Inu-no-Jess and God, part 1/??
Jun. 29th, 2005 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lykomancerThis is part one. There will be more parts, but I needed to start at the beginning, so... *shrugs*
When I first announced that I was going to attend seminary school after college, my friends' and family's responses fell into two major camps: 1) hysterical laughter that died down after a few long moments when they realized I was serious, followed by incredulous stares, and 2) bewildered questioning of why?; isn't religion the source of all evil?; didn't I spend much quality time harassing the Jesus Crispies and campus-visiting Mormons?; was I, like, turning Christian or something? O_o!
The first response was understandable, if still somewhat insulting, and is linked somewhat to the second response.
I don't come off as the seminary kind of person.
I come off as a foul-mouthed, uberbitchy, in-your-face, fuck-off-and-die-you-dumb-bastards kind of person. One who has absolutely no problem telling others that they are stupid and outlining precisely why I feel so; I have a reputation for abusing that brutal, blunt honesty-- the kind that sometimes makes other people cry. I hold liberal political views and break rules that I think are dumb without any feeling of guilt or fear of getting caught. I'm loud and obnoxious and very vocally dirty-minded; I crack politically incorrect jokes and detail kinky sexual scenarios over supper in public places. I dye my hair blasphemously unnatural colors and shave it off; I have tattoos and piercings; I drink and smoke drugs; I'm openly Not-Straight and Not-Gay, and that's somehow worse than being definitively either...
And that's not even going into my tendency to get into religious debates with people who held different views than me for the sole purpose of being a smarmy arrogant I-know-more-about-your-religion-than-you-do-and-I-don't-even-believe-it bitch. *laughs*
I hadn't been raised in a religious family; we didn't go to church or study the Bible or do anything like that. I wasn't admonished with pseudo-Christian ethics, morals, and codes of behavior.
I think my first real taste of religion was when I joined a Christian study group in fifth or sixth grade; it was something to do, got me out of the house, and the people involved were good-hearted people. I stayed in the group for three or four years, and I had fun and learned some Biblical basics which I later used to undermine those who wanted to tell me what being a Christian meant and why I should be one.
For those three or four years, I was whole-heartedly Christian, and I was comfortable with that.
When I moved in with my mom in ninth grade, I switched schools. This meant that I was no longer part of my Christian group, and that I met new people.
It's funny; I think what made me reject Christianity was my Christian friend Carl. Carl was a sweetheart of a boy; I loved him like a brother. He was one of my closest friends throughout high school, disagreements about religion and movies and Jeremy Fisher (another one of my friends) aside. He loaned me Narnia; I got him hooked on Xanth. He raved about Titanic until I finally went to go and see it in theaters with him, teasing him the whole while about being my first date-- poor boy! *laughs*
But Carl was Christian. I think when I first started debating with him, I still thought of myself as one, too, and we were too young and ignorant to understand that there were many ways to interpret the faith-- I was liberal and Carl was not-- and so we dug in our trenches and fought for the True Way. This resulted in me eventually rejecting Christianity, and fully embracing agnosticism, which I remained for many years.
(Often, I'll still short-handedly describe my religious leanings that way, but it's no longer technically true.)
I meandered through my first years of college happily sniping debates with the Campus Crusade for Christ members, and then having serious long chats about faith and God in the dark outside of Mead Hall with Tom while sharing a pipe or cheap cigars.
I rejected mainstream Christianity-- well, all Christianity really, but that's only because I was only familiar with the mainstream stuff-- and considered myself a spiritual free agent. I was still interested in religion, and had taken a few classes on the subject in addition to all of my out-of-class leisure reading, and I was conversant in generic Protestant Christianity, basic Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Paganism and Wicca, some varieties of Native American spirituality, in addition to being decently versed in classical mythology and passingly familiar with a few other religious traditions.
I liked elements of a lot of the various religions, but they all were seemed so foreign and anti-intellectual. It's not that I am coldly intellectual, and that everything must be mapped out scientifically or logically for me, but things had to make sense to me, based off of my understanding of the world around me, and I hadn't yet found a religion made sense to me.
In the middle of my third year, Tom asked me if I'd like to go to church with him...if I managed to drag my sorry carcass out of bed early enough to, anyway.
This is how I found the Unitarian Universalist Church.
Now that was a helluva breath of fresh air!
No creeds! No preaching! No one telling you that you were wrong! No Bible, or Jesus, or overbearing God-talk! No hellfire and brimstone, no conversion attempts, no one looking down their noses! Prayers and recitations from Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao-Te Ching!
Just seven basic, simple principles, a lot of open-mindedness and intellectual discussion, and plenty of food and coffee afterward, with lots of strangers wandering up to say hello.
The UU church satisfied everything I needed in a religion: it had structure without being overly structured; it did not claim to have a monopoly on the Truth or the "right" way; it drew from all religious traditions and many non-religious sources; it encouraged intellectual debate and discussion; it didn't damn anyone (Universalist = Everyone is universally saved), or encourage divine punishment of any sort; and its humanist leanings meant that it supported gay rights (such as that to marry and adopt) and was pro-choice.
The fact that there was food and coffee after the service was just an added bonus to a starving college student. ^_^;;
Tom graduated from college a year before me despite the fact that we came in the same year, and it only made sense that he would got off to seminary; he had been a religion major, devout Christian, all that good jazz.
Me, I was planning on the Peace Corps, but then I found out that you have to pay for almost all your own medical, and that means the eye exam, two pairs of glasses, dental work and X-rays, a general check-up, and a pelvic (Gosh, I <3 being female!)... and that's a hefty out of pocket charge for a poor college kid.
Tom had been cajoling me to come to move down to the Twin Cities and attend seminary every time he'd come up to visit Ashland; we had a few long (and increasingly drunken, as the night wore on) conversations about religion and God and vocation while sitting in the Deep Water Grille, and he intrigued me with the idea to be sure, but...
I was the way I was (am), and I didn't think that was right for me.
What changed my mind?
Two things. The falling through of the Peace Corps as an option, and the news of two UU ministers that were arrested in upstate New York for marrying gay couples.
Civil disobedience is something I believe very, very strongly in. Civil disobedience gives me a boner liekwhoa, to run my appreciation through the butchery of internet slang.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally...think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better that it would have them?
The UU ministry was actively taking a stand for what it believed in, even to the point of spending time in jail, much as Thoreau did for refusing to pay his poll tax. Many UU ministers began to refuse to do any weddings, under the view that, until they were were (are) allowed to marry all of their parishioners, they would marry none of them.
And I wanted to be them. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be in jail with them, smiling cockily because I had done nothing wrong, only stood up for what I knew was right and willing to do it all over again once I got out.
I think I might have had an epiphany right then. I think I finally realized that all the things about me that I thought made me inappropriate ministerial material, actually made me uniquely qualified. I was/am strong-willed, confident, sure of myself and my abilities, capable of standing up against authority, unaffected by base bullying, outspoken, willing to try new things and adapt my strategies to work around problems, possessing good communication skills and natural leadership potential (granted, that I hate using, but I do have it)...
Shit, I could do this.
There are already so maybe bigots and assholes and ignoramuses spouting hate and prejudice and stupidity in the name of God in this country; how could I do any worse than them? I mean, honestly, compared to some people, there was nothing wrong with the idea of me being a minister at all, and maybe...maybe I could show the world that being religious didn't mean that you hated, damned people, announced holy wars, dominated the earth, denied women their fair share, or any of the thousands of other stupid things that were (are) done daily under the guise of faith.
It was time-- past time!-- for the Religious Left to take a fighting stance...
To be continued, eventually.
When I first announced that I was going to attend seminary school after college, my friends' and family's responses fell into two major camps: 1) hysterical laughter that died down after a few long moments when they realized I was serious, followed by incredulous stares, and 2) bewildered questioning of why?; isn't religion the source of all evil?; didn't I spend much quality time harassing the Jesus Crispies and campus-visiting Mormons?; was I, like, turning Christian or something? O_o!
The first response was understandable, if still somewhat insulting, and is linked somewhat to the second response.
I don't come off as the seminary kind of person.
I come off as a foul-mouthed, uberbitchy, in-your-face, fuck-off-and-die-you-dumb-bastards kind of person. One who has absolutely no problem telling others that they are stupid and outlining precisely why I feel so; I have a reputation for abusing that brutal, blunt honesty-- the kind that sometimes makes other people cry. I hold liberal political views and break rules that I think are dumb without any feeling of guilt or fear of getting caught. I'm loud and obnoxious and very vocally dirty-minded; I crack politically incorrect jokes and detail kinky sexual scenarios over supper in public places. I dye my hair blasphemously unnatural colors and shave it off; I have tattoos and piercings; I drink and smoke drugs; I'm openly Not-Straight and Not-Gay, and that's somehow worse than being definitively either...
And that's not even going into my tendency to get into religious debates with people who held different views than me for the sole purpose of being a smarmy arrogant I-know-more-about-your-religion-than-you-do-and-I-don't-even-believe-it bitch. *laughs*
I hadn't been raised in a religious family; we didn't go to church or study the Bible or do anything like that. I wasn't admonished with pseudo-Christian ethics, morals, and codes of behavior.
I think my first real taste of religion was when I joined a Christian study group in fifth or sixth grade; it was something to do, got me out of the house, and the people involved were good-hearted people. I stayed in the group for three or four years, and I had fun and learned some Biblical basics which I later used to undermine those who wanted to tell me what being a Christian meant and why I should be one.
For those three or four years, I was whole-heartedly Christian, and I was comfortable with that.
When I moved in with my mom in ninth grade, I switched schools. This meant that I was no longer part of my Christian group, and that I met new people.
It's funny; I think what made me reject Christianity was my Christian friend Carl. Carl was a sweetheart of a boy; I loved him like a brother. He was one of my closest friends throughout high school, disagreements about religion and movies and Jeremy Fisher (another one of my friends) aside. He loaned me Narnia; I got him hooked on Xanth. He raved about Titanic until I finally went to go and see it in theaters with him, teasing him the whole while about being my first date-- poor boy! *laughs*
But Carl was Christian. I think when I first started debating with him, I still thought of myself as one, too, and we were too young and ignorant to understand that there were many ways to interpret the faith-- I was liberal and Carl was not-- and so we dug in our trenches and fought for the True Way. This resulted in me eventually rejecting Christianity, and fully embracing agnosticism, which I remained for many years.
(Often, I'll still short-handedly describe my religious leanings that way, but it's no longer technically true.)
I meandered through my first years of college happily sniping debates with the Campus Crusade for Christ members, and then having serious long chats about faith and God in the dark outside of Mead Hall with Tom while sharing a pipe or cheap cigars.
I rejected mainstream Christianity-- well, all Christianity really, but that's only because I was only familiar with the mainstream stuff-- and considered myself a spiritual free agent. I was still interested in religion, and had taken a few classes on the subject in addition to all of my out-of-class leisure reading, and I was conversant in generic Protestant Christianity, basic Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Paganism and Wicca, some varieties of Native American spirituality, in addition to being decently versed in classical mythology and passingly familiar with a few other religious traditions.
I liked elements of a lot of the various religions, but they all were seemed so foreign and anti-intellectual. It's not that I am coldly intellectual, and that everything must be mapped out scientifically or logically for me, but things had to make sense to me, based off of my understanding of the world around me, and I hadn't yet found a religion made sense to me.
In the middle of my third year, Tom asked me if I'd like to go to church with him...if I managed to drag my sorry carcass out of bed early enough to, anyway.
This is how I found the Unitarian Universalist Church.
Now that was a helluva breath of fresh air!
No creeds! No preaching! No one telling you that you were wrong! No Bible, or Jesus, or overbearing God-talk! No hellfire and brimstone, no conversion attempts, no one looking down their noses! Prayers and recitations from Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao-Te Ching!
Just seven basic, simple principles, a lot of open-mindedness and intellectual discussion, and plenty of food and coffee afterward, with lots of strangers wandering up to say hello.
The UU church satisfied everything I needed in a religion: it had structure without being overly structured; it did not claim to have a monopoly on the Truth or the "right" way; it drew from all religious traditions and many non-religious sources; it encouraged intellectual debate and discussion; it didn't damn anyone (Universalist = Everyone is universally saved), or encourage divine punishment of any sort; and its humanist leanings meant that it supported gay rights (such as that to marry and adopt) and was pro-choice.
The fact that there was food and coffee after the service was just an added bonus to a starving college student. ^_^;;
Tom graduated from college a year before me despite the fact that we came in the same year, and it only made sense that he would got off to seminary; he had been a religion major, devout Christian, all that good jazz.
Me, I was planning on the Peace Corps, but then I found out that you have to pay for almost all your own medical, and that means the eye exam, two pairs of glasses, dental work and X-rays, a general check-up, and a pelvic (Gosh, I <3 being female!)... and that's a hefty out of pocket charge for a poor college kid.
Tom had been cajoling me to come to move down to the Twin Cities and attend seminary every time he'd come up to visit Ashland; we had a few long (and increasingly drunken, as the night wore on) conversations about religion and God and vocation while sitting in the Deep Water Grille, and he intrigued me with the idea to be sure, but...
I was the way I was (am), and I didn't think that was right for me.
What changed my mind?
Two things. The falling through of the Peace Corps as an option, and the news of two UU ministers that were arrested in upstate New York for marrying gay couples.
Civil disobedience is something I believe very, very strongly in. Civil disobedience gives me a boner liekwhoa, to run my appreciation through the butchery of internet slang.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally...think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better that it would have them?
The UU ministry was actively taking a stand for what it believed in, even to the point of spending time in jail, much as Thoreau did for refusing to pay his poll tax. Many UU ministers began to refuse to do any weddings, under the view that, until they were were (are) allowed to marry all of their parishioners, they would marry none of them.
And I wanted to be them. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be in jail with them, smiling cockily because I had done nothing wrong, only stood up for what I knew was right and willing to do it all over again once I got out.
I think I might have had an epiphany right then. I think I finally realized that all the things about me that I thought made me inappropriate ministerial material, actually made me uniquely qualified. I was/am strong-willed, confident, sure of myself and my abilities, capable of standing up against authority, unaffected by base bullying, outspoken, willing to try new things and adapt my strategies to work around problems, possessing good communication skills and natural leadership potential (granted, that I hate using, but I do have it)...
Shit, I could do this.
There are already so maybe bigots and assholes and ignoramuses spouting hate and prejudice and stupidity in the name of God in this country; how could I do any worse than them? I mean, honestly, compared to some people, there was nothing wrong with the idea of me being a minister at all, and maybe...maybe I could show the world that being religious didn't mean that you hated, damned people, announced holy wars, dominated the earth, denied women their fair share, or any of the thousands of other stupid things that were (are) done daily under the guise of faith.
It was time-- past time!-- for the Religious Left to take a fighting stance...
To be continued, eventually.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-30 08:15 am (UTC)And that's not even going into my tendency to get into religious debates with people who held different views than me for the sole purpose of being a smarmy arrogant I-know-more-about-your-religion-than-you-do-and-I-don't-even-believe-it bitch. *laughs
Hah, welcome to most of why I study Christianity.
You certainly make UU seem interesting, and I had never given it any thought or study. It's always nice to see real, educated faith, no matter what it's in. I enjoyed this epic tale of religion and free will, and I look forward to the next installment.^^
no subject
Date: 2005-06-30 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-30 08:35 am (UTC)...but in the spirit of irrelevant LJ comments,
I look forward to reading the continuation, eventually. :D
no subject
Date: 2005-06-30 12:49 pm (UTC)Haha, that's why you write Envy so well!! XDD
Sorry... random comment... *flies away*
no subject
Date: 2005-06-30 02:45 pm (UTC)Yeah, I got that "Sometimes, I get mindlessly enraged and fly off the handle" aspect of Envy down.