Gay Teacher- a vague memory
For lesbiansaidwhat.
My brother’s third grade teacher was gay. We lived in a small rural town, and the elementary only had about 200 students- total. It was a mixture of regular “folks”, Mennonites and Amish. At first there was whisperings about why a forty year old man who was attractive and educated was single. Then the rumors started. Someone saw him in the city with another man. A group of students (mixed boys and girls) in his house saw a postcard in his sock drawer of a naked man. Boys in the classroom started to complain that he was hitting on them. I don’t know if this was true or not- but we were all pretty young and imaginations went wild.
Then it came out that he had HIV. The shit hit the fan in a pretty major way, and he was fired. The PTA would say to this day that it had nothing to do with the fact that he was in a homosexual relationship or that he had HIV, it had to do with him amassing sick days and they were afraid he’d bleed them dry if it wasn’t quickly settled and he went away. Maybe that is what they truly believe- that their actions were honest.
All I know is that on the playground boys played “beat the gay” mock games and threatened to kill the teacher if he ever came back to town, and no one stopped them. They said horrible things, the teachers turned the other way.
It’s really a shame. He seemed like a nice enough guy. He was quite, he was clean, he kept to himself. He was really passionate about English and would loan books out to the kids, and talk about them when we were done reading. I suppose some of the parents thought that he did it to get alone with the kids. They must have been afraid he would hurt us.
He can’t have ever behaved in a bad way, though. If he had, there’s no way they would have just sent him out of town.
My Anabaptist Heritage
My grandparents on one side were Amish up until they were in their mid thirties, my grandparents on the other side were Mennonite. My mother owns family histories detailing the stories of my heritage. My ancestors were among the first people to settle Pennsylvania and Illinois.
The interesting thing to me is how they ended up there. The Anabaptist movement was radical, and the early Anabaptists were persecuted far worse than any other protestant movement. Their beliefs, while possibly seeming slightly secular now, were absolutely groundbreaking at the time. Belief that you should tithe only from your income, not your net worth. Belief that in order for the Church to be holy it must have no involvement in the state. Belief that professed faith is not as important as “living” faith seen through acts of charity and simple living… These beliefs threatened not only the superiority of Catholic dogma but the status of the Catholic church… it took away Catholicism’s place of power as well as it’s ability to absolve sin through professions of faith.
No wonder the Catholic church lobbied for (and eventually won) the right to kill Anabaptists without trial. The Anabaptists were burnt at the stake if they refused to denounce their faith but beheaded if they did, because it was simply too risky to leave them breathing. So my ancestors made their way to Pennsylvania and Illinois, because in the states there was Freedom of Religion and they could be free from persecution. Near my old home town in Ohio there is a Mennonite and Amish Heritage center called Behalt. In it there is a cyclorama depicting the Anabaptist history, from the 1500′s to the 1800′s. It starts out with Menno Simon’s revelations of faith and goes through brutal murders. It shows one Anabaptist man who stopped to save the man that was sent to murder him when that man started to drown. Amazing stories of faith in the midst of the worst kind of persecution- persecution by men who are your brother in faith.
Because of this history- the history of both the tradition I was raised in and my own blood lines- I find it offensive when people claim that Christians aren’t “as bad” as people of other faiths. Certainly in the 1900′s Christianity wasn’t cruelly subjugating women or putting their own people to death, but have we forgotten the Victorian era? When women died in childbirth by the droves because they were forced to labor on their backs, and then could not be buried in church graveyards because they were “unclean” for having died “in sin”? That is only one of many sins against women by the church. Let’s not forget the cruel persecution of the forefathers of ALL protestant faiths. Let’s not forget that the church has been spread at the point of a sword and by the barrel of a gun many, many times. This bloody history follows us even into America, even into what I consider to be recent history, because our great country hasn’t been around all that long.
For Christians who would condemn other faiths for the actions of a minority- lets remember what the majority of our forefathers were like. All faith is hard won in tears, sweat and blood- Christianity no less than the others. When researching this post to be sure I didn’t misspeak, I saw this line:
The early Anabaptists faced persecution far worse than the early church found at the hands of Rome.
My blood runs cold.
There is a book that every good Mennonite school looks through in their history class. It is a book of Illuminations called the Martyrs’ Mirror or the Bloody Theater. It follows the martyrdom of the Church starting in Jerusalem and going until about 1680 AD, when it was published. I can remember looking at the illustrations in horror, hardly believing that this was done by the Catholic church. It’s no wonder that so many Mennonites carry a deep-seated resentment towards Catholicism. (For those who are curious, the illuminations can be seen here)
My point with this post is twofold. The first is to share with you my heritage. For those who feel I’ve been unfair to the Mennonite and Amish traditions- understand that I am not speaking of something that is unknown to me. I grew up inside the borders of an Amish settlement. I see Amish people at my family reunions. My grandmother has Amish brothers and sisters. My mother speaks Pennsylvania dutch. The church I currently attend is affiliated with the Mennonite Central Committee. These people are not strangers to me.
My second goal is to remind us that we must be careful with our own hearts and with our own churches. A faith is only as good as the people in it. Like a car with a leaky hose- the hose is not equal to the entirety of the car, but the car is only as dependable as it’s hoses. Extremism, fanatacism and cruelty are not outside our reach. We must keep our faith in check, we must temper it with love.
Free Advice Friday: Polite discussion
*Note: I’m just some girl. Take any and all advice at your own risk.
One of my biggest pet peeves is people who like to argue just to get their blood up. People who don’t really even care about absolute right and wrong but just proving that they are right- even if they don’t truly believe in what they are saying. There is a fine art to disagreeing and an even finer art to winning people over. If what matters most to you is making people concede, you’re a jerk. So, if what matters most to you is people respecting your beliefs, you have to learn to tame your tongue.
- You don’t have to win to be right. You can still be right, even if other people don’t say you are. If you feel the need to always have other people agree with you, perhaps your convictions aren’t as strong as you think they are. So, before getting into a discussion, ask yourself a few simple questions: “Am I doing this to express myself?” “Do I feel like I need this person’s approval?” “Will conceding if there is no hope of convincing them harm me in some way?”
- Be okay with saying, “we will never come to an agreement.” Sometimes you have to shake your head and walk away before things get ugly. Learn to say, “we will never agree”, and leave it at that. If the person you are talking to says that you are stupid or being unreasonable, walk away quickly.
- If what you are discussing is strongly tied in with your beliefs beware of emotion. It’s easy to lose track of yourself when you are defending something close to your heart. So remember to separate the belief from the person- just because someone disagrees with your point of view does not mean they think that you are stupid. (Or… at least… it shouldn’t.)
- If someone tells you that you are just stupid, stop talking. That person is too belligerent and cannot argue their point of view, so they attack. Explaining yourself will likely do no good. The person with whom you’re conversing can simply continue to retort, “you are stupid.”
- Be respectful of others, as well. If you have the right to believe A, B and C even though others think they are wrong, that also means others have the right to believe X, Y and Z even though you think they are wrong.
- Everything eventually comes down to personal opinion. Even when the vast majority of facts support a single argument, people may choose to side with the minority of opinion. Just look at elections: there are plenty of facts to defend either candidate- yet those facts will not necessarily garner support. Why? Because eventually it boils down to a matter of personal preference.
- Use good language. Be well spoken. There is language which is contrary and rude, and that kind of language while it may cause people to cede the point, won’t necessarily win them over. Use gentle language, and always phrase things in a way that shows that you are aware there is a difference of opinion and that is okay.
A simple guide:
Good: “Personally, I support Senator Obama because I like his Health care plan.”
Bad: “You support Clinton? Moron.”
Good: “There are plenty of good reasons to become a vegetarian, it’s cheaper, it takes less manufacturing and thus conserves energy, etc…”
Bad: “Barbarian. Eating meat is murder.”
Good: “My religious beliefs inform every aspect of my life and make it richer. I don’t care if you believe in God, but you should respect my lifestyle.”
Bad: “You are a heathen and will burn in Hell.”
Good: “A liberal philosophy embraces the most sacred tenets of our Constitution, like autonomy of persons and states.”
Bad: “Conservatives are bigots and selfish fat cats.”
Perfect: “Are you trying to engage in a discussion about my opinion or only voicing your personal beliefs?”
Atrocious: “You’ve got to be the most ignorant person I’ve ever seen. No, don’t open your mouth. I can tell just from looking at you.”
Islam, Muslims, and Assumptions.
“Never assume,” my mother used to say, “Because all you’ll do is make an ass of ‘u’ and ‘me’.”
Good old American girls and boys make a lot of assumptions about Islam, Arabic and Persian culture, and what it means to be a Muslim. People who travel extensively would tell you that our assumptions trap us in a box that leaves little room for reality. We’ve been bathed in Media images of beggar women in full burka, of grim faced Afghani activist women and arrogant gun-toting men. It’s easy to assume that those images portray the whole of the Muslim experience- easy, but to be honest, also ignorant. Islam is one of the Big Three religions, and we know better than to picture every Christian like Pat Robertson and every Buddhist as wrapped in an orange robe.
…
Don’t we?
These are the images that first come to mind when I think of Muslims:
And it’s no wonder with these images in my head that there is some small part of me that believes Islam is an oppressive faith. But, then I pause, and realize that there is (as always) more to life than what my emotions and the Media tell me. There is the fact that when I think of Muslims I also think of American Islamic faith, something that is highly different than the Afghani experience. After all, in America Muslims are not governed by the Taliban. They are not subjugated and abused. In fact, there is only a single Muslim man in government. (No, not Barack, he’s NOT Muslim! I’m talking about Keith Ellison.
But there is so much more to think about. My church is closely affiliated with an organization that is ministering to the Wolof people of Senegal. The Wolof people are largely a Muslim population, but they also carry African tribal traditions. So instead of the Arabic Muslim culture (which many Americans falsely assume to be ALL Muslim culture) there is a new breed of Muslim, the vibrant African faith that is not dour and oppressive, but generous and community based. Instead of somber gray and blue tones, the women dress in vibrant colors, they laugh largely and smile loudly. This is the picture of Islam that I want to retrain myself to see, not one of quiet desperation but one of life and love, one of big expressions.
I am realizing more every day that I simply need to be more educated about the other religions around the world. Not just I, but all people. So many people use the words “Arabic”, “Muslim” and “Middle-Eastern” interchangeably, as if all people in the Middle East are Arabic Muslims, as if all Muslim people are in the Middle East and as if the Muslim faith is a purely Arabic phenomenon. This language assumes things that it has no right to, as not all Muslims are Arabic, and the Middle East is home not only to Muslims but to Jews and even ancient colonies of Christians.
It is most disturbing to Christians to discover that the American war in Iraq is unseating one of the oldest Apostolic colonies in existence, one that dates back two thousand years. Not to mention the fact that what was once a secular society, one in which women could attend universities and pursue careers, is now in danger of becoming a country under Islamic law.
We must leave our assumptions.
Links:
The Wolof People: wolof.org
Afghani Women’s Liberation: rawa.org
The Subjugation of Women in Religion (part two)
I realized this morning that there was more I could have said yesterday, but didn’t think to.
Like, for example, that the American’s people anger over the “subjugation” of women in Islam really all hinges on the idea that the women themselves feel that they are being abused. While things like a girl being charged for her own rape are obviously wrong, other things that we so often harp on- like the veil, the fact that women do not go out alone, etc, are not obviously evil. In fact, I was talking with a Muslim woman on a bus one day and I asked her if she didn’t feel restricted by her beliefs. It was an older woman, probably in her sixties, and she laughed and said, “don’t you feel thrown out into the world? Unprotected?”
I replied, “what do you mean?”
To which she said, “My beliefs are for my own good. American women dress in a way that harms their spirit. You have to go out and work, and leave your family behind. You are alone on the streets where people could want to hurt you. My beliefs cover me, they keep me with my family, they keep me safe.”
This was not a woman who had lived her long life in quiet desperation, it was a woman whose beliefs had enhanced the life that she’d wanted to live. I feel I ought to reiterate that it was the life that she wanted to live.
The same is true of most Amish women. They do not question that they are living the right life, and the truth is that most of those who do question their faith end up transitioning to the Conservative Mennonite tradition or another tradition that allows them the comforts that they wish for. In fact, while there’s only a few that come to mind I do know of “English” (non-Amish) women who chose to marry into the Amish faith and learn their ways, because they wanted to live peaceably.
I’m a stay at home mom. Because I am a stay at home mom who plans on homeschooling her kids and also a Christian, there are a lot of people who assume that I must be one and two because I am three. They assume that my faith must be one that dictates a woman needs to be at home and that schools are “unsafe.” The truth is that those assumptions block them from truly learning who I am, because while my Christianity informs my life choices it does not force them.
I find it easy to believe that beyond the things that all people will agree are truly cruel, like honor killings and women being held responsible for their own rapes, we can’t believe that Muslim women feel the same about their lives- that their faith did not force them, that this is the life they would want to have. Let’s not assume that these women are mindless, that they are automatons, that they don’t realize there is another way to live. That woman on the bus certainly did- and she rejected it.
The Subjugation of Women in Religion
Several years ago a church my family is affiliated with started supporting women in Afghanistan and Iraq. They made cookbooks and sold them as well as having bake sales and other fundraisers, all of the money going to a fund to support women’s rights in Muslim countries. The celebration of a “beyond the veil” day in which stories of Afghani women who were able to remove their veils were read sparked an interesting discussion.
Why?
Because that particular church sat a little to the west of the heart of the largest Amish settlement in the world. Every day, parishioners would drive by farms where women wore black bonnets and knee length black aprons to weed their gardens in 90 degree heat. Every day, they walked by women with ten children in tow because birth control is banned by their faith. Every day, they saw sixteen year old girls who feel pressured to marry and start families. Every day, they drove by the buggies, buggies that get in a large amount of accidents because the stricter sects of Amish belief will not allow battery powered lamps or reflective strips. A strong argument can be made for the follies of the Amish faith- there is a high rate of depression, of birth defects, even fatalities when women are told their bodies won’t bear another pregnancy and they refuse hysterectomies. There is one story that stands out in my mind, one where a doctor pulled aside an Amish man and said, “another delivery will kill your wife,” and the man replied, “then I will remarry.”
The argument that Islam is alone in it’s strong belief that women are to be modest, to be wed and submissive, is foolish. Christianity has it’s fair share of extremism where that is concerned. There are churches that pray to Christ where the men and women don’t sit together, where the women have scarves on their heads and ankle length skirts. These churches also could not easily be written off as extreme fundamentalists or crazies. Take the Mennonite faith, for example- they hold to a lot of old tradition, including a notable lack of instruments during worship. They praise God with their voices, they work hard with their hands, in the more traditional churches the women wear head coverings and the men and women sit on opposite sides of the aisle. There are still girls who are raised to not seek out careers, instead to marry and move out and start families of their own. Women rarely go out alone- they marry young and travel in packs until the children come.
In fact, there are a great number of parallels between conservative Christianity and Islam. Trace them back historically and they come from the same roots- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are some women who will point out the fact that Christianity traditionally didn’t allow for divorce, even when women were being beaten. In fact, some orders of Christianity encouraged spousal abuse to teach women submission. Islam, on the other hand, teaches that men are to honor their women and treat them well.
I realize that there are failings. There are still honor killings, there are cultures in which Islam is used as a justification for the horrific subjugation of women. But I believe that the cultural differences cannot be blamed on belief any more than Christianity being blamed for the KKK- religion, when abused, loses the touch of faith. It’s not the faith that is to blame, but the abuser. Historically certain parts of the world have always subjugated women, and when religion came along it was twisted for the use of the culture instead of redeeming it. The failure is the culture, not the faith.
I simply find it interesting when I see churches cheering on young Afghani women to remove their veils, while outside in the streets Amish women slave under their bonnets, hands raw from wringing out clothing and hanging it to dry, arms tanned from hours of tilling by hand. The point is that some believe that honor can be found in holy living, and holy living can be found in being bound by the dictates of a restrictive faith. It is a choice that is made, a choice that should be honored. Where culture falls short, by all means call for change.
Just don’t ignore what’s going on in your own back yard.
Sighted Faith
I get irritated, at times, with the idea that faith is necessarily blind. While there is rarely certainty in life, that doesn’t mean that things are always undefinable. Some things, like faith, can be inspired not by a simple hope that there is more to life but by a knowledge that life must have depth, and while that depth is undefined I believe that it’s existence can be known with certainty.
To put it in clearer terms: I do not simply have “faith” that God exists, I believe I know this with absolute surety. My faith in God comes not from a dewy-eyed hope that there is more to life but from an absolute conviction that I would not be here, alive, breathing and sane, without the existence of a higher power. While my experiences could never be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to anyone else, they HAVE proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to me myself that God is real.
I won’t go into details. Some things are simply too personal to be aired in a public forum. And I am fairly certain that those who tend to agree with me would do so without details, and those who tend to disagree would do so no matter how detailed I became. After all, I could say, “God spoke to me”, and one might ask, “with a real voice?”. If I responded, “it was real enough for me,” they might ask, “could anyone else have heard it?” If I responded, “there was no one else to hear,” then the obvious interjection would be, “then how does one know it to truly be real?”
No one but me does.
I don’t care.
I know it to be real, because I know myself and I know my life, and my life proves to me that there is a God. Even if that God is one of my own invention, the faith that I have in him has made me kind and generous, tolerant and brave, loving and good. The faith, even if it is stupid, has helped to mold me into something I certainly never would have become without it. I take great offense at the implication that such faith is stupid, because how is faith, borne of experience, faith that pushes and convicts and explains and changes, a bad thing? I don’t ask that anyone else share my faith, because my faith is deeply personal and none could fully share it without sharing my life and my soul, all I ask is that they understand that the faith cannot be separated from the girl, and to mock my faith is to mock my very existence, my deeds and my heart as well as my beliefs.
This week is a holy week, and one that births in me thoughts of my own suffering and temperance, and thoughts of how close and how far I am from the faith and life I feel God wishes to give me.
I think today is as good a day as any, perhaps a better day, to consider the quality of faith and life this year should inspire.
I want my faith to be a sighted and focused one. I don’t want to stumble in the dark towards an unknown goal. I have a goal: to be Christ’s bride. That goal also dictates the path of my life. For like a bride preparing for her groom, thoughts of how best to please should encompass my every thought, I should wait for his word and touch with bated breath and feel that I would die without him.
And I do- I feel that I would die without him.
Perhaps that is stupid.
I don’t care.
Meme: Your life. Be Concise.
Allyson from Crossing the T tagged me. The meme is to write a six word memoir and then tag five people to do the same.
I am not a simple person, and so often these simplistic memes make my head hurt. Things like, “sum me up in one word!” and “Describe yourself in a single sentence!” (which, of course, took a run-on sentence to put Dickens to shame)and many others. I do them, because I feel a sense of debt to people who actually tag me. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because as the youngest of four, three of them boys, I’m still a little taken aback when someone actually wants to know ME, just me, instead of my family or my friends and me as an appetizer or dessert.
See, I’m already struggling to find ways to give you more of me than just six words, because I’m not sure there are any six words that will suffice. But, I will try.
Like Allyson, I’ll post several shots in the dark and let you all decide which is the best. The first is:
Mennonite girl learns bravery, eventually blogs.
Anyone who has been reading this blog for very long already knows that.
I wanted death, God said no.
Or:
I didn’t want me, God did.
Which, while simple, is also as true as any 400 page autobiography is. Then there’s:
Pastor’s daughter leaves church, returns, stays.
Again, true, too simple, but there it is.
Psalmist’s heart, artist’s fingers, mother’s life.
Which are all ways others see me, but not necessarily how I see myself, or the final:
Stumbling forward, surprised by the future.
Because while everyone else in my life takes it for granted that I will be successful, I don’t. My life is like buying a crystal at a thrift store only to discover it was a diamond. I settle for what I feel I CAN afford, only to discover I’ve been given what I could have never paid for on my own. I’ve always thought of myself as a fortunate hobbyist. Imagine my surprise to be told I am so much more, by people I actually believe.
I don’t really have five people to tag, so if you’re lurking ’round these parts, speak up! You’re it!
Tenabrae Shadows
Tonight our church is having a Tenabrae service. This may not seem that special to a lot of people, but it is to us because we don’t normally have these kinds of services. For us a return to tradition is deeply significant, because it means we are acting not out of habit but out of true desire and devotion. I’m working on a short reading to give in the first triplet of scripture reading. It’s still a little rough, but here goes:
If I were a disciple, I imagine, I would be endlessly devoted
I would sit at his knee day and night
I would center my life around memorizing his words
clarifying my memory
Asking questions and learning answers
casting aside every shadow
living in his pure light
I imagine myself head on his lap
Eyes to his eyes
Lips repeating every word, breath, rhythm, glance,
Until our souls were intertwined
I would devote myself to writing his story
Explaining to the world who he was
I would never hear him crying in the distance
I would be at his side
I would never deny him
I would be like a bride
I imagine these things
And then look at my life
The days that have passed without reading his story
The nights that go by without prayers into my pillow
The weeks and months that dwindle without devotion
And I wonder
Would I be the one to deny, to betray?
Would I be the one to look the other way?
Would I be the one who slept through his darkest hour?
In the garden, in the garden,
Would I realize the time, or let it pass away
into the cold ground
Into history
Distracted by myself?
Racism matters.
It looks like everyone in the blogosphere is talking about Obama’s speech from yesterday. I’ve already done the same elsewhere (link includes full transcript), so I really don’t want to repeat myself here except to say language is power, and by that measure Obama is far more powerful than people credit him.
I do want to talk about race. See, I’m white. I’m not just “Caucasian”, I’m WHITE. The vast majority of my heritage is dutch, and it shows in my pale-as-a-baby’s-bottom skin, the blond hair and blue eyes, the “wholesome beauty” of my features which will never be described as striking. I’m the daughter of a Pastor and a woman whose parents started out as Amish, so I also come from white middle-America Evangelical conservative stock. We didn’t watch the evening news. We listened to Rush Limbaugh.
I also have black cousins. Their mother married a black man in a time when that sort of thing was still rare and rather taboo. I can’t describe the oddness of going to family reunions where a good half of the people were Amish, most of the rest were conservative Mennonite, and here’s me in my punk rock jeans sitting off to the side with my black cousins. People who think that race doesn’t matter or is no longer important are people who were raised in a part of the country where race doesn’t matter. People out in the boondocks see that it does, and how do they see it? Because out here you NOTICE when someone is black. If a black man in a wifebeater with jeans around his ass walks by me, I’m shocked.
I’m shocked, and I’m always worried that my momentary startlement will be interpreted as racism.
I’ve heard lines like, “black people aren’t willing to work,” and “black people are still too full of self-pity to move forward”, and “black people are all full up with anger” from the mouths of men I wouldn’t have thought capable of racism. I’ve heard gentle, loving women say things like, “when I see a black man I cross the street, I don’t know why, I just get afraid”. So there is still this lingering issue of race. That, and there’s fear. As we lose more and more jobs and we see more and more black people and Mexicans walking around our little town, people start to wonder if they’ve got the jobs and the rest of us don’t.
I get angry when people say, “racism is outmoded” or “racism doesn’t matter anymore.” How can you say that? As long as it exists, it matters, and it STILL EXISTS. There are still parts of this country where people see black men standing on a corner and they tell their kids to lock the car doors as they drive by. It matters; it matters and it is still very real.
I have heard more than one man say that if Barack Obama becomes the President, he won’t live to run for a second term.
Oh, yes, it matters.
