I found through your sidebar, the blinders came off and I saw that I would be replacing a relationship with God for a bondage of man. Thank you again, Liz. :)

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  2. I am glad to see that there was an increase in your readers.

    What you have to say and the experiences you share are needed by so many.

    May your readership increase even more.

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    1. The interesting thing is that most of this new little surge seems to be people with a fundamentalist P/QF background, and like I described above, didn't know there were more people out there like them.

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  3. I find no entertainment in it. For me, it has been much more like reading an eerily familiar horror story. It does make me wonder how your girl ended up not marrying you, but I can only imagine. There is so much in your story that I could swear you plagiarized from ours, but I thank God that my husband and I are married despite all we were dragged through. I'm so sorry your story did not end well. It's obvious you still love that girl of yours.

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    1. I do, but it's morphed into something considerably different. Not a warm and fuzzy form anymore, but a more complicated kinda thing. Irreparably damaged might be the best way to describe it.

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    2. I HATE that about the patriarchal thing...it has such a devastating way of ripping and complicating the things that God designed as beautiful and simple. But don't forget something, Lewis. People can be changed. People can be set free. Bondages can be broken and freedom and trust rebuilt. God has been known to do the impossible before. I should know; I've been the girl in this story.

      I have a question for you from something you said in the Joke series. I have never met anyone other than my husband and I who believed that engagement vows were basically as serious as marriage vows. How did you come to that conclusion? I was astonished to hear someone else saying that, as it was thrown in my face as ridiculous by, oh, practically everyone when we were trying to get married.

      Dinah

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    3. Dinah...I believe our word is an important measure of our integrity. She and I made very specific, lifelong promises to each other on the day I proposed. Those promises, I think, are far, FAR, more significant than any ceremony or any pronouncement by a religious or legal figure, and I can't help but believe any decent God would view them the same way. I've always felt that the passage in Matthew 5 about our yes simply being yes and our no simply being no speaks to the importance of our word having value, our commitments actually meaning something of substance - without having to go through a bunch of ceremony and pomp.

      That said, we don't always have control over a situation, we can't control other people (certainly not in any healthy way), so I don't mean this as something judgmental toward people from broken relationships. I just find a lot of value in doing everything possible to be and remain a person of my word. I think it opens a window right into the core of who we are.


      As far as my ex, there's no possibility of change that I can see on my end even if she were to change. While I realize she was dissociative, too many damaging things were said and done, some by her in the weeks and months that followed her disappearance, too much dishonesty, too much "deception and diversion" as one friend labeled it, and I haven't a single shred of trust in her or anyone from her world. It's irreparable, and even if it weren't, I've reached a point in my own grieving and healing process where I'd have no interest, whatsoever, in seeing it repaired.

      I'll be happy for her if she ever gets out of fundamentalism and her religious addictions.

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    4. "I was astonished to hear someone else saying that, as it was thrown in my face as ridiculous by, oh, practically everyone when we were trying to get married."

      What I've found in the world of fundamentalism and P/QF, and the Christian homeschooling movement at large, is that people put all of their emphasis on the "institution" of marriage, its ceremony, its role-playing, and completely lose sight of what it means...the relationship of the two people involved, their emotional connection, and their commitment to each other. After my experience, "marriage" is largely just another label or jar to me. Completely sullied. All the significant emotional aspects of the relationship had taken place already, but were trashed behind the excuse of there having been no ceremony.

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  4. Lewis, glad your blog is being found by young people who are coming out of fundamentalism/quiverful. For me, the biggest thing in healing/understanding where I had come from was finding blogs like yours and Quivering Daughters and discovering that I was not the only person in the world who had all these hurts. I still refer people to your post "The only advice I know how to give." You so totally hit the nail on the head with that. I'm another one for whom your story read like a nightmare that I had been through--I was the girl trapped in the patriarchal family--and I didn't marry the man who loved me. My heart still aches for him and given that it has been a full 12 years since I last saw him, it probably always will. Thankfully I did escape before marrying someone else inside that system. I did eventually marry someone else and am now happily married, but it took me a full 7 years before I felt I could say yes to someone else. I am so sorry for what you and the girl you loved had to go through, but I am thankful that you put part of the story out there, so that people like me and your new readers know we are not alone.

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  5. Lewis,
    Anybody who reads you for entertainment value -- I'm thinking that their entertainment is along the lines of, "Filthy sinner, hot what he deserved!" -- is beneath my contempt.

    You, OTOH, continue to earn my respect for the candor and boldness in your recovery. God be with you, buddy.

    MJB

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  6. I could count on one hand the personal stories that moved me the way yours did when I read it. And I shuddered. Because I realized again how lucky I am to be married to the person I married and how full of craziness our families were at the time we were married. We've escaped fundamentalism but gosh.... Your story brings it all back.

    Thanks for being open and vulnerable in all you shared.

    Courtney

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  7. Some may be reading for entertainment, but there are so many who need what you have to say. Honestly, if you never wrote another installment of your story, I think what you've already put out there is enough for people to see the madness.

    I want to personally thank you. I was never in P/QF but have had brushes with it. While your story didn't connect directly to my life, it helped me understand so many confusing things that I had witnessed--and it also gave me more clarity on how to discuss dangerous, cultic beliefs with those around me in the evangelical world who are skirting close to that line.

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  8. I'm glad that you're getting new readers and I'm glad that you're still around. One of these days, I pray that I'll be brave enough to join you on the other side.

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  9. ENTERTAINMENT?!?!

    i mean, sure, you write well.


    but i'll be honest - i'm not sure how much more i COULD have read of the story [and i can't imagine living through it]. this was YOUR LIFE - and i really don't get this... i don't know, trend, socialization, whatever it is for people to live their entire life online, sharing everything good and bad, period. i'll talk a lot, tell a lot - but there's a hell of a lot more that i DON'T share. the idea that people on *other continents* might know as much about my life as the people who live with me...
    [i was recently startled out of my mind when someone recognized me from only online stuff. granted, it was at a game and all, and how people who are in wheelchairs LARP in my town? so it wasn't HARD, but i still don't think of online stuff as having any REALITY. stuff i post isn't the same as every-day interaction with people. at least, to me]

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  10. I am sure there is a lot in traditional, fundamentalist Christianity that is wrong.

    People sometimes make the mistake of judging God or the Bible by the mainstream religious bodies they see. But God's existence, and His inspiration of the Bible, does not depend on men or the teachings of men. God is true even though men are misled and mislead others and use God's name to jusfify their wrong and foolish actions.

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    1. "...and His inspiration of the Bible..."

      This is where there is MUCH room for debate. Those who don't believe in God, or in any specific God, would surely debate your entire comment, but remember that there are people who believe in God and Jesus Christ who reject the idea of the infallibility of the biblical canon, and question the inspiration of much of it.

      In fact, I'd suggest the idea that the entirety of the biblical canon is infallible and inspired is completely dependent on men and their teachings.

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    2. Yes, there is room for debate. If you choose to believe, and debate, that the God who made the universe sometimes lies or makes mistakes, that is your choice. That also seems to be Lucifer's choice. God won't force you to believe Him, but He won't give you eternal life either. Enjoy your temporary physical life, if you can, because that's all you have, if you continue to doubt God.

      But if you question the inspiration of the Bible, you can debate, but you will lose if you debate honestly. The inspiration of the Bible can be proved, and I've done it. I have proved my beliefs but you ahve not proved yours.

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    3. I really, really appreciate you threatening all who disagree with you with hell. What a wonderful gospel!

      No more comments of similar manner will be published.

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    4. Again...This is a gathering place for a lot of seriously spiritually abused people. They don't need "correct" doctrine. Correcting doctrine is still placing doctrine over person - a sign of spiritual abuse, whether you intend it to be or not.

      With that in mind, I deleted the comment you just now submitted.

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  11. Lew

    I just stumbled on your blog today and as a humanist, I can say that I value reading your insights. As for the "The Joke's on Me" series, don't feel pressured to write it. On the same vein, however, I hope that you got some sort of council yourself. You were also abused in this situation and that pain is evident in reading your story. If nothing else, the writing may be cathartic (if painful), but I hope that you also sought out someone to speak to on your own end.

    All in all, you've gained a reader in me.

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  12. Hi Lewis
    Thanks for speaking up openly and forcefully. I'm from an Indian background and the control/patriarchy issues are the same. They are dressed up as "culture" and as "godly" too but underneath its the same: I learnt that from your blog. For example, almost all the arranged marriages I know have intrinsic strongly dysfunctional ties, passing on crap, pain and confusion to the next generation. I love 1Peter1.18 - we are ransomed by God from the worthless way of life of our forefathers- and I'm sad for those who p'haps are storing up that we (Indians)- with the unfortunate benefit of generations of it - háve to work through so much to jettison. What a waste!

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  13. Hi Lewis, I was one of those who found your blog last summer sort of time, and have been following it avidly ever since. Your story kept me up at night until I had read all you had written, because it gave me a "there are people LIKE MY DAD out there" moment! My dad's not Christian, not American, pretty sure he's never heard of QF, never homeschooled us... But I guess you get that TYPE of person and that TYPE of family dynamic in all types of cultures. What your story gave me was a feeling of being understood, of reaching solid ground in coming to understand my father - and my childhood - that I have never had before. There isn't a community out there for people 'like me' so the Quiverful recovery movement is the closest I have got to that... Thank you for writing the story, and whether you finish it or not, it will always have changed my life :) (for the better!). I continued to like your blog because I like this Jesus guy a lot but I'm figuring out what that looks like at the moment and whether there is a place for me in church. So.... People do not just come across your blog for entertainment, even though how you write is very entertaining :). Be blessed! Kitty

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  14. I did want to read more of the"Joke" series bc I loved the way you kept fighting the head patrio creep, but the desire subsided fairly quickly bc I couldn't stand the idea of how things would end and the pain that inflicted. Ugh; I just hope you laid it into them good once it was clear things were through before you dusted them off your feet.

    Jennifer

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